Talk:LGBT sex education

Sources needed

I stumbled upon this article and am dismayed to find that it has absolutely zero references, so I added Template:Unreferenced. :( I'm going to do what I can, time permitting, to add WP:RS in a new References section, but help in doing this would be very much appreciated. I may also make bold edits if I find the material lacking. Thanks! --Meitar (talk) 00:07, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

I added one easily-found reference, so I changed Template:Unreferenced to Template:Refimprove. --Meitar (talk) 00:29, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Would love to expand

I'm hoping to expand this article. I'd like to add more sources and cover both sides of the controversy in more detail. Anyone have ideas or sources they would recommend? Thanks! Saira Weinzimmer (talk) 23:32, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

My plan to expand this article

I am planning to expand this article for a university class (I have placed the course banner above). I wanted to post my plan here so that anyone who might still be visiting this talk page will understand what my goals are--and will hopefully give me some feedback!

First, I'd like to delete sections I think are irrelevant such as the “Critical coverage of LGBT education” section, which I believe contains off topic information. I will also rename and rearrange the other sections. I think the first section in the article, “Status of LGBT youth,” is a bit sparse and its title is misleading to me, so I plan to rename it “Current LGBT sex education practices” and expand it to cover the current status of LGBT sex education in more detail.

After this background section, I would like to add a new section on the proposed LGBT sex education programs that LGBT advocates have put forth. This section would contain a detailed explanation of exactly what advocates of LGBT inclusion in sex education are proposing, in order to clear up any confusion over the subject of the debate.

The next section in the present article is called “Support for such programs,” which I think is an ambiguous title and needs to be changed to “Argument for LGBT sex education.” This section also needs an extensive addition of information and references. The next section is currently called “Disagreement with such programs,” which is also an unclear title, so I would like to change it to "Argument against LGBT sex education." I believe the section is poorly positioned in the article as well; I am hoping to move it so that it follows the section containing the pro side of the argument, which I think will improve flow. “Argument against LGBT sex education” also needs much more information and references, which I can provide.

After the above three existing sections is the “Criticisms of abstinence-only curricula” section, which I think should be moved from its former position after “Support for such programs” and merged into the “Arguments for LGBT sex education” section, since it seems to align with that position. Like the rest of the article, this area also needs more citations and information.

I would then like to add a new section entitled “LGBT sex education around the world,” which will give a brief description of the current LGBT sex education policies in prominent countries (as many as I can find information on). I am planning to cover Australia, Canada, China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States--I've limited the list to those only because of time constraints, but if anyone has good information on a country I haven't mentioned I would love to incorporate it. I don’t want to go into too much detail for any of these countries—just a quick overview.

Finally, I also noticed that this article currently does not have a “See also” section at the end, so I will make one. I plan to add pages such as “Sex education,” “LGBT rights opposition,” and “LGBT social movements.” Again, any ideas here are welcome.

I would greatly appreciate advice, particularly regarding where I can find reliable information on the LGBT sex education practices in different countries. I am also looking for more good sources that explain the opposition to LGBT sex education in schools. I agree with Meitar that this article really needs more resources, and I am working on that. Please let me know if any of the proposed edits above are problematic!

Thank you! Saira Weinzimmer (talk) 19:13, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

