The Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (also known as SIECUS: Sex Ed for Social Change) develops and advocates for the adoption of left-of-center “comprehensive” sexual education curricula and opposes abstinence education and parental oversight of sex ed classes in K-12 schools.

Background

The Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States was founded in 1964 by sexual education activist Mary S. Calderone, then a medical director at the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, along with fellow activists Wallace Fulton, William Genne, Lester Kirkendall, Harold Lief, and Clark Vincent. ¹

In the 1980s, following the initial outbreaks of HIV/AIDS, SIECUS began co-sponsoring events with LGBT organizations, such as Gay Men’s Health Crisis, and publishing materials about the disease directed at the public, particularly parents, such as How to Talk to your Children About AIDS. ²

In the 1990s, to expand its federal policy advocacy efforts, the organization opened an office in Washington, D.C. Later, in the early 2000s, SIECUS began to focus on policy advocacy on the state and local level. In 2019, the organization changed its branding, typically identifying itself with the acronym “SIECUS” and adding the tagline “Sex Ed for Social Change,” in lieu of its fully spelled out name.  ³

Advocacy

National Sex Education Standards

The National Sex Education Standards (NSES) are a K–12 sex education framework developed through the Future of Sex Education Initiative (FoSE), a collaboration between SIECUS, Advocates for Youth, and Answer (a Rutgers University program).⁴ First released in 2012 and updated in 2020, the standards are backed by left-of-center funders such as the George Gund Foundation and the Grove Foundation.⁵

The second edition emphasized themes like “reproductive justice,” “social justice,” and “equity,” and encouraged instruction on terms such as “asexual,” “agender,” “cisgender,” “two spirit,” and “privilege.” The standards also included recommendations to teach children as early as fifth grade about “sexual orientation,” “gender expression,” and “trusted adults.” Endorsing groups included the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, Gender Spectrum, and SisterSong, among others.⁶

Opposition to Abstinence Education

In 2022, the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States released a booklet, “Federal Funding Overview: Fiscal Year 2022,” which in addition to noting various favored federal and state sexual education programs, outlines at length the group’s opposition to programs that it categorizes as either “Abstinence-Only Until Marriage” or “Abstinence-Only / Sexual Risk Avoidance.” According to the booklet, these programs, which generally advise young students that the best way to avoid sexually transmitted infections is to avoid engaging in sexual activities, “deny autonomy of young people, stigmatize sexually active young people, and exclude LGBTQ+ identifying folks.” ⁷

Opposition to Parental Rights bills

In a 2022 policy brief published by the SIECUS, “Defending Access to Inclusive and Affirming Education,” the organization advocates against “Parental Rights” bills (also known as “curriculum transparency bills”), which generally allow parents of children at a given public school to have access to detailed information about sexual education classes taught at the schools their children attend. According to the brief, such bills are tools of the “the Regressive Minority…to increase [the] administrative burden on schools and censor educators.” ⁸

Sex Education Grant Criteria

According to a 2023 report published by the Claremont Institute, titled “The Sex-Ed Industrial Complex: How Conservative School Districts Peddle Radical Sex Education to Children,” it is claimed that SIECUS was one of several “radical interest groups” which helped develop the “National Health Education Standards (NHES)” criteria for determining recipients of grants towards sex education programs. Other groups listed include Planned Parenthood, the Transgender Training Institute, Future of Sex Ed, the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network (GLSEN), and Advocates for Youth (AFY). ⁹

People

Christine Soyong Harley has been the president and CEO of the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States since 2019. Previously, Harley ran a boutique consulting firm and was the director of Intergovernmental Affairs for the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders during the Obama administration. ¹⁰

John Santelli is the chair of SIECUS’s board of directors, a professor of population and family health and pediatrics at Columbia University, a senior consultant for the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute, and a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Adolescent Health. Formerly, Santelli was the chair of the Department of Population and Family Health at Columbia’s Mailman School, a member of the 2016 Lancet Commission on Adolescent Health and Wellbeing, president of the Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine, and, before joining Columbia’s faculty in 2004, an employee of the Baltimore City Health Department and the Centers for Disease Control. ^{11 12}

Financials

In 2024, SIECUS reported $464,325 in total revenue and $1,407,113 in expenses, resulting in a net loss of $942,788. The organization held $4,008,353 in total assets and $116,709 in liabilities, for net assets totaling $3,891,644. Contributions accounted for $325,989, or 70.2 percent of revenue, followed by investment income at $91,263 (19.7 percent). SIECUS also reported $28,113 from asset sales and $18,960 in other revenue. Public 990 form information reveals a jump in revenues, from $369,771 in 2020, to $1,146,020 in 2021 and $5,001,910 in 2022, which resulted in a dramatic increase in assets held by the organization.¹³

