Sex education is a tricky topic all over the world. When is too early to teach it? When is too late? But, in Latin America, throw in a hefty dose of conservatism and a pervasive Catholic culture and you’ve found yourself an explosive mixture.
Argentina passed a law in 2006 that proposed a country-wide comprehensive sexual education curriculum (ESI), that would include teaching children about contraception and promote non-discrimination against LGBT individuals. Thirteen years later it is sporadically being implemented and to varying degrees across provinces and in schools. Last year a follow-up commission was created to bring the ESI into the public eye again, and by highlighting the importance of valuing sexual diversity and addressing the term “gender” in addition to biological sex, they certainly succeeded, but unlikely in the way they intended.
Why has the new ESI proposal been met with so much resistance?
It is the “gender ideology” component that many people are rejecting. This means separating and valuing a person’s “gender” (a social role based on an individual’s self-identity) in addition to their “sex” (the anatomy that determines whether you are biologically male or female).
The Argentine anti-gender ideology movement #ConMisHijosNoTeMetas (Don’t mess with my kids) states on their Facebook page that the term gender “applies to a focus that interprets the human according to invented concepts, with neither scientific backing or foundation. It wants to take the place of and denaturalise the human reality.”
The law’s objective to “value diversity” has also been interpreted as a promotion of homosexuality and an attempt to break down the traditional family structure. Many also believe that too much content is being taught at a very young age.
“We worry that it will eroticise our children systematically, and too early,” Mónica del Río, head of the Federal Family Network, told Latin America Reports. “We reject the ESI that is trying to impose itself in a totalitarian way, because we want to educate for love, for marriage, and for family.”
Is ESI resistance fueled by traditional views and Catholic heritage?
The Spanish colonists justified their claims to the New World based on a Christianizing mission, explained Latin American professor John F. Schwaller in the book “The Church in Colonial Latin America,” adding that people were born, lived and died under Church control. Despite the fact that adherents to Catholicism are declining in the region (from 98% in the 1970’s to just 59% currently), a Pew Research report suggests that this reduction could be attributed to a movement from Catholicism to other branches of the Christian faith such as Protestantism or Anglicanism. Read more via Latin America Reports
