Empower WOC Through SexEd!

GetSexEd! intends to provide comprehensive, medically-accurate sexual education for women of color. Through a series of 8 to 10 episodes, the mini web series will address contentious public health issues ranging from birth control to consent and beyond. 

My name is Averie Bishop. I am a first-generation Filipino-American. I grew up in a rural, Texas town; The conservative Christian environment influenced the sexual education program – or lack thereof – throughout my years of primary schooling. In the fifth grade, I learned about puberty and female reproductive health from a male, white coach who compared my vagina to a “blossoming flower.” At that point in time, I felt embarrassed and awfully awkward towards sex and the female body. Rather than mustering up the courage to ask family members or friends or even my pediatric physician about sex, I turned to Redditt threads. The internet provided me with what I thought was medically accurate information about STD’s, birth control, and genitalia. I even read that masturbation could get me pregnant, something that I thoroughly believed throughout middle school. It wasn’t till years later did I uncover the amount of faulty, misinformation I consumed as a child via the world wide web.

The unfortunate reality is that many public schools, especially in Texas, do not provide all-inclusive sexual education. To make matters worse, sex education funding is largely up to state and local governments — that includes whether or not sex education programs are funded at all, and how much they are funded (Planned Parenthood 2018).  Access to sexed is not equal across numerous stratifications - whether it be gender, race, class, sexual orientation, or religion. I intend to bridge the gap and offer an all-inclusive sexed program; starting with women of color. 

I will be personally withdrawing the money and using it to compensate local activists, politicians, and medical professionals for their time speaking in the web series.

I hope you will join me in encouraging individuals to make bold and intelligent decisions about their bodies and sex! 

This campaign is part of the 2018 Clinton Global Initiative University Commitments Challenge.