November 17, 2024 • 16 mins
In this episode, you will hear from the Sexual Health Victoria Schools, Community and Disability Education team.
Listen to the team discuss why they do this work, what are some of the questions young people ask in these classes and hear the team tell some of their favourite stories from the classroom. You’ll get to hear more from the team on the podcast hosting episodes in the new year.
SHV run professional development for teachers, youth workers and medical professionals. We have many free resources on our website. We also have free teaching activities and a range of online education courses.
Find out more at shvic.org.au.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
This podcast was created on Wurundjeri land.
Adult topics may be discussed.
Take care if you have young people listening
in.
Welcome to Doing It.
This is a podcast made by Sexual Health
Victoria.
We run a whole lot of education programs
for communities and medical professionals across Victoria.
We also run sexual health clinics in the
(00:21):
city and Box Hill in Melbourne.
My name is Anne and I'm part of
the Sexual Health Victoria schools and community team.
We run classes for all year levels on
bodies, growing up, puberty, sex, reproduction and relationships.
This podcast is for parents and carers of
school aged children, so we can share what
goes on in our relationships and sexuality education
class and help support these sorts of conversations
(00:44):
at home.
I've been making the podcast since 2019 and
I've spoken to so many wonderful people in
an effort to help people feel safe and
comfortable with the delivery of relationships and sexuality
education in schools.
Since I started doing this kind of work
and making the podcast, there's been a shift
in the types of things people wanna know
(01:05):
about and how they perceive relationships and sexuality
education.
There have been important changes to how we
talk about sex and gender and how we
include difference in human sexuality.
Another change that I've noticed is the type
of person who's interested in doing this kind
of work.
The schools, community and disability team is growing.
(01:26):
With that growth comes a diversity of voices
and experiences.
So now's a good time to hand over
to a bigger range of voices.
You'll be hearing more from them in upcoming
episodes of Doing It.
I would like to introduce the schools, community
and disability team by asking them what young
people ask us frequently in class.
(01:48):
Why do they do this job?
Okay, so it's recording now.
I've been doing this work for 30 years.
The thing that grounds it is that having
sexual health information and agency for your own
sexuality, your own body for relationships is a
(02:13):
matter of human rights.
And it's about recognising that as humans, we
need connection and support.
Sexuality is a part of who we are
that we express in various ways.
I remember what it was like to be
a young person, even though that was a
billion years ago.
And something that I always wanted to know
(02:35):
about the things that we weren't really supposed
to talk about.
Whether that was sex or other topics, I
always felt like it was really, there was
a truth that people, the grownups around me
weren't always talking about.
And I think that's one of the most
important things to me in doing this job
is that we're able to be those role
(02:56):
models for young people and also for the
adults who support them in being able to
have these really frank and open and honest
conversations and speak the truth to what is
a really essential informative part of life and
not sugarcoat it and not make it seem
like it's something to be ashamed of.
Working in primarily or exclusively the disability space,
(03:20):
it's about giving people who aren't always given
access to information, education, and support around relationships,
meaningful interactions, providing them with knowledge and skills
to make informed choices, to live their best
sexual and romantic lives, and to protect themselves
(03:43):
if they need it because they've got the
language and skills to do so.
I have my own young people too, so
I'm motivated for them to have an inclusive
and diverse sex and relationships education.
I don't know, ever since I was young,
I remember seeing this pattern and I was
watching my friends and my family and the
(04:04):
people in my community around me and there
seemed to be this consistency in that a
lot of the source of both, the biggest
sources of pain in people's lives as well
as the biggest sources of joy seemed to
be related to the same thing and it
was always relationships or sexuality or their body
or shame.
(04:26):
And the difference that I saw between the
two was information.
I'm so grateful to be a part of
a team where we can give people that
sense of warmth and knowledge and opportunity.
And aside from all the serious things, the
social justice, the advocacy, the sexual and reproductive
health, I think it's also just really fun.
