Why is it so difficult to teach sex-ed in Arizona?
Parental rights laws and bureaucracy leave teachers and staff confused on what can be taught. In the end, teaching nothing might be easier.
In 2019, Arizona repealed a decades-old law that prohibited discussing same-sex relationships in a positive light. The bill, colloquially referred to as “the no promo homo” bill, was among the first bills in the nation that Florida’s newest “don’t say gay” bill is modeled after.
Axing the bill from the state’s books was successful through bipartisan support in the legislature and its repeal was supposed to have the most impact on sex education—in a time when many states and districts began to focus on a more inclusive curriculum that included teaching about gender, sexuality, and consent, Arizona lagged behind the rest.
But advocates and educators say that since repealing “no promo homo,” topics in sex education have become politicized and harder to teach, in part due to the push for more parental control over the curriculum taught in schools, but also because of the byzantine process that districts must do in order to get sex education taught.