Our Reproduction Program is now co-ed; and it should have been co-ed all along. Here’s why.

Separating boys and girls for discussions about sex and sexual health creates a setting enshrouded in mystery and secrecy. In most schools, students aren’t separated by gender for any other subjects, so separating them reinforces the idea that the other gender “shouldn’t know” or “won’t understand” what’s about to be revealed. But puberty and sex education in America has “always been that way,” right? It has prevented young people from thinking they can talk candidly about their bodies or sex in “mixed company."

If we’re honest and think back on our own sex education (if we had it), this practice likely perpetuated gender...