And I think it's just such a joy
(04:49):
to be able to have such rich conversations,
not just about sexuality and the science of
sexual health, but the sociology and like this,
it's just such a complex, rich area of
discussion and I'm just so lucky to be
able to have those kinds of discussions with
this team, but also with the young people
that we work with.
I think it's really nice to see the
(05:09):
sort of relaxing into talking about a topic
that is so taboo and comes with so
many layers of complexity.
It's nice just to sort of shine some
light and some joy and some fun on
those kinds of topics.
I love doing this work because the types
of relationships that we choose to have and
with whom are so fundamental to our human
(05:30):
experience.
And whether that's a romantic or sexual or
platonic or relationship with yourself or no one
at all, young people want to have those
conversations and deserve to have those from a
really young age and often.
And so to me, it's a privilege to
do this work and to have those conversations
with young people and with a team of
(05:50):
people who do that.
And it's really affirming to sit in a
room of young people and see them understand
that what they're thinking and experiencing is normal
and that they're not weird and strange.
The reason I do this job is it
has allowed me to really reflect on my
own experience as a young person and how
(06:12):
I really fumbled my way through that time.
My relationships and sexuality education was very poor
and it was really lonely.
And so now I feel really honored but
also responsible to be able to shift the
narrative for young people around these kind of
topics.
(06:32):
And I'm excited that we are shifting that.
Like I do it because it's fun.
But the like more serious answer is I
think that young people have the right to
information and we have a responsibility as like
the adults in their lives to give them
this information and make sure they feel less
scared about it.
We as adults also feel scared about it.
(06:52):
So there has to be people like us
who commit to doing this job.
So we start these conversations and we also
encourage other adults to have these conversations.
I think for me as a queer trans
person and a teacher, I feel a great
honor and debt to the elders.
Queer elders came before me and how much
they fought and advocated so someone like me
(07:14):
could walk into a classroom and teach young
people about this subject.
And I've also come to learn that bigotry
and stigma is usually a lack of understanding
and a fear of the unknown.
And by having an opportunity to open up
these conversations, it actually helps people to walk
alongside and to work together to advocate the
same thing which we all want is to
(07:34):
feel a sense of belonging and safety and
love.
I think that after teaching in schools for
many years and teaching topics that students may
or may not have cared about at different
times, I now get to go into classrooms
and deliver information that is tangible to them.
And no matter what classroom I walk into
and how many of the kids pay attention,
(07:55):
I always know that at least one person
walks out of there with a new bit
of information that is important to them.
And that makes me feel good that I
can do that for them.
And also I like advocating for the voices
of young people to be heard more when
we're talking about decisions that affect them.
(08:15):
I do this work because I get to
talk about sex and I have always wanted
to talk about sex.
And that was always a deeply shameful thing.
When I was younger and the world, I
think like others have mentioned that I grew
up in was not very receptive to a
young woman wanting to talk about sex, wanting
to pursue pleasure or understand what that was
(08:38):
or talk about bodies or experiences like that.
And after having taught young people for 15
years and watching the world that they're growing
up in and the changes that have happened
around them and that there is more openness
around those topics, I just deeply wanna be
involved in those conversations with them while that's
(08:58):
happening.
There was a young male identifying person in
the room who wanted to test my mettle.
And lots of kids do that as we
run sessions.
They wanna see what they can say and
how we're gonna react.
And his question in front of the class
(09:21):
group was, if you have a disease and
you suck your own dick, can you give
it to yourself?
And of course, your head goes through all
of the scenarios when you're about to answer
this.
And I thought to myself, mate, if you
could suck your own dick, you'd never leave
the house.
(09:43):
But I kept my professional face on as
we all do and we're teaching sexual health
literacy.
So I said, look, if you could suck
your own penis, because we're all about correct
anatomical terminology, and you had a sexually transmissible
infection, because we're building sexual health literacy, you
(10:04):
wouldn't give it to yourself because you'd already
have it, but you could transfer it from
your penis to your mouth.
