Hwa Chong Staff Member Suspended From Giving Sex Ed Talks After Anti-LGBTQ Presentation

Hwa Chong Institution Staff Member Suspended For Anti-LGBTQ Presentation

Sexuality education is critical in teaching kids about topics that are still difficult to broach in households here.

Many students will get their sexuality education from school programmes, so it’s important that schools don’t spread misinformation or discriminatory content.

However, pictures circulated on social media showed a presentation at Hwa Chong Institution depicting discriminatory material against the LGBTQ community.

The staff member who gave the presentation has been reprimanded and suspended from giving sexuality education talks in future, the school said in a statement on Monday (18 Jul).

Hwa Chong Institution staff member suspended from giving talks after slides contain discriminatory content

According to a statement by Hwa Chong Institution (HCI), the school is aware of the incident that took place during a presentation on sexuality. It involved a staff member incorporating content outside the scope of the Education Ministry’s curriculum.

The views presented were the individual staff’s personal perspectives and not representative of the position of the school or MOE.

During the presentation on Wednesday (13 Jul), an image of a slide titled “Community Health” featured lines such as “58% of homosexuals have problems with intestinal worms” and “33% have problems with alcoholism”.

In another slide, the speaker asserted that 78% of homosexuals have sexually transmitted diseases. No source was given for this information on the slides.

According to a Reddit post, a Christian “conversion therapy” video was also shown to students during the presentation.

An assembly was called today by the school to address students’ concerns, although the details were not made public to the media.

The school said in the statement that the counsellor involved had been reprimanded for delivering content without its approval.

Schools must ensure discriminatory content is not presented

The content delivered during a school presentation can be distressing and harmful to queers. It may encourage bullying or discrimination among students, or worse.

All schools must ensure that discriminatory or false content does not appear in the material taught to students, and staff members must do the same.

Additionally, students should not be made to feel like it’s unsafe to approach any staff member for their issues, which would defeat the purpose of having them in the first place.

We hope all schools, not just HCI, will review their processes.

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Featured image adapted from u/DAvengingAngels on Reddit.