Season 2, Episode 67

Silenced By Stigma Over Comprehensive Sex Education with Justine Ang Fonte

This week, Jay chats with Justine Ang Fonte. You may have heard of her. As she jokes early in the interview, she's been target #1 by right-wing trolls since becoming internet famous over... simply existing. Simply doing her job. Teaching children honest and fact-based education around sex and health. Justine was, until this spring, a sex and health educator in a New York school. Unfortunately, her school allowed her not only to be the target of harassment by parents but, eventually, The New York Post and other trash "journalism". Justine resigned and soon after began speaking out about this experience and how stigma over sex is allowed to silence education and keep us from making progress on a whole host of important issues.

We also talk about how stupid the idea of 'cancel culture' is (Justine had her life upended and received death threats over teaching health, Louis C.K. is headlining Madison Square Garden, who was really canceled?) and how we can fix the horrible issue of stigma around sex holding back comprehensive and healthy education. Spoiler alert, it's going to take a lot of work and parents being willing to educate themselves. We'll see... don't hold your breath. But, as Justine says in this conversation, these lessons could help prevent such famous examples of abuse as the aforementioned Louis C.K., The Catholic Church, and the Boy Scouts and on and on and on and on.

Learn more about Justine at her website, https://www.justinefonte.com/.

Today's Good Egg: Send someone food, not thoughts and prayers, which are useless. They're useless. Stop it. Send food, which isn't useless.

Looking for someone to wow your audience now that the world is reopening? My speaking calendar is booking up fast! But if you're interested in bringing me to your campus, your community group, your organization or any other location to speak about Mental Health, Substance Misuse & Recovery, or Drug Use & Policy, reach out to my strategist Ryan Holzhauer at ryan@jayshifman.com.

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