- Hey everyone, I'm Hannah Witton.
Welcome back to my channel.
I make sex ed videos here on YouTube,
and recently I was tagged
by a fellow sex ed YouTuber,
and also sexologist and amazing human being,
Dr. Lindsey Doe, who hosts the channel Sexplanations.
I was tagged by her in this video she came up with
called "Now Not Then", where we talk about
things that have changed in our lifetimes, positive changes.
And she tagged me asking for a sex ed perspective,
and so that is what I have done.
I have come up with four positive changes
in my lifetime, that is, since 1992,
just so we're all on the same page here.
These are sex ed, sexual health,
and also sex law related changes.
I'll leave the link to Lindsey's video
in the description as well,
which you should definitely go and check out.
And without further ado, this is the first positive change
that has happened in my lifetime.
Section 28 got repealed.
So, Section 28 is a clause in the Local Government Act,
which was brought in in 1988.
So it was introduced before I was born,
but then they around to repealing it in my lifetime.
Section 28 banned
the promotion of homosexuality
in local authorities, so that included schools.
It was introduced by Thatcher's government,
partly in response to the AIDS crisis,
but also, there was this media frenzy and moral panic
when the Daily Mail reported, (chuckles)
see, some things haven't changed,
when the Daily Mail reported that a book
called "Jenny Lives with Eric and Martin"
was found in a library in a Labor-controlled area,
and this was a book about a kid who lived with her two dads.
Shock, horror, wow, whoa!
So there was a huge backlash against this,
and Section 28.
The specific wording of the clause is so vague
that it is not clear what promotion exactly means,
so basically, teachers just stopped mentioning
same-sex relationships altogether.
And a lot of support groups were closed down
for fear that the school would no longer
receive state funding. (growls)
During the time it was in effect,
no one was actually prosecuted under Section 28,
but its impact was huge.
It led to a drop in public support of LGBTQ+ rights,
kids grew up without support, and internalised homophobia,
and teachers weren't trained
of how to talk about these things.
And, as many of us grew up and went to school
during years of Section 28, and teachers are still
teaching today, the legacy persists!
The legacy of it still carries on.
So it finally got repealed in 2000 in Scotland,
and then in 2003 in the rest of the UK.
Scotland, you're just always ahead of the game.
Well done, Scotland.
But, LGBTQ+ issues and relationships
weren't brought back onto the curriculum until recently.
From September 2020, relationships education
will be compulsory in primary schools
and relationships and sex education
will be compulsory in secondary schools.
And so far, the guidance on this does show
that it will be LGBTQ+ inclusive.
So that is good news. (chuckles)
However, recently you may have seen
in the news about the No Outsiders programme
in a primary school in Birmingham.
This was a class devised in the school
to teach primary school kids about the different identities
that are protected under the Equality Act,
one of those identities being LGBTQ+.
There was a huge backlash against this,
there were protests outside the school,
parents pulling their kids out of lessons,
and it has been all over the media.
Again, moral panic, frenzy,
and most of this programme was showing kids
age-appropriate books, sound familiar?
If you want any more info about the history
and current situation of homophobia in schools,
I would highly recommend you check out
Rowan Ellis's video on the topic.
Yes, I know I said this video would be
about positive changes in my lifetime,
and we can see with the way that the law has been changing,
yes, we are going in the right direction,
but obviously, there is still a lot of clashing
with public opinion, with differing generations,
and so there is a lot of work to do.
Just because you can change the law
doesn't mean that homophobia just evaporates.
The second positive change in my lifetime
is that reusable menstrual products
are becoming more mainstream.
So the majority of people use disposable products
like pads and tampons,
but before disposable products were invented,
people used reusable products.
People used cloths and rags for their period.
So reusable products are not a new thing,
they're just becoming more mainstream again.
The very first disposable pads were thought up
by nurses in France who needed something
to stop excessive bleeding, especially on the battlefield,
and then this idea got transferred
to menstrual products, too!
Disposable pads became available for purchase in 1888,
but there was a still a big taboo around this,
and they were very expensive,
so it didn't really start to pick up
with a lot of people using them until the 20th century.
