How Can We Combat Misinformation?

It’s been a bit since I’ve gone all-in on Insta for Sex Ed for All Month. These days, my entire feed is books, embroidery, and cat glamour shots. But here we are. May 1. The very first day of a month dedicated to ensuring every young person has access to comprehensive, medically accurate, and inclusive sex education. Let’s do it up right.

The theme for this year’s Sex Ed for All Month is Combatting Misinformation. Which seems appropriate. Our current administration seems to super enjoy suppressing the information people need in order to make smart, healthy decisions about their lives. In its place, we have outright lies, AI slop, and complete confusion about which sources might actually be reliable.

What might we, as parents, do to combat misinformation?

Speak up in support of comprehensive, inclusive, and medically accurate sex ed.

I have a whole page on Guerrilla Sex Ed containing resources for advocacy, including a community action toolkit, a guide for speaking at school board meetings, and more.

Read banned books.

Say hells no to book censorship, y’all! My god, I am so flipping sick of seeing books yanked from shelves because they stray outside the white, heterosexual, cisgender, able-bodied lines conservatives have deemed appropriate. Our kids deserve to see themselves—and all their manifold experiences—reflected back at them.

I last wrote about a nationwide book ban here. You can follow the bill in question here and, book bans aside, find some great book recommendations at Guerrilla Sex Ed.

Teach your kiddos about digital literacy.

As our kids get older, spending more time on their Chromebooks and iPhones, it’s important for them to be able to discern which sources are reliable, to be able to recognize the difference between facts and opinions, to realize that not everything they see online is true, and to be critical of the content they consume. I love this piece on developing digital literacy over at PBS Kids.

Have conversations at home.

I mean… isn’t that what this newsletter—and Guerrilla Sex Ed in general—has always been about? Combat misinformation by making sure that you are your kid’s primary source. And if you don’t know a thing? Find the answer together. 😘

How are you combatting misinformation in your home?

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To be quite honest, I’ve been hiding from the news as of late, but I was suitably agitated by this press release over at the Office of Public Affairs about an investigation into gender ideology in Pre-K-12 schools in Illinois.

Out later this month is Meredith Walker’s Be Yourself and Other Bad Advice: A Teen Girl’s Guide to Unlearning the Rules. It’s a guide devoted to helping teen girls discover who they are, feel their feelings, develop their confidence—and figure out what to do next. There are chapters on emotions, developing your personal values, smart social media use, and more.

There are several events coming up that might be your jam, such as Connecting the Dots: Sex Ed, Power, and Sexual Exploitation, hosted by SIECUS and the Sex Ed Coalition on May 13. You can register here. And on May 7, EducateUS is partnering with Red Wine and Blue for How to Talk Sex Ed & Fight Disinformation.

For something even simpler, you can sign this letter to urge your representatives to protect and expand funding for evidence based sexual health programs.