50 years of waiting for sexuality education
What we can learn from the Royal Commission into Human Relationships' recommendations for sex and sexuality education.
Anne Deveson, Elizabeth Evatt (Chair), and Felix Arnott, Commissioners
In 1974, Gough Whitlam established the Royal Commission into Human Relationships. In the terms of reference, the Commissioners were asked to inquire into “the extent of relevant existing education programs, including sex education programs, and their effectiveness in promoting responsible sexual behaviour and providing a sound basis in the fundamentals of male and female relationships in the Australian social environment”.
It's 50 years later and the national curriculum still doesn’t have comprehensive coverage of sex, sexuality, gender, consent, and respectful relationships. They’re still trying to work out whether private schools can sack LQBTIQA+ teachers and students.
Queer kids have long been unwilling cannon fodder in ideological battles over marriage equality, abortion, and conservative voters (more on this coming next week). It looks like the dogs of war are massing at another battlefield. Dutton wants a wedge issue and he’s not going to do anything to discourage the malevolent buffoonery that will come with it.
Given that, it’s useful to know some of the backstory. I’ll start with the 1974 Royal Commission and what it said about sex and sexuality education.
The final reports were published in 1977 amid the political upheaval of the dismissal and the backlash over massive social change in the 70s. The five volumes are some of the most fascinating documents in Australian history. Some of the terminology is offensive by modern understanding, but many of the reports and recommendations could have been written today.
The Commissioners investigated rape, homosexuality, abortion, racism, Aboriginal self-determination, domestic violence, family planning, inadequate care for the elderly and people with disabilities, police and court responses to violence against women and children, poverty, housing, and medical care.
The Commissioners made 483 recommendations. Some have been implemented. Too many we’re still waiting for (one day I’m going to find the time to go through the full list and document what happened to each of them).
The first 29 recommendations were about education for human relationships. These were written 50 years ago and at the time, western understanding of gender was still entirely binary. While all the recommendations are based on a boy/girl framework, the Commissioners knew that our understanding of sex and sexuality was still developing and education for children needed to be constantly reviewed and updated - see 5 (f) below.
While we can’t know what they would have said about education for children regarding modern understanding of gender, we do know how they responded to sexuality as it was understood at the time.
To put this in context, keep in mind that homosexuality was still a crime in most Australian states in the early 1970s. A submission from the Anglican Diocese of Sydney stated:
“Homosexuality is regarded in the standard psychiatric textbooks as deviancy, and, sharing this view, we resist current moves in society to accept or even encourage it as an alternative lifestyle . . . homosexual behaviour, male and female, is an activity which affects the public good, and therefore must never be given the status of an accepted form of sexual activity by society.”
The Commission’s response was to recommend education:
“It is our conviction that education should be given to children in schools, to parents, teachers and medical students about homosexuality and that selected homosexuals should be involved in such programs. Such programs must be factual, balanced and non-judgmental. Better sex education programs will help to eliminate prejudice and discrimination.”
Almost 50 years after these recommendations were published (and largely ignored by the Fraser government), we are, hopefully, closer than we were in Whitlam’s time, but there is still a lot of work to do to get as far as the commissioners wanted us to be in thr 1970s.
As the commissioners said all those years ago, “Education should produce an acceptance of sexuality, and individuals who know and accept themselves and are tolerant of the differences which exist in others.”
We knew it 50 years ago. We know it now. We shouldn’t still be waiting.
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Royal Commission into Human Relationship’s recommendations for sex and sexuality education:
50 years of waiting for sexuality education
In 1974, Gough Whitlam established the Royal Commission into Human Relationships. In the terms of reference, the Commissioners were asked to inquire into “the extent of relevant existing education programs, including sex education programs, and their effectiveness in promoting responsible sexual behaviour and providing a sound basis in the fundamentals of male and female relationships in the Australian social environment”.
It's 50 years later and the national curriculum still doesn’t have comprehensive coverage of sex, sexuality, gender, consent, and respectful relationships. They’re still trying to work out whether private schools can sack LQBTIQA+ teachers and students.
