In this episode, Damian talks to Matilda Lawrence-Jubb and Anna Alexander who are the co founders of Sex Education company Split Banana.
Anna and Matilda tell Damian why they set up the company and how they help young people to have healthy relationships with their minds, their bodies and each other.
They then discuss the topics of sex education and pleasure, pornography and how Sex Education can be improved in S.E.N schools.
In this episode, Damian talks to Matilda Lawrence-Jubb and Anna Alexander who are the co founders of Sex Education company Split Banana.
Anna and Matilda tell Damian why they set up the company and how they help young people to have healthy relationships with their minds, their bodies and each other.
They then discuss the topics of sex education and pleasure, pornography and how Sex Education can be improved in S.E.N schools.
Welcome to Enhance the UK's Undressing Disability podcast, where we strip back all things taboo on sex and disability.
Anna Alexander:On this episode of The Undressing Disability podcast, we are talking to Matilda Lawrence Jubb. And Anna Alexander, who are the co founders of Split Banana, and aim to reshape relationship and sex education to help young people have healthy relationships with their minds, bodies and each other. Hi, welcome to the show. How are you both? Good, thanks. Happy to be here. Thank you very much for having us.
Matilda Lawrence Jubb:Yeah, really happy to be here. Thanks, Damian.
Damian Weatherald:Brilliant. So the first thing I'm going to ask you both to do is for our listeners, please audio describe yourselves.
Anna Alexander:I'm happy to go first. My name is Anna, she her. I am five foot four, white. I've got a brown bob with a little fringe, bit of a greasy fringe right now. And I'm wearing a fluffy pink jumper.
Matilda Lawrence Jubb:And yes, I am Matilda. I use she her pronouns. And I also have a bob and a fringe, i've recently got the fringe to much Anna, obviously. And I'm white, and I've got blonde hair. And you can't see much of my background. But I'm in my mum's bedroom. She's got very nice curtains with palm trees on.
Damian Weatherald:Yeah, I'm loving the curtains, very retro. So I think the first thing I've got to ask is why use set up Split Banana and you know a bit about yourselves, the background.
Anna Alexander:We set up split banana, as both of us felt like when we were younger, we just did not have good sex and relationship education. For my part that was quite pronounced because I ended up getting pregnant when I was 15. And so that was kind of like, obviously not great. And then when me and Matilda went back into schools, about 10 years later, we just realised that sex ed just still hadn't even moved on at all, it was just as bad as when we were in school before. So we spent a year on part of a post grad course called Year Here where we researched sex and relationship education in schools and tried to think about what we thought a better alternative or a solution or just what better sex ed would look like. And, one of the main things we looked at was the idea of not just having one off stuff, how'd you get into school? How do you deliver sex ed when you can actually have relationship with people, and then also kind of how do you do it in more of an interesting and creative way. So that was why I was interested in sex ed, and that was a bit about our journey. What do you think, Matilda?
Matilda Lawrence Jubb:Yeah, totally agree. Just to add to that, is as Anna said, we had shit experiences growing up with sex ed with the lack of sex ed, and also the ripple effects of this, through, you know, supporting friends in abusive relationships, experiencing unwanted touching, seeing the impact of revenge porn, and sexting and all that stuff. Like that was all going on when we were at school. And then 10 years later, we were working in schools, and all of that was still going on. And it just felt like, in that 10 years, nothing had really moved forward. And we were working with pupils, both working in different inner city, London schools, working with pupils, and seeing the real impact of this on them. And also just still the lack of support and guidance from their education. So it felt like a huge, huge gap. And alongside this, the new guidance came in as of 2019. So there is now mandatory relationship and sex education in all UK secondary schools. So it kind of felt like the perfect moment to think about what a creative solution could look like to this problem. And so we tested workshops with young people, we also run some What I Wish I'd Known co creation workshops with groups of adults to figure out what they wish they'd known about sex ed, because it's a subject that hugely resonates with everyone, because they probably have had a traumatic time with their own sex education. But also, it intersects with so many different areas of our life. So luckily, we had so many people who were up for sharing their stories. And yeah, we built it from there. And we're three years down the line now, I think. And it's only recently though, that we have seen a big uptake in workshops because it obviously took a while for the guidance to come into place, and then COVID delayed everything quite a bit. So we are finally in a place where we are doing what we what we set out to do.
