By Shan Schaffer, Texas Freedom Network’s Just Texas Program Manager
According to the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE), which decides the curriculum for public education, schools aren’t required to teach sex ed, and when they do, it doesn’t have to be inclusive or medically accurate.
I’m Shan, TFN’s Just Texas program manager. I’m here to talk about how sex ed, religion, and the SBOE are all connected, what Just Texas is doing about it, and how you can get involved.
Sex Ed & The State Board of Education
The Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) is composed of 15 members elected from districts across the state. Together, the members have several responsibilities, like overseeing the Texas Permanent School Fund and approving charter schools. But the SBOE’s most high-profile responsibility by far is deciding on curriculum standards.
That’s right: These 15 people control everything that the 5.5 million-and-counting students in Texas public schools learn, on every single subject. That’s a lot of power, and with great power should come great responsibility, right?
Too often, though, rather than creating curricula that serve all students and prepare them for the future, the SBOE’s conservative majority uses its power to push a narrow-minded political agenda. Our state’s sex ed curriculum is no exception.
In 2020, the SBOE dusted off the statewide standards for teaching about sex ed for the first time since 1994. It could’ve been an amazing opportunity to revamp the highly problematic parts and adopt a medically accurate, inclusive curriculum. Instead, the board largely ignored both the facts and the recommendations of students, community members, teachers, and advocates, leaving us with a sex ed curriculum that is not required, abstinence-first, medically inaccurate, and hostile to LGBTQIA+ young people.
Sex Ed & Faith
Now that you know the backstory, it probably won’t shock you to hear that only 7% of Texas youth say their sex education was actually helpful. For many of them, whatever information they did get in school was supplemented by the dominant faith narrative in their community.
Just Texas sees the effects of this up close. In our “Sex Ed + Faith” workshops, we hear stories from people of all ages, identities, and faith traditions about how religion shaped the sex ed they received. Too often, whether folks were religious or not, religion seeped into their education. And too often, that meant piling on more disinformation, shame, and stigma, rather than taking it away.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. That’s why Just Texas was created: to transform the dominant faith narrative of exclusion, shame, and stigma by building a grassroots movement of progressive people of faith, faith leaders, and congregations.
We host workshops, speak at events, bring traditionally stigmatized topics to light, and equip congregations of all faiths with the tools and knowledge they need to speak publicly and politically in support of reproductive freedom, LGBTQIA+ equality, and justice for all Texans. We even hand out Just Texas condoms and dental dams (these, honestly, tend to start the best conversations!).
Fighting for Quality Education in Congregations, Classrooms, & Communities
Texas Freedom Network has fought for honest, inclusive education ever since our founding in 1995. The SBOE, the classroom, and the congregation are much more connected than most people realize, and Just Texas is proof of that. While TFN fights for change at state board meetings, Just Texas does that same work in congregations and communities by having the important conversations that our state’s narrow-minded leaders have made impossible in the classroom.
Regardless of whether you’re religious or not, if Just Texas’s work to engage progressive people of faith resonates with you, we’d love for you to support us. Here’s how:
- Join our Just Texas email list and follow us on Instagram to stay up to date on trainings and other happenings as we work to engage and amplify the many progressive faith communities that already welcome, support, and celebrate all.
- If you’re involved in a faith community, learn about our Reproductive Freedom Congregation (RFC) initiative — 33 Texas congregations and counting that proudly proclaim abortion is a moral and social good — and talk with yours about getting involved.
- And, of course, donations help us keep showing up, challenging stigma and hate, and filling the gaps where our state’s leaders are still failing us.
Whether you choose to get involved or not, thank you for taking a few minutes to learn about this work and for being part of the shared fight for a truly Just Texas.
