70-08

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Ventura High School Journalism 2 North Catalina, Ventura CA 93001 thecougarpress.org

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The Cougar Press Friday, March 2, 2018

Volume 70 Edition 08

“Answering questions is a major part of sexual education.” -Bertrand Russell

Sexual education: not widely talked about, but should it be? According to “Renew

comprehensive sex ed. We are not

the U.S. commitment to sexual

doing condom demonstrations.

education,” from The Washington

We are not teaching young

According to a report

Post, “Congress increased to

people about consent... We are

released by the U.S. Center for

75 million a year funding for

making them feel bad about their

Disease Control and Prevention,

programs that promote abstinence

bodies…”

fewer than 50 percent of high

until marriage.” The article goes

schools,

and only a fifth of

on to emphasize that this does not

High School, who wished to

middle schools, taught all 16

give students in their adolescence

remain anonymous, shared, “I

nationally recommended lessons

all the information they need to

learned a great majority from

on topics for sexual health

make their own decisions when

the internet, some from my

education. In addition to this, less

it comes to becoming sexually

mom, and a very slim amount

than 40 percent of high schools

active or not.

from school which was mostly

nationwide require sex and health

Lynn Barclay, President

just STD and STI information.”

education for graduation.

and CEO of the American Sexual

When asked how old they were

Health

declared

when they were taught about sex,

22 states in the U.S. mandate

in an interview with Rachel

the student said, “I learned about

sexual education and only 13

Sanoff from bustle.com, “We

sex [when I was] very young.”

states require that the instruction

are doing such a poor job on so

be medically accurate.

many subjects. We are not doing

Sailor Hawes Ryan King

Illustration by: Avenlea Russian

More specifically, only

Association,

A student from Ventura

continued on ... page 5

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Gays in my Community? It’s more likely than students think Alijca Fowler Kai Torres

Rainbow Umbrella takes place every Friday at the Community Resource Center off of Portola Road in Ventura, CA. Project Pride meets every Wednesday from 7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

Ventura High School also has their own Gender Sexuality Alliance club on campus that has an abundance of resources for other LGBTQ+ students. The club is run by senior co-presidents, Terra Bransfield and Maritza Duran. When asked about GSA, Duran said, “We’re a place where anyone can come in and feel safe about their gender and sexuality. We’re open to anyone and everyone.” GSA meets every Friday in room 124 during lunch. Any VHS students that are interested can attend. These resources are an important part of both the local and school community, but not many people know about them. Hopefully this gives everyone an opportunity to check them out if they are at all interested and need any help or have any questions.

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The LGBTQ+ community has many places in Ventura County where people can hang out and access resources, including the Diversity Collective (DCVC). DCVC is a collection of therapists and suppor t g roups for LGBTQ+ youth. One of these g roups is Rainbow Umbrella. Rainbow Umbrella takes place ever y Friday at the Community Resource Center off of Por tola Road in Ventura, CA. Another resource for LGBTQ+ youth is Project Pride, which is based in Fillmore. This g roup primarily ser ves communities in the Santa Clara Valley, including Fillmore and Pir u.

Fillmore High School senior, Marlen Barragan, is one of the heads of Project Pride . She said, “I made Project Pride so students had a safe place outside of the [Fillmore High] school [Social Equality] club. Project Pride is not only based off of LGBTQ+ issues, but is also involved with One Billion Rising.”

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