Damian Weatherald:What age group are you spending most of your time teaching now?
Matilda Lawrence Jubb:So mainly, it's secondary school age, which is 11 to 18. Most of the workshop requests we get are from year 9 to 11. So that's about 14 to 16 years old.
Anna Alexander:Yeah, we've always had a lot of requests for primary school stuff, which we maybe in the future would like to go into. We just haven't got that background. So if anyone's doing primary school stuff, let us know. But it's always really nice when you hear people who want to do primary school stuff, because it should always just be as young as possible really.
Damian Weatherald:Yeah, this is something I've discussed on previous podcast episodes, saying, the younger, the better, in some respects. I know you don't want to break that innocence too early. But they need to learn it as early as possible, I think, without taking that innocence away. Because, I've had this conversation with both of you before about my sex education was so poor and I hear that from so many people and we need to try and sort it. So what's the most common thing that you think is the biggest problem breaking that taboo at the moment?
Matilda Lawrence Jubb:I think the idea of innocence being taken away is one of the things we have to actually combat and break things down into what we need people to learn from a young age. And so even if that's just like critiquing, or having a critical awareness of where we get our ideas of relationships from, who's in relationships, what sex is, again, we talked about this so many times before, but like sex not just being penis and vagina sex, and all the different types of people that have sex. I think you can still have those conversations early on. And again, from my experience of innocence being taken away was literally boys when I was 13, showing me Two Girls One Cup on a phone. Do you know what I mean, I'd rather someone had prepared me to know what I was seeing there, because it's gonna happen. Like someone's sending you an unsolicited dick pic or something like that. That's the stuff which we're trying to actually prevent in a way.
Anna Alexander:Yeah, because we live in the age of the internet, it's just there. You know, you see kids five, six year olds with telephones now, if there's no locks on, they can access anything. So it's certainly finding that happy medium.
Matilda Lawrence Jubb:Absolutely. Yeah. And I think generally, the biggest fear and the biggest barrier, when it comes to sex education has been this fear of sexualizing young people. And actually, it's like young people have a sexuality in and of themselves completely separate to any adults or anyone in their lives. And actually, it's not by talking about sex and relationships, as Anna says, in this honest, open way, you're not taking that innocence away, I think you're more just providing the knowledge for them to explore that sexuality when they're ready. And you're giving them the tools to do it with when they're ready. And actually, we can't control a young person's sexuality. And it's actually not very fair of us to think we can as well. So it's just about preparing them, exactly like I said, preparing them with the correct knowledge before they actually get exposed to stuff. And before they have access to all of that on phones and through technology, in a better way.
Anna Alexander:And the thing I always say, the thing that was quite a big moment when I realised that the kind of sex ed we'd want to deliver. So when I had my unwanted pregnancy, it's like people had been saying don't have sex. People also taught me how to use a condom. But no one taught me to prepare fpr the pressure to not wear a condom or to put someone else's pleasure first above my own safety. And it's like that kind of thing. Those are the kind of conversations which don't sexualize anyone, they're actually just having an open conversation. And that's what's actually needed, I think.
Damian Weatherald:Yeah, I like this idea of just having open conversations, because if we don't have them, especially if you look at the 14 to 16 year olds, if you leave it too much longer, it could be too late because like you said peer pressure, media pressure, things like that has such a profound effect. So like, moving on from there, have you found any barriers going into schools that schools have put up from wanting you to teach sex education in the way you do?
Matilda Lawrence Jubb:I think obviously because the guidelines are in place now they know they have to deliver some areas. All schools do have to deliver it. There are some slight variations when it comes to religious schools because they are still teaching within the religious scripture, so for example, when we deliver at Catholic schools, there are certain parameters for them. But the biggest thing I think schools are scared of us talking about is pleasure. For sure. Pleasure is not mentioned anywhere throughout the curriculum. It's not mentioned as being able to talk about one of the reasons why people have sex, one of the reasons is that people enjoy it. So that is still definitely an area that when we say, we do a session on sex and intimacy, we talk about pleasure, as one of the reasons people have sex. I think schools are a bit like, whoa, what's going on there? And that's still definitely an area that they're fearing.
