San Francisco State University’s College of Ethnic Studies is turning 40 and celebrating this week by kicking off a four day international conference and...

If you happen to be in San Francisco the first weekend in October, do yourself the favor of a lifetime and go and see the Sins Invalid performance at Brava Theater. A quick word of caution though: you need to buy tickets soon as the show will likely sell out each night.

The press release mentions Sins Invalid and NSRC's cultural consulting partnership and describes, "Sins Invalid is a performance event celebrating the power of embodiment and the tenderness of struggle, stripping taboos off of sexuality and disability and offering a vision of beauty that includes all bodies and communities."

Asexuality is hot. Compulsory sexuality is not. Here’s why.

Yesterday, the San Francisco Chronicle ran a front-page article on asexuality titled “Asexuals leave closet, find community”. In complete shock, I nearly choked on my Cheerios when I saw this—As I immediately began reading, my women’s studies days came echoing back into my head…the voice of Adrienne Rich’s classic article “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence” in particular. …Could it really be that (the desire for) sexuality itself has become so compulsory now that an asexual existence is largely denied as a possible variance within our sexual spectrum…even (or especially?) in our own field of sexuality education, policy and research?

All of this got me wondering….with the many conferences I attend and journals I subscribe to….when was the last time I saw sex research or education being inclusive of asexuality rather than downplaying/denying it altogether or writing it off as a sexual dysfunction...

This week the Human Rights Campaign Foundation released At The Intersection: Race, Sexuality and Gender—a two year research study focused on identifying the priorities and realities of LGBT people of color nation wide. This research is part of a new broader HRC initiative called Equality Forward, which has as its mission the uniting of LGBT people and allies of all races and backgrounds in order to achieve equality for all. The report is meant as the beginning of an interactive national dialogue. You can download the entire report and also share your own story (and read other stories) as an LGBT person of color on the Equality Forward web site.

Some of the report’s findings include:

Last week at The Fellowship Conference in Atlanta, I discovered that radical inclusivity and sexual literacy have way more in common than I ever could have imagined.

As hundreds of mostly African American LGBT faith leaders from all over the nation convened to celebrate the radically inclusive love of Jesus Christ, I witnessed the emergence of a movement that is already dealing a powerful blow to the “church as usual” mentality which fractures people and communities.

I saw more clearly than ever that those who have hijacked religion and God himself by being exclusionary of lgbt people and others are seriously mistaken. And their mistakes are doing exactly what Jesus warned about—promoting the false idea that God’s love is only for the deserving…..constructing in so doing the category of “those who are not deserving”….and there are many of us, perhaps more than the alleged “deserving” themselves. 

This week I have the great pleasure of heading to Atlanta to represent NSRC’s Faith and Sexual Literacy Initiative for the 2009 Annual Fellowship Conference and Convocation. The Fellowship was founded in the year 2000 by NSRC Board Member, Rev. Dr. Yvette Flunder (Senior Pastor of City of Refuge in San Francisco and Presiding Bishop over The Fellowship) and can be described as follows:

“The Fellowship is a trans-denominational fellowship of primarily African American Christian leaders and laity representing churches and faith-based organizations from all parts of the country ranging from ultra-conservative backgrounds to more liberal, independent churches; from upstart, developing to very large, established; from economically challenged to very affluent. The overriding purpose of The Fellowship is to support religious leaders and laity in moving towards a theology of radical inclusivity which, by its very...

You know a movement has arrived when Oprah Magazine picks up on it.

In the July issue of Oprah, there is an article called "Adventures in Adult Sex Education" written by Amanda Robb, gorgeously/hilariously illustrated by Zohar Lazar.

To summarize, there is an emerging movement in this country, on the part of adults, to "go back to school" so to speak when it comes to learning about sex in an adult, non-trivialized way. 

The article describes the phenomenal Our Whole Lives (OWL) curriculum of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA)-which aims to educate youth through older adults about sexuality as a lifelong human experience.

