Amaze is an online advocacy project that offers sex education courses and lessons for youth and adolescents. The project uses animated videos to provide sex education which are published on the group’s website as well as social media sites including YouTube. Topics discussed by the project include puberty, sexually transmitted diseases, birth control, pregnancy and abortion, gender identity, and sexual orientation. ¹

Amaze is a fiscally sponsored project of the left-of-center advocacy group Advocates for Youth and is funded by several organizations including the International Planned Parenthood Federation, the Center For Reproductive Rights, the WestWind Foundation, and the Population Media Center. ²

Background

Amaze is an online project established in 2016 by Advocates for Youth, Answer, and Youth Tech Health to provide sex education to youth .³ Advocates for Youth is a left-of-center advocacy group focused on “young people’s reproductive and sexual health and rights.” ⁴ The group is funded by several organizations including Ibis Reproductive Health, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the Hopewell Fund, and Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors. ⁵

Answer is a project of Rutgers University focused on sex education for youth. ⁶ Youth Tech Health it an advocacy group that promotes using technology to deliver health information to youth patients through technology that is funded by several groups including the Ford Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Immigrant Legal Resource Center. It has also received funding from government agencies including the U.S Department of Health and Human Services. ²

Amaze publishes free animated digital sex education content targeted to young adolescents ages 10 to 14. As of January 2025, it has published 278 videos in the United States covering topics such as puberty, sexually transmitted diseases, birth control, pregnancy and abortion, gender identity, and sexual orientation. It partners with international and foreign organizations to expand to other countries and has created almost 2,000 adaptations of these videos in over 70 languages. ^{7 8 9}

Amaze is listed as a resource for parents and educators on several organizations’ websites including the Sex Education Alliance, ¹⁰ Planned Parenthood Federation of America, ¹¹ homeschooling app Modulo, ¹² and the UNESCO Health and Education Resource Center. ¹³

Work Areas

The Amaze sex education videos are free, available publicly, and are posted on its website and on YouTube. Its U.S. YouTube channel has 278,000 subscribers. ¹⁴ Amaze also posts content in the United States on TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and X. ⁹

Amaze has identified more than 30 youth ambassadors aged 10 through 16 years to provide input on sex education topics and creates videos based on that input. ⁹

Amaze geotargets its videos to youth in states that restrict sex education. In 2024 its ads reached 434,000 youth in these restricted states. ⁹

In addition to videos, Amaze offers lesson plans for schools, content and toolkits for parents, information on how to integrate content into healthcare systems, coloring books, card games, and comics. ⁹

Funding Partners

Advocates for Youth is the fiscal sponsor for Amaze. ⁷

Its global partners include the United Nations Population Fund, the International Planned Parenthood Federation, and Georgetown University Institute of Reproductive Health. ¹⁵

National partners for the project include Center For Reproductive Rights, Catholics for Choice, Planned Parenthood, Physicians For Reproductive Health, the WestWind Foundation, the Feminist Majority Foundation, and Population Media Center. ¹⁵

The group’s website lists additional partners in South Asia, East and Southeast Asia and Oceania, Sub-Saharan Africa, Middle East and North Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Europe. ¹⁵

Controversy

In April 2021, biologist Colin Wright published an article on his Reality’s Last Stand blog claiming that sex education videos released by Amaze were “indoctrinating children” while further claiming they were “highly ideological and are likely making children incredibly confused about sex, gender, and sexuality.” ¹⁶

On January 25, 2025 Bill Ackman, CEO and founder of Pershing Square Capital Management, posted a statement on his X (formerly Twitter) account claiming that he found an Amaze video which encouraged children who are uncomfortable with their bodies to “go to a therapist who may refer them to an endocrinologist who can prescribe drugs which can delay the onset of puberty with no side effects.” Ackman further claimed on the post that “It doesn’t appear to me like a medical education video. It’s a recruitment film.” ¹⁷

Later that same day, Ackman posted on X claiming that the video had been removed from the Amaze website while alleging that “their taking down the cartoon is a confirmation of their culpability in causing harm.” ¹⁷

1. Amaze Impact Report. Updated January 2025. Accessed February 7, 2025. https://amaze.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Impact-Repor-2025_digital.pdf
2. “Partners.” YTH. Accessed February 7, 2025. https://yth.org/about/partners/
3. Manisha Snoyer. “Amaze.” Modulo. July 30, 2024. Accessed February 6, 2025. https://www.modulo.app/all-resources/amaze
4. “Advocates for Youth Issue Areas.” Advocates for Youth. Accessed February 7, 2025. https://www.advocatesforyouth.org/issues/
5.  ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer search “52-1173590.” Accessed February 7, 2025. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/full_text_search?sort=best&form%5B%5D=IRS990ScheduleI&year%5B%5D=2022&year%5B%5D=2023&q=52-1173590&submit=Apply
6. “Answer.” Rutgers. Accessed February 7, 2025. https://answer.rutgers.edu/
7. “Support AMAZE.org’s honest, inclusive, and free sex ed!” Action Network. Accessed February 6, 2025. https://actionnetwork.org/fundraising/amaze
8. “Video Topics.” Amaze – Parents. Accessed February 7, 2025. https://amaze.org/parents/
9. Amaze Impact Report. Updated January 2025. Accessed February 6, 2025. https://amaze.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Impact-Repor-2025_digital.pdf
10. “Learn. Deep Dive: Sex Education Knowledge Base.” Sex Education Alliance. Accessed February 7, 2025. https://sexeducationalliance.com/learn/
11. “Resources for Parents.” Planned Parenthood. Accessed February 7, 2025. https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/parents/resources-parents
12. “Amaze.” Modulo. Accessed February 7, 2025. https://www.modulo.app/all-resources/amaze
13. “Amaze (video resources online).” UNESCO – Health and Education Resource Centre. Accessed February 7, 2025. https://healtheducationresources.unesco.org/library/documents/amaze-video-resources-online
14. YouTube – AMAZE.Org. Accessed February 7, 2025. https://www.youtube.com/@amazeorg
15. “Partners.” Amaze – About. Accessed February 7, 2025. https://amaze.org/partners/#/
16. Colin Wright. “AMAZE Is Indoctrinating Children.” Reality’s Last Stand. April 22, 2021. Accessed February 7, 2025. https://www.realityslaststand.com/p/amaze-is-indoctrinating-children?utm_source=publication-search
17. X – Bill Ackman. Posted January 25, 2025. Accessed February 7, 2025. https://x.com/BillAckman