Michigan’s New Sex Ed Standards: Safety, Inclusion, and Local Control

Michigan’s State Board of Education has just approved the first major update to health and sex education standards since 2007. The change has sparked celebration, outrage, confusion, and—most importantly—a serious conversation about what it takes to keep young people safe and respected in our schools. For Dearborn and communities like it, this is a moment to lean into both faith and science, both parental rights and student rights, and insist on schools that protect every child.

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What Did the State Actually Do?

On November 13–14, 2025, the Michigan State Board of Education voted 6–2 to adopt revised “Michigan Health Education Standards Guidelines,” the first comprehensive update in nearly two decades.[1][3][4] Michigan Advance+2Bridge Michigan+2

These standards:

• Cover K–12 health education, not just sex education.
• Are guidelines, not mandates; districts can choose whether to adopt them or not.[2][3][5] Michigan+2Bridge Michigan+2
• Explicitly reaffirm that Michigan remains a local-control state: local school boards and parents ultimately decide curriculum.[2] Michigan

The new framework expands state guidance to topics like:

• Vaping and substance use
• Social media and digital safety
• Consent and healthy relationships
• Mental and emotional health
• Boundaries and decision-making[1][3][5] Michigan Advance+2Bridge Michigan+2

The part drawing the most fire is the section on sex education, which now recommends age-appropriate instruction on sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression, alongside topics like abstinence, contraception, and protection from sexually transmitted infections (STIs).[1][3][4][6] Bridge Michigan+2freep.com+2

For clarity: if a Michigan district chooses to offer sex education, it must still follow state law:

• Abstinence as the primary emphasis
• No instruction on abortion in sex-ed classes
• Mandatory HIV education in all districts
• Local sex education advisory board, at least half parents
• Advance notice to parents before sex-ed lessons
• Parents’ right to review all materials
• Parents’ right to opt their children out, without penalty[2][4][5] Michigan+2freep.com+2

So the new standards change the guidance, not the basic legal structure. The fight is over what “best practice” looks like in 2025.

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The Firestorm at the Board Meeting

The board meeting that preceded the vote was… lively.

• More than 100–130 people signed up to speak, so the board cut speaking time to one minute per person.[1][3][5] Michigan Advance+2Bridge Michigan+2
• Public comment stretched for nearly three hours.
• The crowd included pastors, health professionals, parents, teachers, LGBTQ+ students, and advocacy groups on both sides.

Board president Dr. Pamela Pugh summed up her view of the outcome after the vote: “We made safer spaces for students, for all students.”[1][5] Michigan Advance+1

Two Republican board members, Tom McMillin and Nikki Snyder, voted no. They repeatedly used the word “grooming” to describe both the standards and those defending them, echoing a national talking point that paints inclusive sex education as sexual predation by adults.[5][7] Facebook+1

Board members Pugh and Vice President Tiffany Tilley pushed back hard, warning that such language is dangerous and misleading, particularly when directed at educators and LGBTQ+ students who already face high levels of harassment.[1][5] Michigan Advance+1

“We are not pushing anything. We are doing our jobs… making sure very old standards and guidelines are being updated.”
— Board Vice President Tiffany Tilley[1][3] Michigan Advance+1

Meanwhile, many speakers—students, parents, and educators—described concrete harm caused by silence around LGBTQ+ identities: bullying, depression, dropping grades, moving districts to escape hostility. Others described equal fear in the opposite direction: fear that their children would be exposed to concepts they reject religiously, or that schools would override their parental authority.[5][6][15] Facebook+2Fox News+2

This is not a calm policy seminar. This is a clash of worldviews about children, bodies, faith, and the role of public schools.

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What the New Standards Actually Say

Strip away the shouting, and the standards themselves are pretty straightforward.

By middle school, the guidelines recommend that students be able to:

• Define gender identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation
• Explain how those concepts differ from biological sex
• Recognize bullying and harassment, including targeting based on LGBTQ+ status
• Practice consent, refusal skills, and boundary-setting in age-appropriate ways[3][4][6] Bridge Michigan+2freep.com+2

For younger grades, the focus is more basic: naming body parts accurately, personal safety, and understanding that all families are different.[2][4] Michigan+1

The standards also integrate mental health—stress, anxiety, depression, and help-seeking—into health education, acknowledging that students’ emotional lives are part of their health and academic success.[1][3][2] Michigan Advance+2Bridge Michigan+2

“Inclusion is the cornerstone of academic success. Students can’t learn if they don’t feel safe.”
— Public commenter Rachel Hayes, speaking in support of the standards[5] Facebook

Critically, nothing in the state standards forces any child to personally identify in any particular way, nor does it require students to agree with what they are being taught. It requires that schools acknowledge reality: that LGBTQ+ people exist, that bullying based on gender and sexuality is real, and that medically accurate, age-appropriate information saves lives.[8][9][10] KFF+2CDC+2