In America, the first prototypes for menstrual cups
were patented in the 1860s and '70s,
but the kind of version that we know today
was invented in 1937 by actress Leona Chalmers,
and that was made out of like a latex rubber.
And then, at the beginning of the 21st century,
medical-grade silicone was integrated
into the design of the menstrual cup.
And now, we have a much wider range
of menstrual products available to us.
We have menstrual cups, we've got cloth pads
and period underwear, and sea sponges.
Reusable menstrual products are becoming more mainstream
because of lots of different reasons.
There's new technologies available,
there is an increased interest
in being environmentally friendly,
people are breaking down the taboos
and stigma around talking about periods,
and people are more conscious of the things
that they're putting in their body.
So even though, on this one,
we're going backwards to the time of reusable products,
this is the only time we could say
that that is actually a positive thing. (laughs)
The third positive change that I've seen in my lifetime
is how we do STI testing.
So I had my first STI test when I was 17 years old.
I had to go to a clinic, wait in the waiting room,
and then I had to put my legs up in some stirrups,
whilst a doctor went up inside me with a speculum
and did a swab and then obviously the blood test as well,
and even now, if you are going into a clinic,
you do not have to get your legs up,
you do not need a speculum,
they send you off to a private room
and you can do that swab yourself.
So that is one way that things have improved,
but because you can just do the swab yourself
and with the internet,
we have home testing kits.
So you can order these things online,
get it sent to you, do it yourself,
send it off, and then get your results.
I remember when I was at uni, and we would go on nights out,
and in some of the clubs,
there would be people in the toilets
handing out free chlamydia testing kits,
and I was like, this is brilliant.
There are lots of different services out there
that provide home testing kits.
One of them is SH24, which is a free online service
delivered in partnership with the NHS.
It launched in 2013 in the London boroughs
of Lambeth and Southwark, and since its introduction,
STI testing in those boroughs has doubled,
and in 2016, the STI rates decreased
for the first time in years.
So, this is clearly a good thing.
Go get tested, you can do it at home.
And number four, the final thing is,
civil partnerships and equal marriage.
The law granting same-sex couples the right to get married
was passed in 2013 in England and Wales,
and 2014 in Scotland, and it's important to note
that it is still not legal in Northern Ireland.
There's positives, but then we need
to recenter ourselves, always.
The first same-sex marriages in England
took place on the 29th of March, 2014.
Before equal marriage,
the only option for same-sex couples was civil partnerships,
which was brought into law in 2004
with the first partnerships happening in 2005.
It grants the same rights as marriage,
at least in countries that recognise it,
but there is no requirement for a ceremony
or exchanging of vows.
Also, recently, in 2018,
the Supreme Court ruled that restrictions
on same-sex civil partnerships
were in breach of human rights.
And so this now means that heterosexual couples
who don't want to get married
but still want the same rights and tax breaks
can get civil partnerships.
And that should be coming into effect
by the end of this year, December 2019.
However, for some, this is still quite controversial,
and there are a lot of questions being raised
because originally, when civil partnerships were introduced,
it was seen as a consolation prize for same-sex couples
who couldn't legally get married at the time.
And so now with heterosexual couples
being able to also get civil partnerships,
does this mean that we need an update,
redefine what civil partnerships are and what they mean?
I don't know, who knows?
For me personally, as someone in a heterosexual relationship
who has a lot of issues with the institution of marriage
for patriarchal, religious reasons,
the idea that I could get a civil partnership
is very appealing to me.
But I'm also aware that I'm not
part of the LGBTQ+ community,
and so I don't know what all of this means.
So those are four positive changes that I have seen
in my lifetime relating to sex ed and sexual health.
Thank you so much, Lindsey,
for tagging me in the "Now Not Then" tag,
and I would love to hear things that have changed
in your life in the comments.
It doesn't have to be sex-related.
You can pick whatever you want.
Thank you for watching.
Please give the video a thumbs-up if you enjoyed it,
and make sure that you subscribe,
'cause I make new videos every week,
and I'll see you soon, bye!