@S.A.Weinzimmer: (Original response at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Sexology and sexuality#Adding to the "LGBT sex education" article.) Before any of your proposed changes, it's worth defining the article's scope. Does the topic ("LGBT sex ed") refer to teaching all students or just LGBT students, and teaching what? The lede (first section) should confine the scope, and not by your interpretation but by how reliable sources use the phrase. (So if the term's used for all of those purposes in reliable sources, this should be outlined in the first paragraph so readers know what to expect.) Also in the scope is the geographic region—if the article is about all LGBT sex ed and only covers sex ed in America, that'd be a form of bias. So the scope should flow from the topic's name, not necessarily what's already on the page, etc. For your outline, I would suggest Wikipedia-standard headings like "Overview" or "Description" for a section on what exactly these programs are (the lede, that first paragraph(s) should be a summary of the whole article so any sourced information should be somewhere beneath it in the article, such as in a Description section). Following sections could be "History" (history of such programs), dedicated sections to big issues within that history, and "Response" (which would include criticism). Ideally support and opposition should be balanced in the same section, if possible. Otherwise it's harder to balance two sections for parity without making the for/against lopsided (undue weight). The sections you suggest appear to touch on different subissues piecemeal. You'll build a more complete and helpful article if you address the core issues readers want in an article on this topic and incorporate those ideas into the usual headings. (Also see the "See Also" section rules about repeating wikilinks already mentioned in the article.) What do you think? czar ♔ 13:34, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Hi czar, thank you so much for your comments, they have been very helpful. I have edited the lead to hopefully incorporate what you said about defining the article's scope in terms of how the literature defines it. Does it look good to you?

As for your comment about potential geographical bias--I have been having trouble finding scholarly articles on LGBT sex education, and the majority I have found have been focused on studies in the UK. I'm not sure if much research has really been done in different countries (if you or anyone could point me toward some articles with information on other countries, I'd be thrilled).

I have also changed the first section name to "Background," which seemed like an appropriate Wikipedia-style title--what do you think? I left the other section titles because I thought they seemed descriptive of their content, but feel free to change them to something more appropriate if you'd like. I could change the "arguments for LGBT sex education" and the "arguments against LGBT sex education" sections into subsections, under a general section entitled "Response"--would that be better?

I'm not sure how to go about writing a section on History, because the LGBT sex education movement is fairly recent and I've had a hard time finding many scholarly articles. I haven't seen a whole lot on history so far, but if anyone could locate information on this I would be glad to add it.

I'm not sure if I've incorporated your comment about addressing the core issues rather than going about it piecemeal. If not, do you have more suggestions about how to do that?

Thanks so much, I really appreciate your comments!

Saira Weinzimmer (talk) 19:40, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Great work and great explanation, Saira. I would not ask you to do more, but I do wish this article had at least the start of a section on what topics ought to be covered in an LGBT sex education program. It is mentioned that pregnancy info might need to be de-emphasized for relationships which cannot result in pregnancy, but it would be great if we could say exactly what ought to be covered and how it is different from traditional sex ed. The review of social commentary here is great. Spot on! Thanks. Blue Rasberry (talk) 01:34, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Hi Blue Rasberry, thanks for looking over my article! One question--is the section "Proposed LGBT sex education programs" something like the start of a section on what topics should be covered in an LGBT sex education program? Or were you thinking of something else?

Thanks so much, I really appreciate your comments!

Saira Weinzimmer (talk) 19:56, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

"Critical coverage" section removal

Re: removal of the "Critical coverage" section—I'd recommend instead wrapping that incident into a history of legal battles of content before wiping it out altogether. I agree that the specific section heading isn't necessarily important to preserve, though. czar ♔ 14:54, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Article Review

I’d like to see stats on where LGBT sex education is taught or not taught, and how and if these things change from state to state (even country to country). But in general this is a pretty comprehensive article that doesn’t under-explain the included topics. You used relatively fewer sources than most Wikipedia articles, and a fair percentage of them were newspaper articles, which aren’t ideal sources as they can be very biased. You did a very good job of presenting multiple points of view on several LGBT sex education topic, but sometimes you can be a bit wordy. Try adding more statistics, examples, or illustrations to break up the reading. (Cebrown721 (talk) 23:21, 6 November 2013 (UTC))

Hey Caroline, thanks for your review! One question--do you think newspaper articles are okay in the sections that are just reporting on what advocates of LGBT sex education and people against it are saying? I thought Op Eds in newspapers might be appropriate for this, but I wasn't sure. What do you think?

Saira Weinzimmer (talk) 20:18, 10 November 2013 (UTC)