Tanya Turner
LGBTQ Inclusive Sex Education

While the lessons from Sexy Sex Ed had a positive impact on me and the way I felt toward my body, I left the workshop feeling angry. Angry that my classmates did not receive this education. Angry that it took me 18 years to receive the sex education I knew I needed and deserved.

Tanya Turner
Sex Ed with DB Podcast Interviews Tanya Turner
Sex Ed with DB Podcast Interviews Tanya Turner
Tanya Turner
Meet The Queer Activist Teaching Sex Ed to ...

People have provided pro-bono help with logos and website mapping “the floodgates of queer fucking godliness have turned this into something wonderful.” The website has a streamline booking process and created a map of the reproductive sexual health work being done in Appalachia, both in major cities and small towns. “People have come out of the woodwork to help because almost all of us have a horror story from our sex education. And we’ve lived through it and want better for everyone.”

Meet The Queer Activist Teaching Sex Ed to LGBTQ Appalachian Youth
Tanya Turner
New Online Map Shows Sexual-Health Resources in ...

WHITESBURG, Ky. -- The traveling sex-education workshop that teaches about consent and anatomy in rural Appalachia has created a unique new online map that shows the locations of reproductive-justice-related organizations and health-care providers in the region.

Tanya Turner, who founded the group Sexy Sex Ed, said resources in rural Appalachia often are not included on national maps, which tend to focus on urban areas.

"We mapped all of the sexual health care and reproductive justice that we knew about going on in Appalachia," she said.

New Online Map Shows Sexual-Health Resources in Appalachia
Tanya Turner
Traveling ‘Sexy Sex Ed’ Workshop Aims to ...

Public News Service

WHITESBURG, Ky. — Access to sex education is on the decline in rural areas, but one eastern Kentucky native aims to fill the knowledge gap with a traveling free sex education workshop called Sexy Sex Ed.

According to the Guttmacher Institute, in 2006, 71% of rural women were taught about birth control as an option to prevent pregnancy. That number shrunk to 48% by 2013. Tanya Turner, creator of the Sexy Sex Ed workshop said growing up in Bell County, she didn't receive any kind of instruction on sex or her own anatomy.

"I hope I'm not the only person teaching progressive, body-positive sex education in rural Appalachia, but all the stats show sex education in rural places is in on a huge decline,” Turner said.

Traveling ‘Sexy Sex Ed’ Workshop Aims to Educate Appalachian Youth

We Need to Talk About Sex Education

We Need to Talk About Sex Education

The Humanist

These national efforts aren’t out there on their own. To spread healthy sexual education in Appalachian Kentucky and surrounding rural communities, Tanya Turner designed a Sexy Sex Ed workshop that focuses on consent, safety, and anatomy. “When a kid starts talking, and they touch their ear, we give them language for ‘ear.’…[B]ut when they touch their vagina, we’re like, ‘Don’t touch yourself there.’ And we don’t even call it vagina. We don’t even give language—the bare minimum—that someone needs to advocate for themselves and about what’s going on in their world.”

Only 13 States Offer Medically Accurate Sex Education. Here’s How to Fill in the Gaps

Only 13 States Offer Medically Accurate Sex Education. Here’s How to Fill in the Gaps

Yes! Magazine

“When somebody calls you and says they have a big group of kids that need sex ed, and they don’t know where else to go, it’s very difficult to turn people down,” Turner said. “It’s taken on a life of its own at this point.”

Requirements for sex education vary broadly across the country. Only 24 states mandate general sex education, with just 18 requiring information about birth control and only 13 requiring medically accurate sex education. The Guttmacher Institute reports that declines in formal sex education, especially concerning birth control, for young people are most concentrated in rural areas. It reports that the percentage of rural young women who were taught about birth control decreased from 71 to 48 percent from 2006 to 2013.

Podcast: Sex & Sex Ed

Season of the Bitch is a podcast hosted, run, and produced entirely by a leftist gaggle of women. In this episode featuring Tanya Turner, they talk about sex and sexy sex ed, while exploring some serious questions: How is sex related to capitalism? How is sex ed taught to us?? WHY IS IT TAUGHT THAT WAY??? How can we switch that??

CNN: What women in Appalachian Kentucky really want

CNN: What women in Appalachian Kentucky really want

CNN

Children and young adults need safe spaces to talk, she says. They should understand the importance of consent and the way their bodies work. She need only think about the young people who've shown up, including the six transgender students who joined her for a sex ed workshop this year, to know that the hunger for authentic conversation is real.