Abstract
Research indicates that American sex education is largely unhelpful, limiting, and stigmatizing. A smaller body of research reveals how sex education reproduces intersecting systems of inequity. This thesis uses data from twenty in-depth, semi-structured interviews to examine the ways that sex education reproduces racialized, classed, heterosexualized, and gendered narratives, stereotypes, and norms around sex and reproduction in both explicit and hidden ways. Findings suggest that students overwhelmingly report observing and experiencing the impacts of the reproduction of racialized, classed, heterosexualized, and gendered narratives, stereotypes, and norms in the sex education classroom. To interrupt this, sex education should be taught by trained experts who are equipped to create a race-conscious curriculum: one that educates students about the history of racialized, classed reproductive surveillance. Sex education reform advocates should also push for a future of sex education beyond the binary of abstinence and comprehensive curricula, as both types have been shown to reproduce inequity. This will help create space for a more expansive, limitless future of improved sexual health education.