And he went, ah, and I didn't hear
from him again.
So we get a lot of concern that
we're gonna answer questions from kids, that kids
(10:25):
are gonna give us questions that are gonna
set off the stratosphere of problematic issues, when
really, if you just answer things in a
calm, professional voice, it goes away really, really
quickly and doesn't create a problem.
A couple of years ago, I had a
(10:45):
student in class, we were sitting around talking
about a novel, I think it was English,
and she put her hand up and said,
I need to go to the toilet.
And I was like, okay, no problem.
She's like, it's just that I've got my
period and it's the second day and it's
quite heavy.
I was like, okay.
She's like, so yeah.
And then she just opened up her bag
in the classroom, rifled around, took out a
(11:06):
tampon, held it in her hand and walked
out of the classroom towards the school toilets.
It sounds so small, such a tiny little
thing, but just her complete confidence in being
able to speak about a thing that happens
to her body, that happens to lots of
people's bodies if they have a uterus, in
this casual way, just made me explode with
(11:29):
joy for that.
Maybe one of my first schools and a
kid came up to me at the end
of class and was looking very nervous and
shuffling their feet and playing with their hands
and just quietly said to me, you know,
like with puberty and stuff, like when do
(11:51):
you find out what sexuality you're gonna be?
The beauty of it was, was that we
had a conversation that covers, I think a
lot of the content that we talk about
in our sessions around how connection and attraction
and romance is all a journey and something
that people experience between all different kinds of
people and that it will look different for
(12:12):
everybody.
And I noticed that student over the following
weeks, because every time we would bring up
the conversation around crushes or people being excited
about holding hands with someone or all those
cute kinds of things, I'd watch them get
this big grin on their face.
And at the very end of the three
(12:33):
sessions, they came up to me and as
a queer educator as well, myself, they said,
thank you so much for coming to our
school because I didn't know that you could
actually be queer and be a grownup.
And now I know that things are gonna
be okay.
Yeah, that was great.
You know, we do our sessions and we
(12:54):
don't exactly know what impact it can have.
And yeah, when we are talking to 25
kids and we leave, you know, there's things
that are hopefully gonna stick with them.
And I think that's pretty amazing.
Oh, I love, I love the what if
kids.
What if a person, like a woman, was
(13:18):
walking down the street and she was ovulating
and she was walking down the street, she
was ovulating and she accidentally slipped in this
huge pile of dog sperm and some of
the sperm went in her.
Would that make like a half human, half
dog baby?
(13:40):
Or if some sperm goes in the toilet
and fish drink it, do they become pregnant?
I love the what if kid.
I just told a whole group of year
six kids how babies are made.
And it was really new news.
And I heard two girls walking away out
of the class just going, oh, I'm really
traumatised.
But then they said, I just wish I'd
(14:01):
always known this.
And I thought that was so astute because
if they'd had the information earlier, it wouldn't
be freakish, it wouldn't be weird, it would
be normal.
And that's what it should be.
Talking to the names of different body parts
and the person presenting that I was observing
had just talked about the vulva and what
the vulva is and using that word.
(14:22):
And there was a boy who turned to
the boy next to him and he goes,
I thought that was a kind of car.
Seeing all the different ways they can spell
pregnancy.
My current favourite one is pregenacy.
And then I also had a kid spell
clitoral aurorus, like a dinosaur.
(14:42):
What about, you know, when they call testicles
things like tentacles?
It's hilarious.
Or that when a woman is having a
baby, she has contraptions.
Favourite ever question that came from a young
person, which I told you about, because it's
my favourite thing.
Can a girl eat her own eggs to
(15:03):
survive?
And I think about that every day.
Adorable, we could go on forever.
You've heard from some of the people who
will be hosting or contributing to future episodes
(15:24):
of this podcast.
Thanks to those who have listened to my
voice over the last 70 plus episodes.
Please keep tuning in.
We still have plenty to talk about.
For more information on Sexual Health Victoria, you
can follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, or
TikTok.
