Healthy Youth Act
An Act Relative to Healthy Youth
ON THIS PAGE:
- About the bill
- Bill history
- Advocates
What this bill would do:
- Ensures that a comprehensive sex education curriculum is taught in public schools
- Mandates education about consent, healthy relationships, and gender affirmation in sexual education curriculum
Why we need it:
The Healthy Youth Act is a common sense bill that reflects the consensus of the vast majority of MA residents. The bill’s core provision is simple: it will require any public school that already chooses to teach sex ed to provide medically accurate, age-appropriate, comprehensive sexual health education.
16
years in consideration by the legislature
7
times killed by the legislature
75%
of voters support comprehensive sex ed
78%
of voters strongly support sex ed in high school
The Logistics
- Sex ed should be accurate and age-appropriate. In every other subject, we require that our schools teach students factual information that matches their grade level. We don’t expect kindergarteners to learn calculus – and we certainly don’t teach them that one and one add up to three. Sex education should be no different.
- Sex ed should be consent-based. Given what we know about the rates of domestic violence and sexual assault among teenagers, it’s critical we teach them the skills to advocate for themselves and recognize unhealthy patterns. When the first time a student learns about consent is college, we’re reaching them far too late to prevent the epidemic of sexual assault on college campuses. That’s why the bill requires that courses cover the “relationship and communication skills” necessary to “form healthy, respectful relationships free of violence, coercion, and intimidation and to make healthy decisions about relationships and sexuality, including, but not limited to, affirmative, conscious and voluntary consent.”
- Sex ed should be LGBTQ+ inclusive. When 81% of LGBTQ+ students in our state report that their schools’ health classes did not cover the tools and information that they need to stay safe and healthy as LGBTQ+ people, we have to face the reality that we are simply failing these teens. At best, most LGBTQ+ youth can expect health classes that teach them irrelevant information about the health risks or body parts involved in sex and overlook forms of protection they deserve to know about. At worst, these students are often taught misleading, stigmatizing information about LGBTQ+ topics that can negatively impact both their mental and sexual health. That’s why the bill will require health classes to cover “age-appropriate information about gender identity and sexual orientation for all students, including affirmative education that people have different sexual orientations, gender identities and gender expressions”, as well as to provide students with information about LGBTQ+-friendly resources and support services.
Does your legislator support the Healthy Youth Act?
Bill History
The legislature’s website makes it extremely difficult to track bills from session to session, so we have compiled the complete bill history here. Each time the bill is killed, it is highlighted in red text and the people or committee to blame are linked where possible.
194th Session: 2025-2026
November 2025: Bill reported favorably by committee and referred to the committees on House Ways and Means and Senate Ways and Means
September 2025: Hearing held from 11:00 AM-5:00 PM in Gardner Auditorium
February 2025: Referred to Joint Committee on Education
193rd Session: 2023-2024
December 2024: No further action taken by House Ways + Means Committee
February 2024: Passed in the Senate on a voice vote as S.2694
February 2024: Reported favorably by Senate Ways + Means Committee
February 2024: Reported favorably by the Joint Committee on Education as S.2686
October 2023: Hearing held by Joint Committee on Education
192nd Session: 2021-2022
January 2023: No further action taken by House Ways + Means Committee
September 2021: Reported favorably by Senate Ways + Means Committee as S.2534
July 2021: Reported favorably by Joint Committee on Education as S.2495
May 2021: Hearing held by the Joint Committee on Education
191st Session: 2019-2020
January 2021: No further action taken by House Ways + Means Committee
January 2020: Reported favorably by Senate Ways + Means Committee as S.2459
November 2019: Reported favorably by the Joint Committee on Education as S.2399
June 2019: Hearing held by Joint Committee on Education
190th Session: 2017-2018
January 2019: No further action taken by House Ways + Means Committee
June 2018: H.3704 Reported favorably by Joint Committee on Healthcare Financing
July 2017: Reported favorably by Senate Ways + Means as S.2113
April 2017: Hearing held by Joint Committee on Education
189th Session: 2015-2016
September 2016: No further action taken by House Ways + Means Committee
November 2015: Reported favorably by Senate Ways + Means Committee as S.2048
September 2015: Reported favorably by Joint Committee on Education as S.2013, referred to Senate Ways + Means
June 2015: Hearing held by Joint Committee on Education
188th Session: 2013-2014
January 2015: No further action taken by House Ways + Means Committee
November 2013: Reported favorably by the Joint Committee on Education as H.3793
June 2013: Hearing held by Joint Committee on Education
187th Session: 2011-2012
May 2012: Sent to study by Joint Committee on Education, Study Order: S.2255
September 2011: Hearing held by Joint Committee on Education
Advocacy Organizations
Our allies leading the fight for this bill