A 2022 federal funding report by SIECUS noted grants from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Division of Adolescent and School Health (DASH) mentioned “an increase in DASH funding” that coincided with the increase in SIECUS revenues.¹⁴

The Ford Foundation has made seven grants to SIECUS since 2006, including $300,000 in 2008, $250,000 in 2010, $500,000 in 2012, and $400,000 grants in 2012, 2014, and 2016, respectively.¹⁵

The Open Society Foundations reported $497,000 in grants to SIECUS from 1997 to 2004 to “monitor and disseminate information about federally funded abstinence-only programs, and to conduct advocacy work to build national, state, and grassroots support for comprehensive sex education.”¹⁶

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation made a grant to SIECUS to support SIECUS’s “guidelines adaptation projects.”¹⁷

The Hewlett Foundation awarded several grants to SIECUS since 2000 for “gender and equity governance.” Grants included a $1,000,000 donation in 2000, $1,000,000 in 2003, $30,000 in 2005, $1,000,000 in 2006, $375,000 in 2008, and $300,000 in 2020.¹⁸

1. ^[1]“Our History.” SIECUS. Accessed July 18, 2022. https://siecus.org/about-siecus/our-history/
2.  “Our History.” SIECUS. Accessed July 18, 2022. https://siecus.org/about-siecus/our-history/
3. “Our History.” SIECUS. Accessed July 18, 2022.https://siecus.org/about-siecus/our-history/
4. “Organizing Partners.” Future of Sex Education. Accessed July 6, 2025. https://www.futureofsexed.org/
5.  National Sexuality Education Standards (First Edition). Future of Sex Education. 2012. Accessed July 6, 2025.https://siecus.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/National-Sexuality-Education-Standards.pdf
6. National Sex Education Standards (Second Edition). Future of Sex Education. Accessed July 6, 2025. https://www.advocatesforyouth.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/NSES-2020-web-updated2.pdf
7. “Federal Funding Overview: Fiscal Year 2022.” SIECUS. March 2022. Accessed July 18, 2022. https://siecus.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/FY22-Federal-Funding-Overview.pdf
8. Macklin, Alison, and Nawal Umar. “Defending Access to Inclusive and Affirming Education.” SIECUS. 2022 Accessed July 18, 2022. https://siecus.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/SIECUS-POLICY-BRIEF-Defending-Access-to-Inclusive-Affirming-Education.pdf
9. Miller, Anna K. and Scott Yenor. “The Sex-Ed Industrial Complex: How Conservative School Districts Peddle Radical Sex Education to Children.” Claremont Institute, Accessed August 14, 2023. https://dc.claremont.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/The-Sex-Ed-Industrial-Complex.pdf
10. “Christine Soyong Harley.” SIECUS. Accessed July 18, 2022. https://siecus.org/staff-profile/chris-harley/
11. “Staff & Board.” SIECUS. Accessed July 18, 2022. https://siecus.org/about-siecus/staff-and-board/
12. “John Santelli.” Columbia: Mailman School of Public Health. June 7, 2022. Accessed July 18, 2022. https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/people/our-faculty/js2637
13. ProPublica. “Sexuality Information and Education Council of the U.S.” Nonprofit Explorer. Accessed July 6, 2025. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/132508249.
14. SIECUS: Sex Ed for Social Change. “FY22 Federal Funding Overview.” May 2022. https://siecus.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/FY22-Federal-Funding-Overview.pdf.
15. Ford Foundation. “Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States, Inc.” Accessed July 6, 2025. https://www.fordfoundation.org/work/our-grants/awarded-grants/grantee/sexuality-information-and-education-council-of-the-united-states-inc/.
16. Open Society Foundations. Reproductive Health and Rights: Grants and Projects 2000–2003. Published 2004. Accessed July 6, 2025. https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/uploads/5fc1ef9d-6ad3-49cd-95ef-224c1dbf95ce/repro_20050101.pdf.
17. SIECUS: Sex Ed for Social Change. International Guidelines on Sexuality Education: An Evidence-Informed Approach to Effective Sex, Relationships and HIV/STI Education. Published 2009. Accessed July 6, 2025. https://siecus.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/intl_guidelines.pdf.
18. William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. “Grants Database: Sexuality Information and Education.” Accessed July 6, 2025. https://hewlett.org/grants/?_grant_search=Sexuality%20Information.