There's lots of information on our website about
professional development for teachers, youth workers, and medical
(15:46):
professionals.
We have lots of free resources on our
website and also free teaching activities and a
range of online education courses.
You can contact us directly at doingit.shvic
.org.au. Thanks so much for listening.
This podcast was created on Wurundjeri land.
Adult topics may be discussed.
Take care if you have young people listening
in.
Welcome to Doing It.
This is a podcast made by Sexual Health
Victoria.
We run a whole lot of education programs
for communities and medical professionals across Victoria.
We also run sexual health clinics in the
(00:21):
city and Box Hill in Melbourne.
My name is Anne and I'm part of
the Sexual Health Victoria schools and community team.
We run classes for all year levels on
bodies, growing up, puberty, sex, reproduction and relationships.
This podcast is for parents and carers of
school aged children, so we can share what
goes on in our relationships and sexuality education
class and help support these sorts of conversations
(00:44):
at home.
I've been making the podcast since 2019 and
I've spoken to so many wonderful people in
an effort to help people feel safe and
comfortable with the delivery of relationships and sexuality
education in schools.
Since I started doing this kind of work
and making the podcast, there's been a shift
in the types of things people wanna know
(01:05):
about and how they perceive relationships and sexuality
education.
There have been important changes to how we
talk about sex and gender and how we
include difference in human sexuality.
Another change that I've noticed is the type
of person who's interested in doing this kind
of work.
The schools, community and disability team is growing.
(01:26):
With that growth comes a diversity of voices
and experiences.
So now's a good time to hand over
to a bigger range of voices.
You'll be hearing more from them in upcoming
episodes of Doing It.
I would like to introduce the schools, community
and disability team by asking them what young
people ask us frequently in class.
(01:48):
Why do they do this job?
Okay, so it's recording now.
I've been doing this work for 30 years.
The thing that grounds it is that having
sexual health information and agency for your own
sexuality, your own body for relationships is a
(02:13):
matter of human rights.
And it's about recognising that as humans, we
need connection and support.
Sexuality is a part of who we are
that we express in various ways.
I remember what it was like to be
a young person, even though that was a
billion years ago.
And something that I always wanted to know
(02:35):
about the things that we weren't really supposed
to talk about.
Whether that was sex or other topics, I
always felt like it was really, there was
a truth that people, the grownups around me
weren't always talking about.
And I think that's one of the most
important things to me in doing this job
is that we're able to be those role
(02:56):
models for young people and also for the
adults who support them in being able to
have these really frank and open and honest
conversations and speak the truth to what is
a really essential informative part of life and
not sugarcoat it and not make it seem
like it's something to be ashamed of.
Working in primarily or exclusively the disability space,
(03:20):
it's about giving people who aren't always given
access to information, education, and support around relationships,
meaningful interactions, providing them with knowledge and skills
to make informed choices, to live their best
sexual and romantic lives, and to protect themselves
(03:43):
if they need it because they've got the
language and skills to do so.
I have my own young people too, so
I'm motivated for them to have an inclusive
and diverse sex and relationships education.
I don't know, ever since I was young,
I remember seeing this pattern and I was
watching my friends and my family and the
(04:04):
people in my community around me and there
seemed to be this consistency in that a
lot of the source of both, the biggest
sources of pain in people's lives as well
as the biggest sources of joy seemed to
be related to the same thing and it
was always relationships or sexuality or their body
or shame.
(04:26):
And the difference that I saw between the
two was information.
I'm so grateful to be a part of
a team where we can give people that
sense of warmth and knowledge and opportunity.
And aside from all the serious things, the
social justice, the advocacy, the sexual and reproductive
health, I think it's also just really fun.
And I think it's just such a joy
(04:49):
to be able to have such rich conversations,
not just about sexuality and the science of
sexual health, but the sociology and like this,
it's just such a complex, rich area of
discussion and I'm just so lucky to be
able to have those kinds of discussions with
this team, but also with the young people
that we work with.
