Disability avoidant language and other factors in the erasure of disabled students in sexual education

There is a distinct gap in knowledge surrounding disability and sex education. To understand how disability is currently addressed in state sexual health education, I undertook a qualitative content analysis of sexual health standards from nine individual states. My review of the literature concluded that multiple factors contribute to the lack of disability coverage in sexual education programming. Intuitional, social, and educational barriers lead to lack of sexual health information. In absence of education on disabled sexuality, negative attitudes and perceptions are common. When approaching this research, I expected there to be wide gaps in acknowledgment, language, and inclusion concerning disability. Four main themes emerged: appropriateness of sexuality content, explicit mentions of disability, avoidance of disability language, and acknowledgement of overall human variance. These results indicate a need for sexuality education to explicitly acknowledge how disability can impact sexuality