Anna Alexander:Yeah, and it's been interesting, because I've recently started doing my teacher training. So I'm working full time in a school at the moment. And it's been really interesting seeing those conversations, like actually just being in the room whilst those conversations in the office are happening. And, because Split Banana came into my school recently, and I kind of already knew the response, but I was like, oh, yeah, like, you know, pleasure. And everyone was like, woah. And then their side as well, they're like, parents, we've already had so many complaints from parents. And the thing that we always say to schools as well about pleasure is you need to tell people that sex should be pleasant and comfortable. Because if it's unpleasant or uncomfortable, then there is an issue, whatever that issue might be, that could be anything from pain during sex, that you might not know about or it could be safety. And it's interesting, because as soon as you put it like that, if you're not telling people that sex should be enjoyable, then why are you surprised that you're setting them up to have unpleasant experiences. When you frame it like that, they get it. But again, it's still annoying, because that's the baseline.
Damian Weatherald:Is the pushback from the teachers then or the parents, mainly?
Anna Alexander:I think there's a lot of fear from the parent. I think it's parents. I think there's two things. I think there's teachers just not knowing how to deliver it, what to do, not wanting to say the wrong thing. And you can get teachers who don't wanna say the wrong thing, who might be afraid of offending someone, because they don't know about pronouns, or because they don't know about gender and sex or these kinds of things. So you have a fear from teachers around that, but then you do have this thing from parents, and again, especially if religion's involved, sometimes, of them just hearing about what their kids have learned at school and having pushback. But it's interesting, because we've actually had to deal with parents a couple of times. And I'd say that maybe from however many workshops we've done, we've had to deal with maybe just a couple basically, three or four. And again, once you break it down, and you explain what you're trying to do, and that you're never saying, Go out and have loads of sex, you're always coming from it from a place of trying to create a positive experience for people, mostly if you get into a space where you can have that conversation, I think people do hear it and get it. But I think again, it's like a moral panic, basically, of sexualizing children, as Matilda said earlier.
Damian Weatherald:Yeah. Because I am so behind the positive, pleasure based sex education, I think it needs to be pleasure based. But I found when I did my sex educators training course, I was just alarmed the fact that you're given a diagram that you're supposed to show pupils and say, right now name the parts but you can't tell them what a clitoris is. You know, I just found that absolutely mind blowing.
Anna Alexander:And then there was a teacher in school who said that once they just showed them the diagram without the clitoris, and they had a parent get in touch saying you're showing them pornography.
Damian Weatherald:Oh that is ridiculous .
Anna Alexander:She was like it's a science textbook.
Damian Weatherald:So do you find though with some of the sex education guidance that's given from the government and that is in schools, do you find some of it is quite gender biassed as well. As that's something I did find when I did the training. I found some of the videos that schools are told to show and things like that were quite anti male in some respects, and it was always the males fault if something went wrong, and I get that I think young men do need better sex education. I am so for that. But I just found that some of the videos that were being shown in schools were very anti male.