Queer kids have long been unwilling cannon fodder in ideological battles over marriage equality, abortion, and conservative voters (more on this coming next week). It looks like the dogs of war are massing at another battlefield. Dutton wants a wedge issue and he’s not going to do anything to discourage the malevolent buffoonery that will come with it.
Given that, it’s useful to know some of the backstory. I’ll start with the 1974 Royal Commission and what it said about sex and sexuality education.
The final reports were published in 1977 amid the political upheaval of the dismissal and the backlash over massive social change in the 70s. The five volumes are some of the most fascinating documents in Australian history. Some of the terminology is offensive by modern understanding, but many of the reports and recommendations could have been written today.
The Commissioners investigated rape, homosexuality, abortion, racism, Aboriginal self-determination, domestic violence, family planning, inadequate care for the elderly and people with disabilities, police and court responses to violence against women and children, poverty, housing, and medical care.
The Commissioners made 483 recommendations. Some have been implemented. Too many we’re still waiting for (one day I’m going to find the time to go through the full list and document what happened to each of them).
The first 29 recommendations were about education for human relationships. These were written 50 years ago and at the time, western understanding of gender was still entirely binary. While all the recommendations are based on a boy/girl framework, the Commissioners knew that our understanding of sex and sexuality was still developing and education for children needed to be constantly reviewed and updated - see 5 (f) below.
While we can’t know what they would have said about education for children regarding modern understanding of gender, we do know how they responded to sexuality as it was understood at the time.
To put this in context, keep in mind that homosexuality was still a crime in most Australian states in the early 1970s. A submission from the Anglican Diocese of Sydney stated:
“Homosexuality is regarded in the standard psychiatric textbooks as deviancy, and, sharing this view, we resist current moves in society to accept or even encourage it as an alternative lifestyle . . . homosexual behaviour, male and female, is an activity which affects the public good, and therefore must never be given the status of an accepted form of sexual activity by society.”
The Commission’s response was to recommend education:
“It is our conviction that education should be given to children in schools, to parents, teachers and medical students about homosexuality and that selected homosexuals should be involved in such programs. Such programs must be factual, balanced and non-judgmental. Better sex education programs will help to eliminate prejudice and discrimination.”
Almost 50 years after these recommendations were published (and largely ignored by the Fraser government), we are, hopefully, closer than we were in Whitlam’s time, but there is still a lot of work to do to get as far as the commissioners wanted us to be in thr 1970s.
As the commissioners said all those years ago, “Education should produce an acceptance of sexuality, and individuals who know and accept themselves and are tolerant of the differences which exist in others.”
We knew it 50 years ago. We know it now. We shouldn’t still be waiting.
-------------
Quotes from the Royal Commission into Human Relationship’s recommendations for sex and sexuality education:
“3. Education for human relationships should aim to be an integral part of education in all subjects at every stage and level.
4. Education in all fields and at all levels should provide opportunities for boys and girls to:
a) develop a knowledge and understanding of the functions of emotion, feeling and caring in relationships;
b) become aware of the varying attitudes to male and female roles in society and the ways in which these attitudes affect aspirations;
c) discuss situations in their own lives and in society in which boys and girls, men and women are treated differently and to examine the origins of these differences and the reasons for their continuation;
d) assess the effect of peer pressure;
e) learn to appreciate the power of social forces and institutions (including the
f) media) to influence the development of individual personality and choice of life style;
g) develop skills in communication and interpersonal relationships, and for this purpose to acquire a correct vocabulary of sexuality.”
“5. Education departments should develop comprehensive human relationships education programs that:
a) are appropriate to age and tolerant of differences in background and origins;
b) begin in the primary school and are completed by school leaving age;
c) are factual and frank;
d) are comprehensive in the range of subject matters;
e) are given by specially trained teachers in small groups of boys and girls;
f) are constantly researched and evaluated.”