Pride Edition 2022 | Page 22

We finished the structured part of the workshop with a Jeopardy game with categories on “Can I Catch Them All?,” “Don’t Preggo my Egg,” “May I?,” “That Feels Good,” and the crowd favorite category of “Holes.” Jeopardy allowed the teens a chance to discuss topics with a small group of friends while also opening up a forum for questions. After Jeopardy, we got to my favorite part of the workshop, the Q+A session. Rae-a, the Campfire Institute founder and director, had set up a question box the previous night for the teens to anonymously drop questions into and it yielded insightful questions.

The confidence of these teens was astounding. They weren’t afraid to ask questions that were difficult or often classified as “taboo,” something I attribute to the space we were able to create during the workshop. While there were some funny questions like “How to lesbo sex?” and “What is a queef?” there were questions that do not get talked about enough like “If I come out to my doctor as trans, will they tell my mom?” and “How do I know if something is wrong down there?” Being able to get these questions answered by soon-to-be medical professionals rather than the internet is essential for creating a safer and healthier community.

Inclusive sex education is vitally important to me, especially in the wake of what is happening in our country surrounding reproductive rights. Recent developments against Roe v. Wade indicate how fragile our rights are and how quickly they can be taken away, making what workshops like these can accomplish that much more crucial. As soon-to-be osteopathic physicians, these LGBTQ+ youth will be under our care, and to truly treat them holistically, they need all the space we can give them.