Matilda Lawrence Jubb:Yeah, I think with a lot of this stuff, the kind of issues that schools are coming face to face with at the moment of issues of consent within schools, issues of unwanted touching. And it has further created that gender binary and gender divide. And I think the fear of those things happening, unwanted touching, etc puts even greater emphasis on that. And it comes from a place of fear, I think. But then what it does is it sets young people out to be living within those gender stereotypes, if you're telling them that that's how things occur, then they're only going to live up to those stereotypes. We've had a lot of feedback actually from young men. So when I delivered a whole set of consent workshops in a day, and we basically have this visual that we show them, which is called the rape culture iceberg. And essentially, it's a way to help visualise rape culture, and show that there's things that happen above the surface, like rape, sexual assault, murder, but then there's also loads of stuff that happens underneath the surface. And this is more of the stuff we think might be invisible, like disrespect to my marginalised gender, sexist language, all of that kind of stuff. And I showed this, and we got a comment after from one of the young men just being like, I felt like it was directed at me, I felt attacked. And I felt this. And there is really this feeling of defence and backlash against lots of this education if it's not delivered in an inclusive way. And so now, something we've started doing is when we set the respectful space, at the beginning of the session, we make it really clear that whenever we're using words like rape, abuse, sexual harassment, that all genders can experience those things, and that all genders can also commit harm. Because I think it's so important that young people don't feel blamed, attacked, and pigeon holed. Because yeah, they are then going to backlash against that. And nothing is going to go in if they feel like they're being blamed for a system, which is in lots of ways outside of their control, but in lots of ways they have a lot of power in their individual actions, and we want to empower them to be able to act.
Anna Alexander:Yeah. I do you think it's hard, though? It's really difficult. I think there's also not enough interventions targeting and supporting men. And I think also, even if you just look at the criminal justice system, what happens when someone gets convicted or whatever? I think that's really interesting, in the sense that there's no support. Again, it's definitely a difficult conversation, obviously. But if the primary focus is for it not to happen again, and abuse not to happen again, assault not to happen again, I don't think our society in any way sets that up at all. It's like, once you've done this crime, or you've done this thing, then that's kind of it. And so people so want to reject having any association with that crime, because it's the end, supposedly. Do you know what I mean, the way everything plays out doesn't actually create a society which makes it easy to talk about prevention, I think, because it just is either defensiveness or I don't know, it's, it's hard. I think it's difficult.
Damian Weatherald:Yeah, it's definitely like a hard conversation to have. And I think having these conversations at that early age, it's a hard line to find whether you do it too young or too old, it's finding that right age to have these conversations. I do think I've had this conversation with a previous guest, telling her how sex education needs to be improved for young men. I've talked to people doing the podcast, or doing the Love Lounge and things like that. And it's just the lack of sex education, especially teaching about consent. Even basic things like manners in relationship education, it's lacking so much.
Anna Alexander:Totally. And again, it goes back to all the pleasure stuff and everything. And yeah, and how do you do it in a way that's not blamey. Again, I remember one of the quite pivotal moments of my thinking was, again, when I got pregnant, and then afterwards, I had everyone suddenly came in, you know, it was like a safeguarding thing. So I suddenly had access to therapy, I had everyone really protecting me. Whereas my boyfriend at the time, who was also 15, had nothing, and was just kind of seen as the perpetrator or whatever. And he was just like 15. He hadn't actually done anything wrong at all. I'm just thinking back then as well is this is all really sad, and he's really sad, but he's not allowed to be sad. And luckily, he's fine. But you know, that kind of stuff can really mess you up. And there isn't the support there.
Damian Weatherald:Yeah, like you said something like that could have such a profound effect later in life. So again, there needs to be those support mechanisms in place to try and help teenagers and evenif you're going up to six formers and such like that, and you're going up to 18, there's so much going on in society now I think we need to really focus on those age groups. So at Enhance, we have the Love Lounge, and we get lots of questions from people with different disabilities and things like that. But one thing we keep getting questions about is the lack of sex education in SEN schools. So is that something you've both had experience of?
Matilda Lawrence Jubb:Absolutely. Well we've had so many requests for that service. And that's something we've been working on developing and improving. But absolutely, if you think about no one talks about sex and also no one talks about disability, so together, I mean you've said your experience with sex ed before as well, Damien, was basically just not having it because of your disability, right?
Damian Weatherald:Yeah, my secondary school, the sex education was how I put a condom on, I think it was, I think it was a banana, if I can remember rightly. But then anything else was just what was in a science class, and I think the girls got taken out to have a talk about periods. That was it, there was nothing else. And that was just in a mainstream secondary school. But I think how I talk about it as well is, I could have really done with conversations about how my disability would affect my sex life and things like that at an earlier age, and not just left to go it alone.