I think it's really nice to see the
(05:09):
sort of relaxing into talking about a topic
that is so taboo and comes with so
many layers of complexity.
It's nice just to sort of shine some
light and some joy and some fun on
those kinds of topics.
I love doing this work because the types
of relationships that we choose to have and
with whom are so fundamental to our human
(05:30):
experience.
And whether that's a romantic or sexual or
platonic or relationship with yourself or no one
at all, young people want to have those
conversations and deserve to have those from a
really young age and often.
And so to me, it's a privilege to
do this work and to have those conversations
with young people and with a team of
(05:50):
people who do that.
And it's really affirming to sit in a
room of young people and see them understand
that what they're thinking and experiencing is normal
and that they're not weird and strange.
The reason I do this job is it
has allowed me to really reflect on my
own experience as a young person and how
(06:12):
I really fumbled my way through that time.
My relationships and sexuality education was very poor
and it was really lonely.
And so now I feel really honored but
also responsible to be able to shift the
narrative for young people around these kind of
topics.
(06:32):
And I'm excited that we are shifting that.
Like I do it because it's fun.
But the like more serious answer is I
think that young people have the right to
information and we have a responsibility as like
the adults in their lives to give them
this information and make sure they feel less
scared about it.
We as adults also feel scared about it.
(06:52):
So there has to be people like us
who commit to doing this job.
So we start these conversations and we also
encourage other adults to have these conversations.
I think for me as a queer trans
person and a teacher, I feel a great
honor and debt to the elders.
Queer elders came before me and how much
they fought and advocated so someone like me
(07:14):
could walk into a classroom and teach young
people about this subject.
And I've also come to learn that bigotry
and stigma is usually a lack of understanding
and a fear of the unknown.
And by having an opportunity to open up
these conversations, it actually helps people to walk
alongside and to work together to advocate the
same thing which we all want is to
(07:34):
feel a sense of belonging and safety and
love.
I think that after teaching in schools for
many years and teaching topics that students may
or may not have cared about at different
times, I now get to go into classrooms
and deliver information that is tangible to them.
And no matter what classroom I walk into
and how many of the kids pay attention,
(07:55):
I always know that at least one person
walks out of there with a new bit
of information that is important to them.
And that makes me feel good that I
can do that for them.
And also I like advocating for the voices
of young people to be heard more when
we're talking about decisions that affect them.
(08:15):
I do this work because I get to
talk about sex and I have always wanted
to talk about sex.
And that was always a deeply shameful thing.
When I was younger and the world, I
think like others have mentioned that I grew
up in was not very receptive to a
young woman wanting to talk about sex, wanting
to pursue pleasure or understand what that was
(08:38):
or talk about bodies or experiences like that.
And after having taught young people for 15
years and watching the world that they're growing
up in and the changes that have happened
around them and that there is more openness
around those topics, I just deeply wanna be
involved in those conversations with them while that's
(08:58):
happening.
There was a young male identifying person in
the room who wanted to test my mettle.
And lots of kids do that as we
run sessions.
They wanna see what they can say and
how we're gonna react.
And his question in front of the class
(09:21):
group was, if you have a disease and
you suck your own dick, can you give
it to yourself?
And of course, your head goes through all
of the scenarios when you're about to answer
this.
And I thought to myself, mate, if you
could suck your own dick, you'd never leave
the house.
(09:43):
But I kept my professional face on as
we all do and we're teaching sexual health
literacy.
So I said, look, if you could suck
your own penis, because we're all about correct
anatomical terminology, and you had a sexually transmissible
infection, because we're building sexual health literacy, you
(10:04):
wouldn't give it to yourself because you'd already
have it, but you could transfer it from
your penis to your mouth.
And he went, ah, and I didn't hear
from him again.
So we get a lot of concern that
we're gonna answer questions from kids, that kids
(10:25):
are gonna give us questions that are gonna
set off the stratosphere of problematic issues, when
really, if you just answer things in a
calm, professional voice, it goes away really, really
quickly and doesn't create a problem.