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What the Evidence Says About Comprehensive Sex Education

You don’t have to take the state’s word for it. A mountain of research—across decades and political swings—points in the same direction:

• Comprehensive sex education programs are linked to lower teen pregnancy rates, more consistent condom use, and lower rates of unprotected sex.[8][12][14] KFF+2PMC+2
• Studies show that well-designed school-based programs can delay the age of first sexual activity, reduce the number of partners, and increase condom/contraceptive use.[13][14][9] PubMed+2County Health Rankings & Roadmaps+2
• There is no evidence that comprehensive programs increase sexual activity or encourage earlier sex.[1][0][14] Wikipedia+1
• LGBTQ-inclusive curricula are associated with reduced victimization and better mental health outcomes, not just for LGBTQ+ students but across the student body.[8][13] KFF+1
• Meta-analyses of public opinion show broad adult and parent support for school-based sexual health education, even in more conservative regions.[10] CDC Stacks

So when opponents frame the standards as an “experiment” on Michigan’s children, they’re skipping a key step: we already ran the experiment, nationally and globally. Comprehensive, medically accurate sex education works. Abstinence-only messaging by itself does not reduce pregnancies or STIs.[1][14] Wikipedia+1

The real question for Michigan is not “Should youth learn this?” It’s where and how—and whether public schools will meet their obligation to all students, including those whose identities are controversial in some households.

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Where Parental Rights Actually Fit

Opponents at the meeting—Christian parents, conservative advocacy groups, and some local political figures—argued that the new standards trample parental rights and religious freedom.[5][6][7][15] KSNV+3Facebook+3Fox News+3

Legally, though, the picture is more complicated:

• Parents still have the statutory right to opt their children out of sex education.
• Parents still can review all materials before instruction.
• Local school boards still control whether and how sex ed is offered.
• State law still bans sex-ed lessons on abortion and requires an abstinence-centered approach.[2][4] Michigan+1

In other words, the standards do not erase parental rights; they clarify that those rights coexist with the state’s responsibility to protect students from harm and discrimination.

That’s important in Michigan’s legal context. The state’s Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act was recently amended to explicitly protect people from discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in education, employment, housing, and public accommodations.[11] Wikipedia

So when LGBTQ+ students are harassed, misgendered, or chased out of school systems, it’s not just “a disagreement.” It’s a civil rights problem.

The updated standards try to walk that line: they keep opt-out and local control while recognizing that schools cannot pretend queer and trans students don’t exist. Some parents will still oppose this. But we should at least be honest about what the law already requires.

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What This Means for Dearborn

Dearborn sits right at the crossroads of these debates.

We are:

• Home to one of the largest Arab and Muslim communities in the United States
• Deeply engaged in struggles for justice—from Palestine to immigrant rights
• Also home to LGBTQ+ young people, some quietly and some openly, navigating culture, faith, and identity in real time

For our community, the question is not whether people disagree about gender and sexuality. We do. The question is whether disagreement justifies school environments where some children are unsafe, unseen, or pushed out.

From a Green Party perspective, the values at stake are clear:

• Grassroots democracy: decisions made close to the people, with transparent process—exactly what local sex ed advisory boards are supposed to embody.
• Social justice and equal opportunity: health education that recognizes all families and identities, including queer and trans students, is a basic equity issue.
• Ecological wisdom and nonviolence: we can’t talk about nonviolence while tolerating emotional violence against children targeted for who they are.
• Respect for diversity: this doesn’t stop at nationality or religion; it includes gender and sexual diversity too.

At the same time, Dearborn is full of parents who feel deeply responsible for what their children learn about sex and relationships, guided by Islamic, Christian, and other ethical frameworks. That responsibility is real and legitimate. The new standards don’t remove it; they raise the bar for schools to communicate clearly, invite genuine advisory input, and make opt-out processes transparent and accessible in multiple languages.

A truly Dearborn approach to these standards would look like:

• Advisory boards that actually reflect Dearborn’s demographics—Arab, Black, Chaldean, white, immigrant, working-class, queer and straight.
• Materials and parent notifications available in Arabic and English, at minimum.
• Community forums where parents can ask blunt questions without being labeled “bigots” or “groomers,” but where evidence and student testimony are front and center.
• Honest conversations in mosques, churches, and community centers about how to address bullying, gender-based violence, and mental health among our youth—regardless of where we land on theology.

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Linking Liberation at Home and Abroad

Dearborn has been loud, clear, and courageous in demanding an end to the genocide against Palestinians and the dehumanization of Arab and Muslim communities. That moral clarity matters.