Matilda Lawrence Jubb:Yeah, that's definitely something that loads of young people absolutely need. And we've had requests from SEN schools to deliver workshops and we are doing so but I also do you think there needs to be that level of tailored support for young people. You know, people who shared the same lived experience as them, talking to them about their actual experiences and things that they went through and on a one to one level. I think it's so, so important that they get that tailored support.
Anna Alexander:And also because the way that we also approach it is whenever we're kind of going through stuff in sex ed as well, it's kind of saying, even if you don't think this is relevant to you now, you never know you're gonna be in relationship with and you never know who you're gonna be having sex with and the same for your friends. And I think that is also super applicable to disability, because you might not think it's relevant. The sad thing is for sex ed, you got to almost tell them everything, out of the fear that they'll never have it again. And so I know that think is relevant, but you just don't know, And again, you might have sex with someone with a disability, you might have a disability, and all these things are going to help you and have these open conversations. But, I think it's the infantilizing people as well, right. Like, already, it's this idea of stealing innocence and sexualization and disability and sexualization is just too much for society to handle. And so everyone freaks out about that even more so as well.
Damian Weatherald:Yeah. And going back to the pleasure sex education, I think for disabled people it can be more profound because for a lot of disabled people, the only way they can have pleasure is masturbation, it might not be actual penetrative sex. And that's one thing Enhance are looking at with bringing the sex toy range out and things like that, it's starting trying to educate people.
Matilda Lawrence Jubb:Yeah, completely. And that's so, so important. And when we delivered six back to back sex and intimacy assemblies last week, and they absolutely loved Anna by the way, we've got this one slide with illustrations of intercourse and outercourse, which is how we describe different types of sex. And there's a little drawing of a sex toy in the top right corner. Anna do you remember that? Yeah, I got so many questions like, Excuse me, miss, what's that? I was like, Well, good segue, that's a sex toy . And yeah, totally Damian, it's so so important we talk about the different ways that people have sex. And the importance of understanding sex is not just penetrative. And as outer course, and some people might use sex toys. This might be because they're in a queer relationship might be because they have a disability, might be because they just enjoy it more, they might only have outercourse sex, so it's key to what we do to just ensure that people understand that sex isn't that definition of when a man puts his penis into a woman's vagina to make a baby. That's the main thing we're trying to do is break that down.
Damian Weatherald:Can you foresee a time though when we can talk about sex toys in sex education lessons, because this is a conversation I've had in a previous episode, saying that it needs to be done.
Anna Alexander:Yeah, I think so. And I think sex and disabled people is the perfect way in. Again, I think that benefits everyone, because it shows you how sex is different. And for everyone. But again, everyone could benefit from thinking about sex toys, not just disabled people. We've actually used it in a great way, I think, in the sense that it opens it up, and then you can talk about it, and then kind of bypass the whole people saying you're not allowed to talk about sex toys and you're like, well, I am. But you're doing it in a way that's not what they expect. So I think you can and I think people are. Again, it depends on the place. I don't think a school is ever going to get you in to deliver a workshop on on sex toys. I think that won't ever happen. But I definitely think that there's some really great teachers out there who also get it, make sure you talk about sex toys, get it in there kind of thing. So I think so. I think coming in under inclusive sex in an inclusive way, I think that's how you kind of get in as well.
Damian Weatherald:Yeah, something I keep getting feedback on is about a lack of male sex educators as well. Do you find that?
Anna Alexander:Totally. That's what I wanted to say earlier. Yeah.
Matilda Lawrence Jubb:Even when we just hired our facilitators recently, we had a lot of applications and not one is from someone who identified as male.
Anna Alexander:What are your thoughts on that Damian? Why do you think that is?
Damian Weatherald:I think, to be honest, I think when I've talked to teachers, who sometimes have to deliver it themselves, rather than bring in external RSE educators, they say it's that fear of talking and saying something they feel they shouldn't, or getting questions from pupils that will make them embarrassed. And I think just the way society is at the moment, I think it makes it more awkward for someone who's male.
