Opting for “Sexual Wellbeing for All”: Community & Sex Education in Alberta, 1970s and 2024

Karissa Patton and Nancy Janovicek

Eric Dyck’s comic lampoons a longstanding dispute on sex education in Canada: comprehensive sex education as crucial to young people’s health, bodily autonomy, and human rights vs. parents’ rights to make decisions about what knowledge and services their children’s access. Since the 1960s, students and youth have been vocal in the debates about curriculum on sex ed (Sethna 2005, 2006; Patton 2021). Most recently, they have demanded GSAs and defended the inclusion of education about sexuality, gender identity and expression, and sexual orientation. In response parents’ rights groups have mobilized campaigns to oppose inclusive sex education. These groups mobilise broad and valid concerns from parents about their children’s education but, ultimately, the social conservatives leading these campaigns use homophobia and anti-trans sentiments that target extremely vulnerable youth.

Dyck’s cartoon is a response to the anti-trans policies introduced by the UCP on social media on 31 January 2024. The UCP announcement followed similar policies in the United States, New Brunswick and Saskatchewan, but the extent of the changes in Alberta surprised advocates for queer and trans youth and sexual health education. In addition to requiring schools to report to parents when a student changes their name and/or pronouns, the policies include restrictions on access to puberty blockers and hormone therapy for youth under 16 and top and bottom surgery for youth under 18. (Bottom surgeries are currently not permitted for youth in Alberta and top surgeries are rare.) The new policies also include a gender and trans discriminatory ban on trans-women competing in women’s sports leagues. A recent CBC investigation found that the Alberta Health Services (AHS) Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Expression (SOGIE) provincial advisory council, whose mandate is to advise the AHS on 2SLGBTQ+ health care, were surprised by the announcement and not consulted on the policies. One member of the council wrote, “This announcement is politically motivated and not based on fact or clinical guidelines.” Despite expert advice that these policies are harmful, the Alberta government maintains that these changes are essential in strengthening parental rights in the province.

Many experts have criticized the anti-trans policies because they ignore evidence-based research that demonstrates that restrictive sex education programs harm youth. This Active History post focuses on the requirement for parents to “opt in” for their children to participate in any lesson about sex education, sexual orientation, or gender health. Third-party presenters on sexual health or gender and sexual identity must be approved by the Ministry of Education to ensure that the materials are age-appropriate.

Community organisations that provide sex education within and outside of schools, including the Centre for Sexuality (CfS) in Calgary, are alarmed by these policy changes that have undone decades of building a health sex education curriculum in the province. The CfS is a community-based organization dedicated to supporting “sexual well-being for all,” that has provided relationship and sexual health education in Calgary area junior and high schools since 1975. The CfS’s roots are in the Calgary Birth Control Association (CBCA), founded as an abortion referral organization in 1972. From the early 1970s onwards, CBCA activists have lobbied for relationship and sexual health education to address a perceived crisis in teenage pregnancy (Patton 2021). In response to the recent policy changes, Pam Krause, the CEO & President of CfS, told the press that the shift to an “opt-in” approach sends the message to children and youth that these topics are taboo. Krause explained why this education is essential: “It is about health, things like pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections, those are very important things for youth to learn. And there are totally age-appropriate ways to get this information across and it is the prime time to be talking to young people so they can be thoughtful about the decisions they make in the future.” Sexual health advocates are concerned that the requirement that parents opt-in to sexual health curriculum will mean that many students will not learn lessons that are crucial to their health and safety. Current advocacy builds on a long history of feminist activism to demand access to reproductive health services and sex education.

“We would like to have information”

This is not the first time that sex education and parental rights have stirred up controversy in Alberta. In the 1970s, as reproductive rights changed across Canada and sex education was introduced into the provincial curriculum, moral panic about controlling youth’s sexuality sparked debates about reproductive, sexual, and parental rights. Throughout the 1970s, many Albertans wrote to their local newspapers and politicians arguing parents should have control over their children’s access to sex education and contraception and abortion services. But others advocated for comprehensive sex education in schools so youth’s education would not be limited to their individual parents’ views or knowledge on the subject. The emergence of birth control centres brought these debates to a head as youth could access sex, contraception, and abortion information outside of highly surveilled spaces like church, school, or their own home.

While birth control centres in 1970s Alberta were met with both support and opposition, the reproductive and sexual health services and education they provided had a significant impact on the province’s youth. Alberta has a rich history of reproductive rights and feminist health activism and the 1970s saw the establishment of the Lethbridge Birth Control & Information Centre, the Edmonton Family Planning Association, the Calgary Birth Control Association, and several smaller activist birth control services in places like Medicine Hat and Slave Lake. In this post, we rely on the history of the CBCA to exemplify why accessible, inclusive, and youth-friendly reproductive and sexual health education is so important.

While contraception and abortion were legally available for teenagers in the 1970s, the cultural attitudes that chastised premarital sex and teen pregnancy presented significant barriers to teens access to reproductive and sexual health services. Parental control over youths’ access to contraception and abortion services was not legislated in the 1970s but in some cases individual physicians, clinics, and hospitals operated under official and unofficial policies that required parental consent for youth to access these health services. Some physicians simply refused to provide these reproductive services to girls under 16- or 18-years-old at all.