There’s a quiet lesson here: when we insist that Palestinian children deserve to live with dignity, we are also saying that all children deserve to live with dignity—including the kid in a Dearborn classroom who is:

• Palestinian and queer
• Lebanese and questioning their gender
• Iraqi and struggling with depression after being bullied for not fitting in

You don’t have to agree with every identity label—or every word in the new standards—to see that erasing or demonizing those kids is not an option. Public schools are one of the few places where young people from every background share space. If those spaces are governed by fear and silence, the most vulnerable students pay the price.

A Green-aligned, pro-Palestine, pro-justice Dearborn doesn’t shy away from hard conversations. It:

• Defends civil rights at home as fiercely as it defends them abroad.
• Stands against all systems that divide people into “good” and “bad” based on identity—whether that’s Muslim vs. “terrorist,” or straight vs. “groomer.”
• Demands evidence-based policy and rejects manufactured moral panics.

The “groomer” smear tossed around in Lansing is part of a broader playbook that has also been used to criminalize Muslims, immigrants, and anti-war activists. Dearborn knows that playbook too well to fall for it when the target shifts.

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Where We Go From Here

The state has done its part: the standards are in place. Now the real work moves to school districts—including Dearborn Public Schools and surrounding communities.

Key questions for us:

• How will local advisory boards be formed, and who will sit on them?
• How will schools ensure that Arab and Muslim parents actually understand what’s being taught—and what opt-out does and doesn’t cover?
• How will we track the impact of any new curriculum on bullying, mental health, and academic outcomes for all students?
• How will we make space for disagreement while drawing a hard line against hate—whether it comes wrapped in rainbow flags or religious slogans?

Dearborn has a chance to model something better than the shouting we saw in Lansing: a process grounded in truth, compassion, and the stubborn belief that our kids deserve more than slogans.

Public education is one of the few institutions we still share across lines of class, race, religion, and ideology. Updating health and sex education is not about an “obsession with sex.” It’s about whether we will equip our children to navigate a world already full of gender, sexuality, violence, consent, and digital chaos—with or without adults telling them the truth.

Dearborn’s voice—rooted in justice for Palestine, in community self-determination, in care for youth—belongs at the center of that conversation, not on the sidelines.

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Sources

[1] Isabel Lohman, “After contentious public comment, state Board of Education passes new health and sex ed standards,” Michigan Advance, November 14, 2025.

[2] Michigan Department of Education, “Michigan’s Revised Health Education Standards to Help Prepare Students for Success,” official press release, November 13, 2025.

[3] Bridge Michigan, “Michigan adopts updated sex education standards after contentious meeting,” November 13, 2025.

[4] Jennifer Chambers, “State Board of Ed approves new health and sex education standards,” Detroit Free Press, November 13, 2025.

[5] Jennifer Pignolet / MediaNews Group, “‘We made safer spaces for students’: State board of ed passes new health, sex ed standards,” The News Herald, November 14, 2025.

[6] Landon Mion, “Michigan adopts sex education standards recommending students be taught gender identity, sexual orientation,” Fox News, November 15, 2025.

[7] The Center Square, “Michigan school board passes controversial sex ed policies,” November 17, 2025.

[8] Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), “Sex Education Programs: Definitions, Funding, and Impact on Teen Sexual Health,” October 30, 2025.

[9] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), “Sexual Health Education | Adolescent and School Health,” updated November 29, 2024.

[10] L.E. Szucs et al., “Overwhelming Support for Sexual Health Education in U.S. Public Schools,” Journal of Adolescent Health, 2022.

[11] “Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act,” State of Michigan; amendments including Act 6 of 2023 expanding protections to sexual orientation and gender identity.

[12] N.D.E. Mark et al., “More comprehensive sex education reduced teen births,” 2022.

[13] E.J. Kim et al., “Meta-Analysis of the Effects of Comprehensive Sexuality Education Programs on Children and Adolescents,” Healthcare, 2023.

[14] County Health Rankings & Roadmaps, “Comprehensive risk reduction sexual education,” updated September 19, 2023.

[15] Tylor Brummett, “Michigan updates sex ed standards, including LGBTQ topics, sparking statewide debate,” WWMT / News3LV, November 14–15, 2025.

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Disclaimer

This article is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is based on publicly available sources at the time of writing and may not reflect subsequent developments or clarifications. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the official position of Dearborn Public Schools, the Michigan Department of Education, or any other institution named.

Nothing in this article should be construed as legal advice, medical advice, or individualized educational guidance. Parents, students, and educators should consult directly with their local school district, qualified health professionals, or legal counsel for advice specific to their situation.

Every effort has been made to present information accurately and fairly; however, errors or omissions may occur. For any corrections, clarifications, or comments that you would like inserted in this article, please email info@dearbornblog.com. Dearborn Blog reserves the right to update, correct, or annotate this article as new information becomes available.