Anna Alexander:Yeah, I totally get that. And it's like a sad cycle, because also a lot of the conversations, and not all, but a lot of the conversations that I'm having at school, would definitely be received way better if it were coming from a man. But again, that's not going to happen, because of the exact conversations we're having in school. It's hard to see how that would happen. And I have come across more queer male sex educators but in terms of straight male sex educators, I mean, apart from, I don't actually know Justin Hancock's sexuality, but Justin Hancock from Bish, is obviously a fantastic sex educator, and a man. But it's really hard and sad, because I think it would be good to have more.
Damian Weatherald:Yeah, because I think young men can then relate maybe a little bit easier as well, especially about maybe some of the things that might be more embarrassing for young men. Like, if you bring something in like erectile dysfunction into a conversation, they're not going to want to talk about it in front of a female teacher, for example. And I would have been exactly the same I think at that age.
Matilda Lawrence Jubb:Absolutely. There's a great organisation called Beyond Equality, who facilitate these conversations between groups of young men and boys around all sorts of different topics. And yes they're very much under that same opinion of it needs to be a male group in order to be able to discuss sensitive issues like that. But if you are out there, and you are a straight male facilitator, you are gold dust. Get in touch because the sex education industry needs you.
Damian Weatherald:Do you think social media has a place to play as well?
Anna Alexander:In sex ed in general, or for the male?
Damian Weatherald:Sex Ed in general, I would say.
Anna Alexander:Yeah, I think social media has been great for sex ed. I've actually been off social media the past six months, so I feel like I'm slightly off it all. But I think I've learned so much from it. And again, I think in terms of showing all the different ways that people have sex, or different types of people in relationships who are outside of my immediate bubble, I think it's been really good for that. So I think on the whole I think social media is a tool, right? so I think it's never going to be wholly good or bad. And I think there's some weird things that come out of it as well. But I think on the whole, it definitely has reached a lot of people, given a lot of people the information they wouldn't have got in other places. It's been a space where I think a lot of groups of people have found quite a lot of community in terms of discussing these different things as well and seeing themselves maybe visible when they might have not otherwise. So I think it has been positive in that in that sense.
Damian Weatherald:Yeah, I suppose there is negativity with body image and things like that. I assume that would be something you will talk about in your lessons as well.
Anna Alexander:Yeah, I mean, that's the funny thing because when I was on Instagram a lot, I just found it almost weird to think that anyone was getting body image issues from Instagram, because of the people I follow from Split Banana, I feel like I go on Instagram and just immediately feel great, and like seeing all these different types of bodies. But obviously, that's not normal it I guess?
Damian Weatherald:No, I suppose it can have that negative effect on young people, if they see a specific body image, and they're trying to hit that target?
Anna Alexander:Yeah, absolutely.
Matilda Lawrence Jubb:Yeah. And it's something we talked about in our body image lesson actually was the rise of influencers and how it feels more attainable, potentially, for young people to think that they can look like an influencer, who essentially does look like a celebrity. And that can be very difficult to have as your role model. But we do encourage them to craft their feed, and things like that. But obviously, there's issues on social media because of it being unregulated in some aspects, we've had a few questions that came up this summer. And also kind of post pandemic, I don't know if it was influenced by that but from young people saying, Tik Tok's told me it's not okay to be gay, Tik Tok's told me sex is shameful. And you just know that there's people out there making content that young people are seeing, spreading these negative narratives to do with sex. So that's why it's also really important for us to be talking about it in our workshops, and to be talking about how they can use their criticality and their understanding of these topics to actually really know what to believe, what's a good source, what makes them feel good and actually be able to figure that out by themselves a bit better.
Anna Alexander:Yeah. Develop a kind of literacy around that.
Damian Weatherald:Yeah, I think the one thing I will definitely take from this conversation is that so much still needs to be done. The job that you two do is brilliant but I think as a full society, we need to be open to conversations, not be afraid to have these conversations with young people, because they need them.
