Krystalyn Musselman holds a worn cardboard box up to the screen on our Zoom call. It’s the anonymous question box she relies on to field queries from high schoolers at Tecumseh Public Schools in southeast Michigan, where she teaches comprehensive sex education. The box, covered in pink and black patterned craft tape, is topped with a pink handlebar mustache, serving as a key visual set up for the “I mustache you a question” pun, which was popular about 15 years ago. Musselman acknowledges that this particular question box has been around for a while, and laughs. Clearly, the pun is still having its intended effect, as she’s fielding as many serious questions about sexual health as ever.

The question box remains a necessary tool for sex education instruction. It assures students’ anonymity while giving teachers like Musselman a direct line to the topics students are most curious about. She credits her students with asking great questions, but knows she must be careful in how she words her responses. This has always been the case; a 20-year veteran of sexual health in public schools, Musselman is well aware of her duty to adhere to state law and local district policies. She recently underwent the multistep process Michigan requires of the district to make lessons more current. The initial proposal included lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity, but she didn’t get approval for both.

“We do not actually teach or address gender identity or gender expression — that was something the curriculum review committee didn’t want,” Musselman said. “That was the give-and-take. We got a sexual-orientation lesson, but we didn’t get a gender one.”

While always used to some controversy, sexual health educators are in an especially tough spot right now. Amid a push to update comprehensive curriculums to include lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity, state legislators are also considering laws targeting the people these changes help the most. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has threatened to pull funding from districts that don’t remove lessons on gender from their sex education curriculums. District responses have been mixed, with some states quick to issue statements indicating compliance, while some districts have resisted anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric, at the risk of losing federal funding. Meanwhile some states have sued the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Read the full article about sex education by Claire Woodcock at EdSurge.