Si Se Puede!: Igniting Synergy Between Sexuality and LGBT Activism

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 continue to remain a despised sexual minority because of gender and sex and the lack of appropriate sex education in this country. More specifically, the fact that LGBT people have sex with people of the same and not opposite genders is the reason for that hatred. Mention the inclusion of sexuality as an important priority within the LGBT movement and be prepared for a variety of reactions ranging from—that’s exactly what we should be avoiding because everyone thinks we’re perverts… to we don’t have the time or resources to engage with that kind of peripheral activity because more important issues are pressing….sex just isn’t sexy enough.

Likewise, It has also always seemed like a major oversight to me that comprehensive sexuality education—the most progressive form of sexuality education we currently have in our arsenal—largely does not include LGBT people at all….focusing on hetero-normative disease and pregnancy prevention as a model to appease parental fears rather than as a positive pleasure based model relevant to all people young and old, gay and straight. It is absolutely true that those fighting everyday against the forces of abstinence only education by promoting comprehensive sexuality education are doing what they believe is the only and best thing possible. Mention the idea of teaching pleasure as an approach to holistic well being up on Capitol Hill? Not possible. Mention mandating the inclusion of LGBT people within comprehensive sexuality education? Not possible. Why? Because America’s parents won’t have it. No wonder abstinence only up until now has been winning—it provides a values-based framework that people can aspire to and believe in and insist on, comprehensive sexuality education, with all of its good intentions, does not because it is too busy preventing and defending rather than promoting the values of equality, holistic health, wellness and justice.

As I worked with colleagues to present multiple sexual literacy workshops throughout the conference—lifelong sexuality education for everybody including people of different racial, national and cultural backgrounds, abilities, faiths, ages, etc…. I began to realize something.

LGBT activists and proponents of comprehensive sexuality education need to begin incorporating the phrase Si Se Puede! into our work much more. It’s really pretty simple—if we say we can’t do something, we never will. We’re thwarting any chance at what’s possible in terms of both LGBT liberation and sexuality education for all Americans.

It is no longer acceptable—and never should have been to begin with— for those of us engaged in comprehensive sexuality education work to leave out LGBT sexuality and people from curricula just because parents have a problem with it. To do this, means being complicit with the forces of social, cultural and community control which seek to police our desires and erase our sexual variations (the natural—and many would say God given—sexual variation of all people, not just LGBT people) from the map completely. This is why we must begin to move forward sexual literacy in this country—because being complicit means saying—no, we can’t, we give in to those forces. We deserve to bring all of us as individuals and communities to the table, not just some of us. Pleasure has a seat at that table too and might just unlock why it is our defensive prevention only focus is failing.  

Some will say that now that we have President Obama in place we’ll be able to ask for more in terms of LGBT rights and sexuality education. I say we never should have stopped asking to begin with. Shame on us. Me included ofcourse as a primary offender—having worked within sexuality education and as an LGBT activist for over a decade. We have values too and it’s time we begin promoting them….the majority of Americans are right there with us but we need leadership and courage and people like Dolores Huerta who are willing to take a stand in the face of no agreement whatsoever and stay there until the battles are won….no matter which party happens to be in the White House.

Huerta reminded the conference audience, “We have a mandate to remove the ignorance from society until we get the human rights that we all deserve. This movement is about people saying, ‘I’m going to fight for my sexuality and who I am.’ It’s talking about truth but also talking about justice.”

It is high time that the LGBT movement begin to place sexuality education at the core of its liberation because its invisibility is what is wrong to begin with—were Americans provided with sexuality education from cradle to grave that addressed and celebrated the historical and cultural normalcy of sexual and gender variation then the other core LGBT liberation issues within the movement would begin to fade away and all Americans—gay and straight—would be closer to realizing true sexual freedom. LGBT activists have everything to offer the new paradigm of sexual literacy erupting nation wide.

**We as LGBT activists need to stop acting like sexuality education just isn't our issue because it is the very heart and healing of all of our issues, gay and straight and everything in between.**

It is also high time that proponents of comprehensive sexuality education begin insisting on the inclusion of LGBT people and pleasure itself within all sexuality curricula across the lifespan.

Yes, we can and yes, as Dolores Huerta so vigorously said….we must. Our survival and justice itself depends on it.