Anna Alexander:Definitely. And I think that's the main thing and that's why we also moved into training a lot more over the past year, is because just the more people are having these conversations, the better. Because, there is value in external people coming in and saying things that maybe you wouldn't have heard before, and all this but yeah, if you can just have keep having it, it doesn't become embarrassing. And some young person knows they can talk to a variety of different people, it also means they're just going to be able to actually figure out what they think a lot more rather than also just thinking, Oh, I should just think what this person thinks, because they told me that. So 100% I think just having these conversations more, and in as many different places as possible, really.
Matilda Lawrence Jubb:Yeah, definitely. And one thing we say in our training, that's quite relevant to this conversation is, when we're training educators or talking to adults, one of the fears that we go through in relation to RSE is the fear of sex being like a taboo subject. We're scared of talking about it, because we're not used to talking about it, and it makes us feel awkward. And on the one end of the scale, it makes us feel awkward talking about it, but it's really helpful to reframe it as if we're not talking about it, we're not talking about specific topics, and who is this harming? So if we're not talking about anal sex, then who is this harming? men who have sex with men? If we're not talking about sex toys, then who is this harming? disabled people who might use them due to limited dexterity. And that's actually really proved very effective with teachers is they're saying oh, yeah, actually, it's not about my awkwardness, it's about standing up and representing things for young people, and helping them to see that these things do exist, and that we shouldn't be ashamed of speaking about them.
Anna Alexander:And so many workshops we've done, some teachers will be like, Oh, you don't need to mention queer people, or you don't need to mention this because there's none here or they don't get it. And we'll do it anyway. And we've had feedback, like one student come up to me and said no one in my school has ever talked about trans people before. This other student came up to you recently didn't they Matilda and they said to you that they were happy to see other relationships.
Matilda Lawrence Jubb:They said I've never had any sex ed that has talked about queer people and intimacy and friendships and it meant ua huge deal to them. And just for that one person to come up to you, and you realise how much of a huge impact it has.
Damian Weatherald:Yeah, and conversations like that, though, can help society be more tolerant. This is the kind of conversation I had a few days ago was because we had a lack of sex education in our teens, back in the 90s. And there was nothing was said about lesbians, trans, gay or anything like that, I find that a lot of my old school friends are less tolerant because of that, and they're quite, not homophobic but verging on it, because they're uneducated about those genders and sexualities.
Anna Alexander:Yeah, definitely. And then if think about it that's like the generation of so many teachers. And it's quite interesting as well sometimes be in different schools, where actually the students just know so much more often than us as well, which is really nice. But it's so different and it changes from school to school, like completely, the level of knowledge that a student will have, it's really interesting, or the teachers as well.
Damian Weatherald:I suppose it will depend on the area of the country as well, for example,
Anna Alexander:big time. Yeah. Big time.
Damian Weatherald:Yeah, if you're going to a small country village, it's going to be different to going into a city, for example?
Anna Alexander:Yeah, completely. And even like different parts of London, I think ot would probably be quite different as well.
Damian Weatherald:Yeah. So that has been absolutely brilliant and I've learned so much from this conversation. Where can people find more information about Split Banana?
Matilda Lawrence Jubb:They can go to our website, splitbanana.co.uk, they can also find us on socials, it's split banana with three A's at the end. Bananaaa, we made that very early on and now we've got to stick with it, so they can find us there. We deliver workshops with young people but we also train educators, we host public trainings that happen online every six weeks or so. And these are for anyone that works with young people in some capacity, teachers, social workers, healthcare professionals, anyone who's interested in just embedding RSE into their creative practice, we've had theatre makers come and join us, youth workers etc. And we also offer one to one consultations for schools and organisations who are looking to improve their RSE provision or build a kind of curriculum from scratch and we help them to address their gaps and make it more inclusive. So there's loads of ways to kind of get involved with what we're doing. And we're always really keen to hear from people who would like to collaborate, or have an idea or a suggestion or even just want to have a chat, please do reach out to us.
Damian Weatherald:Please do, these guys are great.
Matilda Lawrence Jubb:We love you too Damian.
Damian Weatherald:Thank you so much.
Anna Alexander:Thank you
Jennie Williams:Thank you so much for listening. If you'd like any more information about the work we do under the Undressing Disability campaign, then go on to our website at enhancetheuk.org and click on the Undressing Disability tab.