As Janet Hayes, the public relations director for the UUA says in the article, "Your sexuality doesn't end after you stop having babies or get divorced or after you turn 60. It is who we are in our core."

Our core indeed. And this is what we have been advocating and doing from NSRC since 2002.

Michael Tino, the Unitarian Universalist minister who co-wrote the OWL curriculum perhaps hits the nail in the head best, "You can have the best high school sex ed in the world, but critical issues aren't going to be...

Although I frequently attend professional and academic conferences focused on sexuality, it is the conferences not focused on sexuality that end up teaching me the most about how we are going to empower a nation to more effectively talk about its sexual health, education and rights.

This past week, at the 2009 AARP Diversity and Aging in the 21st Century: Power of Inclusion Conference I was reminded just how imperative it is to include the new framework of lifelong sexual literacy within the emerging dialogue between the fields of diversity and aging where it has previously not existed.

The current youth-centric and “one size fits all” approach to “comprehensive sexuality education” does not mean a thing for the older adults it does nothing to serve. It also does very little to address other nation-wide gender, racial, class…diversities and we are all responsible and accountable for the sexual inequalities that erupt from...

Next week NSRC is heading to Chicago for the 2009 AARP Diversity and Aging: Power of Inclusion Conference. 

We'll be presenting on the need to include sexual identity and sexuality itself within the framework of all diversity dialogues on aging. Most people think of diversity embodying such things as culture, race, sexual identity, gender, class, immigration status, disability, faith and so forth... Our intention is to ensure that healthy sexuality/sexual literacy itself is also included on that list and then integrated within future dialogues on aging and diversity.

It's not easy for people working with older adults to talk about sexuality and LGBT issues and so for many, the discussion does not exist at all or when it does it erupts from a reaction to a problem, dysfunction or disease rather than as a proactive solution to greater health, happiness and well being. NSRC wants to work with AARP and other national partners to think about how we might all be able to expand dialogues and policies about sexuality and aging in ways that embrace and respect older adults-providing them with the health, dignity and civil...

Today, May 27, 2009, is the first ever World Multiple Sclerosis Day, a day dedicated to uniting MS organizations and individuals world wide in the name of mobilizing a truly global movement to end MS.

As someone who has MS and is also a sexuality educator, my contribution to a new global movement for MS awareness is to work with NSRC to provide the best (U.S. based) resources I know of to support the (sexual) lives of people with MS and those who are intimately...

Last week I interviewed one of the greatest sexuality educators and lifelong learning experts of our time, Peggy Brick.

For over 10 years, Peggy has trained thousands of educators, health care professionals and community advocates about sex in mid and later life and the importance of expanding our concept of “sex ed” to include the entire life-course. She's been teaching sex education across the lifespan since high school over 3 decades ago. Founder of the Consortium on Sexuality and Aging, Peggy is a pioneering, visionary leader whose passion and remarkable ability is revolutionizing sexuality education itself.

In 2003, Peggy, Jan Lunquist and SIECUS produced the groundbreaking book New Expectations: Sexuality Education for Mid and Later Life. I’ve used this book and recommended it for years as one of the most well respected and...

Last week, the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS) released the 2008, 6th edition of its SIECUS State Profiles: A Portrait of Sexuality Education and Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage Programs in the States. 

SIECUS is the convening body of the National Coalition to Support Sexuality Education (NCSSE), a coalition of over 140 national organizations committed to medically accurate, age-appropriate comprehensive sexuality education for all children and youth in the United States. NSRC became an active member of NCSSE two years ago. Since that time, we have attended and presented at biannual NCSSE meetings, signed on to dozens of letters urging states to reject abstinence-only funding and thanking them when they did, and recommended NCSSE coalition membership to some of our national organizational partners and allies.

Today I had the opportunity to partake in an NCSSE coalition conference call, to learn more about this truly paradigm shifting, 700+ page report. During the call, I was reminded by just how...

True or False: Young people in the United States are more likely to learn about sexuality sitting in classrooms than anywhere else. If you said true, think again. Mounting evidence from researchers, media professionals, service providers and policy advocates suggests otherwise. Are we now experiencing a paradigm shift in the geography of "sex ed"? Absolutely, and thankfully, there's no going back.

