WA council meeting in disarray after residents call for sex education books to be restricted

City of Albany councillors will have to vote on whether or not they should restrict access to books from their local library that a group of residents has claimed are “sexualising children”.

A chaotic special council meeting was held on Monday night after community group Keeping Children Safe Albany gathered 362 signatures on a petition calling for the books – Welcome to Sex by Yumi Stynes and Dr Mellissa Kang, and Sex: A Book for Teenagers by Nikol Hasler – to have their access restricted.

Councillors will have a decision to make.

The group also protested against events held in February which were organised by Albany Pride. The City-sponsored events, including learning how to ‘twerk’, were advertised as 18+ only.

Group representative Michelle Kinsella ran a live video on her Facebook page just before the meeting, stating it was crowded.

“This is about children and everyone should be joining together,” she said.

“The majority of people here agree with us.

“We’ve handed out about 300 flyers. Children can’t consent. We don’t want them exposed to sexually graphic pictures from Kindy age and up.”

But Albany Pride has released a statement, saying “moral panic over book content doesn’t keep children safe”.

“Sanitising libraries so they reflect only one perspective doesn’t keep children safe. Attempting to divide a town with bigotry doesn’t keep children safe - it actively harms them,” they wrote.

They also commented on the opposition to the pride events, stating: “Opposition to our existence in public spaces is part of the increased prejudice, hate and harassment against LGBTQ+ people in this country. This underscores the critical need to resist these baseless attacks.”

A protest organised by the pride group was held out the front of the council building as the special meeting took place.

Curtin University lead researcher in sexual education and health in young people Giselle Woodley said young people were curious but often felt awkward asking their parents, and so turned to other resources on sex to fill their gaps in information.

She said although protests against books on sex education were well-intended to protect children, they were “slightly misguided and uninformed.”

“It goes against decades of research that actually shows the impact of offering relationships and sexuality educational information – that is that these sources of information can actually serve as a primary prevention strategy, which ultimately prevents violence, particularly sexual violence, before it happens,” Woodley said.

“I think we need to consider that young people are growing up in a completely different environment to what we were when we were kids. Teens are turning to sources of information such as pornography, and there are things like deep fakes and sexting.”

City of Albany Mayor Greg Stocks said the meeting was attended by over 400 people with “diverse views on the topics discussed.”

“Five motions (on what actions to take) were passed and will be taken to the Ordinary Council Meeting on September 24 for council’s consideration,” he said.

During a press conference in Albany on Tuesday, Premier Roger Cook urged those charged with ruling on the matter to take a careful and common-sense approach to the issue.

“Last night’s meeting obviously attracted a lot of attention and a lot of heightened debate and language,” he said.

“I would just urge everyone to take a common-sense approach in relation to this.”

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