Newsable: Scrapping sexuality education ‘repressive’, says guidelines author

Thursday, 30 November 2023

National has agreed to axe sexuality and consent guidelines, as part of its deal with NZ First who wanted to remove 'gender ideology' from the curriculum.

“Repressive” and “backwards”, that’s the reaction of Professor Katie Fitzpatrick to news the government plans to axe the sexuality and consent guidelines she helped to write.

The move is part of the deal between National and New Zealand First who campaigned on removing 'gender ideology' from the curriculum, even though it was a New Zealand First MP, Tracey Martin, who introduced the guidelines back in 2020.

There are two documents, one for years 1 to 8 and another for years 9 to 13.

Fitzpatrick told Newsable we should be looking to open up conversations about sexuality and consent, not close them down and remove them from the curriculum.

“That just seems really repressive and like a backwards step.”

Fitzpatrick said the guidelines were key in helping students make sense of the world around them.

“Online pornography is ubiquitous now, dating is happening on apps, TikTok, and other social media apps are spaces where young people are engaging with issues of gender and body image and intimacy.”

“It's great if schools are engaging with the worlds of young people.”

For little kids, Fitzpatrick said topics related to body autonomy and safe touch, as well as the diversity of their communities.

“We're not in the 1950s anymore…Families come in all kinds of different shapes and sizes, with different gender and sexuality identities.”

Fitzpatrick said international research suggested that relationship and sexuality education was in fact “really protective” and tended to delay when young people engaged in sexual intercourse.

“We're on a journey in New Zealand. We don't have this implemented in any kind of consistent way across schools.”

“So, I think we haven't really seen the impacts of good relationships and sexuality education yet. And some of our worrying statistics might also reflect that.”

Listen to the full interview here.

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