100+ Sex and Relationship Education Supporters Advocate for the Healthy Youth Act 

Senator Sal DiDomenico, Representative Jim O’Day, Representative Vanna Howard, and the Healthy Youth Coalition Host Healthy Youth Act Lobby Day

BOSTON – Today, over one hundred advocates lobbied at the Massachusetts State House for the passage of the Healthy Youth Act, a bill that would ensure that sex and relationship education taught in Massachusetts public schools meets high-quality, medically accurate, inclusive standards. Lead sponsors Senator Sal DiDomenico, Representative Jim O’Day, and Representative Vanna Howard kicked off the event alongside Healthy Youth Coalition members from EducateUS, Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts (PPLM), Partners in Sex Education, and PPLM’s Get Real Teen Council. 

“Massachusetts is a national leader in the medical and education fields, yet the state’s sex education guidelines have not been updated since 1999. The Healthy Youth Act would modernize sex and relationship education in the Commonwealth and would ultimately provide students with the tools to make informed decisions, build healthy relationships, and establish safe boundaries. More than 30 years of research shows that sex and relationship education works; it is time to make this a reality in Massachusetts,” said Representative Jim O’Day (D-West Boylston), Fourth Division Leader of the Massachusetts House.

The Healthy Youth Act would ensure that the sex and relationship education taught in Massachusetts public schools is high-quality, accurate, and inclusive. This type of education protects young people against bullying and abuse, helps them develop healthy relationship skills, and improves their academic performance. It also delays the initiation of sex, reduces unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections, prevents dating violence and sexual abuse, and improves media literacy.

“Our young people in Massachusetts deserve to have the tools to make healthy, informed choices, and feel included in their own education. The Healthy Youth Act will enable and empower all of our children, including our most vulnerable populations – LGBTQIA and disabled youth – by making critical information, education, and resources available to them so that they can make informed decisions necessary to building loving and healthy relationships as well as safe communities, and to recognize, and avoid, those situations and decisions that do not. Just as importantly, it will arm our children with real information on issues related to violence and mistreatment, as well as sexually transmitted infections,” said Representative Vanna Howard (D-Lowell). We also need this Bill to say to those people in our country, who are encouraging, even legislating disinformation, intolerance, hostility, and violence towards our most vulnerable children, and adults, who identify as LGBTQIA, that you are wrong and that is not the America you live in!”

The Healthy Youth Act was first introduced in 2011 and has passed the Senate during the last four consecutive legislative sessions, but has not made it to the House floor for a vote despite overwhelming support from likely voters in Massachusetts. 

“This legislation will make it clear that sex education in Massachusetts must be inclusive of all students and emphasize the importance and necessity of consent in relationships,” said Senator Sal DiDomenico (D-Everett), Assistant Majority Leader of the Massachusetts Senate. “We must get this commonsense health policy over the finish line to ensure our children have the information they need to protect their health, form respectful relationships, and build the bright futures they deserve.”

“The Healthy Youth Act is so deeply aligned with our state’s values,” said Jaclyn Friedman, Founder and Executive Director of EducateUS and Co-chair of the Healthy Youth Coalition. “We pride ourselves on being a leader in education and we’ve shown LGBTQ students that they belong here by leading on same-sex marriage, protections for trans people, and banning conversion therapy. And yet, sex and relationship education in our state is not required to be inclusive of LGBTQ people or even medically accurate. Young people in Massachusetts deserve better than the outdated and inaccurate sex and relationship education many of them receive in our schools. We’re failing them. We need to pass the Healthy Youth Act now.”

“Massachusetts should be a state that sets the example for ensuring young people have access to quality, inclusive sex education, yet we are far behind,” said Jennifer Hart, Vice President of Education and Training at Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts. “Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts recently conducted a national landscape analysis of sex education in the United States, and we can see from the data that Massachusetts is neutral on sex education, in the company of Missouri, Nebraska, and South Dakota which have some of the most restrictive laws on the books against abortion, LGBTQ+ rights, social emotional learning, and critical race theory. This must change now.”

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About the Healthy Youth Coalition: The Healthy Youth Coalition is a statewide grassroots coalition that includes young people, educators, health care professionals, sexual and domestic violence prevention experts, and advocates for LGBTQ+ health and well-being. Members of the coalition include EducateUS, Fenway Health, Aids Action, Partners in Sex Education, Planned Parenthood Advocacy Fund of Massachusetts, National Association of Social Workers - MA Chapter, Boston Area Rape Crisis Center, Jane Doe, Inc., the Massachusetts Commission on LGBTQ Youth, the Massachusetts Commission on the Status of Women, Reproductive Equity Now, and more. To learn more about the Health Youth Coalition, visit: https://www.healthyyouthact.org/ or follow @healthyyouthma on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.