The CBCA, like other local birth control centres in the province, became a safe place for youth to visit or contact to have their sexual and reproductive health questions answered. Many teens came to the Association in downtown Calgary to peruse their information library, attend their workshops, or discuss their reproductive realities with contraception and abortion counsellors. Those living outside the city couldn’t access the CBCA services without a car and explanation about why they needed to visit Calgary. And the stigma surrounding premarital sexuality, contraception use, and abortion meant that many worried about being seen at the CBCA by family, neighbours, or family friends. Location and shame created significant barriers to youth’s access to reproductive and sexual health services, even within teen-friendly spaces like the CBCA.

But these barriers did not always prevent youth’s access to sex and contraceptive education. The CBCA volunteers and employees began mailing out reproductive and sexual health literature to youth who called or wrote letters asking for information about sex and birth control. In 1972, for example, three Calgary teenagers wrote to the CBCA, requesting that staff discretely send information about birth control methods and abortion:

“We are girls who have begun to have sexual relationships with our boyfriends. We would like to have information on the eight different methods of contraception. Along with this, could you please, send us some information on abortion? We would appreciate it very much. Please send this information to […] address as above, in an unmarked envelope, as the parents involved would not approve.” (Letter 1972, CBCA Collection).

Other teen clients of the CBCA necessarily kept their sexual and reproductive health needs from their parents to avoid abuse and ensure their own safety. Jean Phillips, a CBCA volunteer, recounted one abortion counselling session from the early 1970s in which two sisters revealed they had an abusive father. As Phillips ended the session, the non-pregnant sister told her, “our dad is a bastard. […] He threw me across the room and my spine is wrecked” and the pregnant client added, “he broke my nose last summer” (Phillips “diary entry” 1972, CBCA Collection).

These experiences demonstrate that home was not always an open or safe space to ask sex education questions and that, in these cases, youth found a way to get the information they needed. Within this context, teen and youth friendly spaces, like the CBCA, provided evidence based, shame free information that empowered youth to make their own sexual and health decisions.    

From Parental Rights to Societal Responsibility

Sexual health advocates’ concern that the recent policy changes in Alberta will teach children and youth that topics about their sexuality and gender are off limits is historically based. Stigma surrounding youth’s sexuality put youth in precarious positions when it came to their sexual and reproductive health during the 1970s. While many youth exercised their sexual and reproductive rights, others necessarily hid their unplanned pregnancies, contraceptive use, or abortions from their parents to ensure their own personal safety. If the stigma around premarital sexuality affected youth significantly during a period of liberalisation of sex education curriculums and reproductive rights and health services, imagine the state of youth’s sexual, reproductive, and personal wellbeing and safety when a government claws back their rights to sex education and gender affirming health care.

The UCP insists that expanding parental rights is necessary to protect children. Erin Gallagher-Cohoon and Kristopher Wells argue that many parents want their children to have knowledge about gender and sexual diversity and for their children to have access to gender affirming care. These policies take away their rights. Examining a long history in Alberta of anti-2SLGBTQ+ policies, they explain why the rhetorical strategy of “protecting innocent children” continues to resonate in ongoing debates about balancing access to relationship and sexual health education with parental rights. This focus on parental rights ignores the fact that safety is not always guaranteed at home, especially for queer youth.

This parental rights framework has targeted 2SLGBTQ+ communities and has made young people (straight and queer) vulnerable to STIs, unwanted pregnancies, and non-consensual sex. It’s time to shift the conversation to parental and societal responsibility. Rather than pitting children’s and parents’ rights against each other, this framework opens possibilities for youth to play a role in developing services and programs based on their own experiences. It also recognizes that young people have a right to envision a future based on the “sexual well-being of all.”

References:

Letter to the CBCA, 6 December 1972, M-7265-80, CBCA Collection, Glenbow Archives.

‘Diary’ volunteer log by Jean Phillips, 1972, M-7265-39, CBCA Collection, Glenbow Archives.

Patton, Karissa Robyn. “Con[tra]cepts of Care: Southern Alberta Birth Control Centres & Reproductive Healthcare, 1969-1979.” PhD Diss. (University of Saskatchewan, 2021).

Sethna, Christabelle. “The evolution of the birth control handbook: from student peer-education manual to feminist self-empowerment text, 1968-1975.” Canadian Bulletin of Medical History vol. 23 no.1 (2006): 89-117.

Sethna, Christabelle. “The University of Toronto Health Service, Oral Contraception, and Student Demand for Birth Control, 1960-1970”. Historical Studies in Education / Revue d’histoire De l’éducation vol. 17 no. 2 (2005): 265-92.

In the spirit of truth and reconciliation, we acknowledge Moh’kinssstis and the traditional territories of the Indigenous nations of Treaty 7: the Blackfoot Confederacy (Siksika, Kainai, Piikani), the Tsuut’ina, the Iyarhe Nakoda Nations, and the Otipemisiwak Métis Government of the Métis Nation within Alberta District 6.

Karissa Robyn Patton is a historian of gender, sexuality, health, and activism. She works as an Interdisciplinary Research Fellow at the Centre for Biomedicine, Self and Society. Her research uses reproductive justice frameworks, oral history interviewing, and engagement methodologies, with a focus on bringing the past in conversation with present day reproductive and sexual health matters. She is especially interested in histories of feminist health activism in the late 20^th century. You can find some of her work in Bucking Conservatism and the Canadian Historical Review.

Nancy Janovicek (she/her) is professor of History at the University of Calgary. She is currently working on articles about feminist activism in Alberta focusing on the Alberta Status of Women Action Committee’s Women against Poverty Campaign and the Centre for Sexuality’s advocacy for healthy sexuality for people living with disabilities. She has served on the board of the Women’s Centre of Calgary and is active in politics in the city of Calgary and province of Alberta.