Initiative or Levy
Contact Information
- Endorsement Requester: Approve R-90 Safe and Healthy Youth WA
- Contact Phone: 3607084750
- Website: www.approve90wa.org
- Twitter: @approve90wa
- Facebook:
Would you be willing to speak to members of the 31st Legislative District Democrats about this initiative?
Yes
Initiative or Levy Information
Title
Endorse an approve vote on Referendum 90
Summary
Students in Washington deserve access to age appropriate, medically accurate, and inclusive sex education.
Description
SB 5395 requires all public schools to teach age-appropriate, inclusive, comprehensive sexual health education to K-12 students. This law was backed by a massive statewide coalition and has strong support from a strong majority of Washington state voters.
In early 2020, a group of extremists launched a misinformation campaign attacking inclusive, age-appropriate, comprehensive sexual health education and gathered enough signatures – during a pandemic– to put that law up for a public vote this November. These anti-health, anti-science, anti-sex-education extremists are well-organized, well-funded, and fully engaged for the 2020 election. If they succeed, we will lose our ability to protect our kids and provide students across Washington state with age appropriate comprehensive sex education. Our young people will be less safe and healthy as a result, and Washington can easily begin down a path to a place where these extremists have way more say in your health and your rights.
Why this matters:
Young people who have medically accurate, age appropriate sex education are less likely to experience unintended
pregnancy, partake in risky sexual behavior or get a sexually transmitted infection. Sex education serves as both prevention and intervention for sexual assault and rape. Young children who are being sexually abused don’t understand what is happening until someone provides them with the tools and language to communicate it with a trusted adult.
This education will provide young people information and resources about healthy relationships so they are better able to
respect personal boundaries, ask for consent, and learn how to say and receive a “no.”
Providing sex education in public schools promotes racial equity because schools that teach disproportionately Black and
Brown students are more likely to use abstinence-only education; and students of color are more burdened with societal stigmas and stereotypes against them and their sexual freedom.
LGBTQ youth deserve to see themselves reflected positively in sexual health education and experience acceptance by their teachers and peers.