A couple of years ago, I had a
(10:45):
student in class, we were sitting around talking
about a novel, I think it was English,
and she put her hand up and said,
I need to go to the toilet.
And I was like, okay, no problem.
She's like, it's just that I've got my
period and it's the second day and it's
quite heavy.
I was like, okay.
She's like, so yeah.
And then she just opened up her bag
in the classroom, rifled around, took out a
(11:06):
tampon, held it in her hand and walked
out of the classroom towards the school toilets.
It sounds so small, such a tiny little
thing, but just her complete confidence in being
able to speak about a thing that happens
to her body, that happens to lots of
people's bodies if they have a uterus, in
this casual way, just made me explode with
(11:29):
joy for that.
Maybe one of my first schools and a
kid came up to me at the end
of class and was looking very nervous and
shuffling their feet and playing with their hands
and just quietly said to me, you know,
like with puberty and stuff, like when do
(11:51):
you find out what sexuality you're gonna be?
The beauty of it was, was that we
had a conversation that covers, I think a
lot of the content that we talk about
in our sessions around how connection and attraction
and romance is all a journey and something
that people experience between all different kinds of
people and that it will look different for
(12:12):
everybody.
And I noticed that student over the following
weeks, because every time we would bring up
the conversation around crushes or people being excited
about holding hands with someone or all those
cute kinds of things, I'd watch them get
this big grin on their face.
And at the very end of the three
(12:33):
sessions, they came up to me and as
a queer educator as well, myself, they said,
thank you so much for coming to our
school because I didn't know that you could
actually be queer and be a grownup.
And now I know that things are gonna
be okay.
Yeah, that was great.
You know, we do our sessions and we
(12:54):
don't exactly know what impact it can have.
And yeah, when we are talking to 25
kids and we leave, you know, there's things
that are hopefully gonna stick with them.
And I think that's pretty amazing.
Oh, I love, I love the what if
kids.
What if a person, like a woman, was
(13:18):
walking down the street and she was ovulating
and she was walking down the street, she
was ovulating and she accidentally slipped in this
huge pile of dog sperm and some of
the sperm went in her.
Would that make like a half human, half
dog baby?
(13:40):
Or if some sperm goes in the toilet
and fish drink it, do they become pregnant?
I love the what if kid.
I just told a whole group of year
six kids how babies are made.
And it was really new news.
And I heard two girls walking away out
of the class just going, oh, I'm really
traumatised.
But then they said, I just wish I'd
(14:01):
always known this.
And I thought that was so astute because
if they'd had the information earlier, it wouldn't
be freakish, it wouldn't be weird, it would
be normal.
And that's what it should be.
Talking to the names of different body parts
and the person presenting that I was observing
had just talked about the vulva and what
the vulva is and using that word.
(14:22):
And there was a boy who turned to
the boy next to him and he goes,
I thought that was a kind of car.
Seeing all the different ways they can spell
pregnancy.
My current favourite one is pregenacy.
And then I also had a kid spell
clitoral aurorus, like a dinosaur.
(14:42):
What about, you know, when they call testicles
things like tentacles?
It's hilarious.
Or that when a woman is having a
baby, she has contraptions.
Favourite ever question that came from a young
person, which I told you about, because it's
my favourite thing.
Can a girl eat her own eggs to
(15:03):
survive?
And I think about that every day.
Adorable, we could go on forever.
You've heard from some of the people who
will be hosting or contributing to future episodes
(15:24):
of this podcast.
Thanks to those who have listened to my
voice over the last 70 plus episodes.
Please keep tuning in.
We still have plenty to talk about.
For more information on Sexual Health Victoria, you
can follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, or
TikTok.
There's lots of information on our website about
professional development for teachers, youth workers, and medical
(15:46):
professionals.
We have lots of free resources on our
website and also free teaching activities and a
range of online education courses.
You can contact us directly at doingit.shvic
.org.au. Thanks so much for listening.
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