Yesterday I attended a Guttmacher Institute webinar entitled, "Where Do Young People Learn About Sexual Health?: Education Beyond the Classroom." Panelists included Guttmacher Institute's own Senior Research Associate, Dr. Rachel Jones; Dr. Kate Ott, Associate Director of the Religious Institute for Sexual Morality, Justice and Healing; Jennifer Weidenbaum, Associate Director of Girls, Inc NYC; and William...

In Judaism, there is a tenant called ‘”Tikkun Olam”, which translated from Hebrew means “repair the world”.

Last Thursday, eighty high school sophomore students from Emery/Weiner, a Jewish Community School in Houston, Texas descended upon the San Francisco LGBT Community Center to hear a panel of local community activists talk about social and health issues impacting LGBT people. The goal of the panel was for students to learn about issues facing LGBT people as well as to begin to develop tools they could use to promote greater equality for LGBT people back home.

When the Youth Program of the San Francisco LGBT Community Center called me to see if I would be interested in representing NSRC on the panel, I was thrilled (and a bit surprised too) to hear that an event like this was even...

Pulitzer prize-winning reporter, Chris Hedges' article, "We are Breeding Ourselves to Extinction" succeeds in articulating exactly what most of us humans avoid these days, the inevitable pink and blue overpopulation elephant in the middle of the room we call planet earth. Population control is not only unpopular in general, it is something we seem to go out of our way to avoid. Even environmentalist Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" does not address the issue of of overpopulation and its painfully obvious impact on global ciimate change, at all. Perhaps the truth of overpopulation and its impact on the environment and the future of humanity is the ultimate and unspeakable inconvenience. 

Citing the work of scientist James Lovelock, Hedges argues that unless we begin to practice vigorous population control, all attempts to stop environmental degradation will be futile. 

My grandmother used to teach me that the questions and issues people avoid most are EXACTLY the ones that should be answered and addressed....and usually immediately if not sooner. 

So where in the world does this leave us as sexuality educators,...

This morning I spent the better part of 3-4 hours putting Marriage Equality USA stickers on people attending the Repeal Prop 8 rally at the California Supreme Court here in San Francisco. I stickered 7th graders, seniors from senior centers, drag queens, parents, children of gay parents, teachers, even a few unsuspecting pet dogs from the Marriage Equals One Man and One Woman "Traditional Marriage" camp.

I've been a marriage equality activist since 2004 and have participated in rallies throughout the nation, have spoken to the media, convinced conservatives to change their mind etc... But this rally was perhaps the hardest yet. This time, there were just as many as "them" as there were "us". And their signs were MUCH larger.

As we watched the court proceedings, it occurred to me that there were no groups there called "sex educators/researchers for equality". We need that in a really bad way. Lifelong sex ed has the potential to radically transform how all Americans see gender and sexuality. So this is what I came up with:

SAFE or Sex-Ed Advocates For Equality: A national movement of sex educators and researchers in coalition with one another to actively support LGBT equality. Naturally, NSRC is a great place to start this....and we have a work retreat this afternoon. Perfect timing.

The Institute for Welcoming Resources (IWR), a program of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, recently released transACTION: A Transgender Curriculum for Churches and Religious Institutions. This is the very first curriculum of its kind aimed at helping inclusive religious institutions to arm their congregants and members with training on how to welcome, understand and recognize the contributions of transgender persons within their faith settings. 

According to Reverend Rebecca Voelkel, IWR's Faith Work Director, "Of the 3100 or so welcoming congregations we list on our website, somewhere between 75% and 90% are welcoming of lesbian, gay and bisexual (lgb) people but haven't done anything on transgender work. This is true in non-Christian settings too. So, both for the intra-religious world and for any hopes to help religious folks advocate for a trans inclusive ENDA, this curriculum in crucial." 

Barbara Satin, a transgender Christian and IWR Faith Work Associate has had first hand knowledge for decades with regard to the lack of congregational resources addressing transgender inclusion. Barbara is the author of the curriculum and is now working with pro-lgbt religious organizations, particularly Christian ones, to get...

Remember when you were a child and your parents asked you what you wanted to do with your life? I do. And I can honestly say that "being a community leader in the sexual health field" was nowhere on my mind. Back then I was pretty sure I wanted to be a florist.

I think I can honestly speak for many of my fellow colleagues in the field of sexual health when I say that it is almost completely by accident that we have arrived  here. I'm a historian by academic training with a public relations professional background and most of my colleagues share similar trajectories of being health educators, teachers/professors, social workers, therapists, clergy, doctors, journalists, social scientists and the list goes on. What would it have been like for all of us to have had actual focused professional development training in sexual health as we made our decision to move into this field? How much more productive and...

“525,600 minutes…how do you measure a year?

….Measure in love” –Rent

At age 7 I knew that Valentines Day was my favorite of all holidays. Pink was my favorite color and I couldn’t wait to get those ridiculous heart shaped candies, cherry ring pops, chocolates and love notes from my family, friends and….yes, even  my crushes at the time. All of that and I hadn’t yet even discovered my love for Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Love, Actually (my two favorite movies), renaissance poetry, bubble baths, fine dining or sparkling wine….not to mention those cheesy valentine’s day cards you get from your pet cats or dogs (God, I still LOVE those!). I couldn’t have yet known then that one day my passion for the love holiday itself would take entirely new meaning because of a new movement called V-Day and another called

Last week at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Creating Change Conference, human rights and labor justice activist Dolores Huerta provided the opening keynote address to the thunderous applause of thousands of LGBT activists and allies from all over the nation. It was Dolores Huerta who coined the term, Si Se Puede! (Yes, it can be done!). These words rang especially relevant to my colleagues and I from NSRC who were there at the conference to reinforce national dialogue and new committed action connecting lifelong sexuality education with LGBT activism.

It has often seemed like a major oversight to me that sexuality education is not more central to the LGBT movement’s mission of achieving equality. It is true that the movement has an enormous array of issues to tackle—from racial and economic injustice to employment, housing, marriage and relationship/family discrimination to hate crime to religious oppression to HIV to racism, sexism and religio-phobia within the movement itself and the list seemingly never ends. But here’s the thing….at the end of the day, when all is said and done, LGBT people...

The 21st National Conference on LGBT Equality—Creating Change—convenes next week in Denver, Colorado (January 28-February 1) and NSRC once again plans to be there in support of placing sexual literacy at the very heart of the movement where it has been conspicuously downplayed or disappeared altogether in recent years.

So what does sexuality literacy have to do with achieving LGBT equality?

Everything. And the grassroots LGBT movement is now beginning to recognize and act on it.

This year, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force’s commitment to...

The CDC released a new report yesterday detailing the rising rates of STDs-especially among women, minorities and young people aged 18-24. The report discusses how much of the recent progress being made to eliminate syphilis has been reversed. Furthermore, the report highlights how STDs cost the U.S. health care system as much as $15.3 billion dollars annually.

Years of abstinence only education have no doubt led to this record breaking rise in STD rates by promoting ignorance as a national policy.

Dr. John Douglas, Director of the CDC's Division on STD Prevention hits the nail in the head of this problem-namely, that society itself is not being responsible enough when it comes to discussing sexual health....doctors often choose not to discuss STDs and sexual health with their patients, clergy fail to address sexual health, teachers are gagged from speaking about it due to dangerous abstinence policies....and parents often think everyone else is handling it so they don't have to or want to.

America needs to talk about sex. All of us, not some of us because we are each responsible for ourselves and others. 

One fantastic way to talk about sex and learn realistic strategies for decreasing STD and HIV rates among youth is to attend...

The Religious Institute on Sexual Morality, Justice and Healing released a new study today called: Sex and the Seminary: Preparing Ministers for Sexual Health and Justice. This comprehensive survey data provides even further and compelling proof that we are living in a national state of emergency when it comes to the lack of connection being made between sexuality and religion. The bad news is that even the most progressive of the seminaries surveyed are not adequately providing sexuality education and training. The good news is that despite this unholy disconnect, there are many organizations and religious denominations nation-wide working to turn this deadly trend around.

NSRC began training clergy in 2001 at our first annual Summer Institute on Sexuality, Society and Health. In 2003, we held our first Religion, Spirituality and Sexuality Interfaith Roundtable Discussion—much to the dismay of many of our colleagues in sexual health who frown on religion (many if not most of whom have endured religious persecution based on sexuality in one way or another).  Over the years, in our...

When I came out to my very loving, supportive and well-intentioned parents during my youth, they were worried that I would have a harder life because of being gay. They had no clue where to turn for accurate, dependable information, resources and research that would help them in their journey to understand and support me. They were terrified and felt alone. They didn’t understand that how they reacted to me (with acceptance, tolerance, rejection) would have a direct impact on my future health and mental health.  They couldn’t then realize that how they reacted would directly impact my ability to live, thrive, merely survive or even consider suicide. They were never trained in how to deal with my developmental needs. They couldn’t make recommendations about doctors and therapists appropriately trained to work both with me and with them. They never learned how to address the social/peer victimization I was facing and they never learned how to talk about my being gay with our ultra conservative family members. To this day, they still struggle with how to maintain loving relationships with their own friends and our family who reject me and their acceptance and support of me.

On December 13 a lesbian in Richmond, CA (near San Francisco) was about to enter her vehicle as she was approached by 4 young men who proceeded to beat, gang rape, rob and leave her completely naked and bleeding to death near the Richmond BART train station. 

This heinous crime shocked even the Richmond police-- who see some of the worse cases of violence in the country. 

The attack was "alleged" to be a hate crime as the survivor claims that the attackers targeted her and used anti gay language throughout her attack.

Horrifying attacks such as this one reinforce the need for a higher level of sexuality education in this country. If we can begin to imagine a world where true lifelong sexual literacy exists....which embraces sexual human diversity and rights....we can begin to heal.

NSRC is proud to work with organizations like Community United Against Violence (CUAV) who promote education, awareness, advocacy and healing for those affected by these crimes and others forms of violence. CUAV is the local agency responding to media calls and crisis calls related to this terrifying crime. 

I would like to take a moment to remind...

Today, sex workers and allies of sex workers will march on Washington D.C. and hold community vigils and rallies in cities across the globe for the 6th Annual International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers.

In 2003, sexologist Dr. Annie Sprinkle and SWOP or Sex Worker Outreach Project, created this annual day aimed at remembering sex workers who have been murdered, ending discrimination and stigma, hate crime and all forms of violence against sex workers internationally.

Every day sex workers face social stigma, arrest, and the sheer terror of never knowing when they will be brutally beaten, robbed, raped and/or murdered. 

Society tends to say that sex workers deserve whatever they have coming to them just because they choose to engage in the work they do. This ignores the fact that people have always in all times and cultures done sex work, often but not always due to coercion. The same sort of you-deserve-it mentality is often used to justify hate crimes against LGBT people and is also used to blame women rather than the men who rape them. Organizations like SWOP work to turn this distorted, immoral and dangerous way of thinking and acting around....

According the the U.S. Department of State Dec. 10, 2008 press statement, "Today is the 60th Anniversary of the adoption of the United Nation's Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a document that affirms the inherent rights of people everywhere and enshrines basic freedoms of thought, expression, peaceful assembly, religion, and association." The statement goes further to say, "The United States stands in solidarity with the brave men and women around the globe who work to defend human dignity and advance the cause of freedom."

Really? Most of us gay Americans would argue that the U.S. Department of State has a very long way to go within its own borders in standing in solidarity with us to affirm our human rights.

This is why today is also the perfect day to let America experience a National Day Without Gay.

In the year 2008, 60 years after Article 7 of the Universal Declaration said, "All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection under the law....and the family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State", the State of...