Defending Sexual Identity Development & Challenging Sexualized Myths about Youth of Color

In this session of our 2022 Racial Justice Training Series and Book Club, Prof. Kristin Henning and Ebony Howard, Deputy Director of The Gault Center, were joined by Maheen Kaleem, Deputy Director of Grantmakers for Girls of Color, and Brittany Mobley, Deputy Chief of the Juvenile Services Program at DC Public Defender Service.

In this session, we:

Learned about historical myths about the hyper-sexualization of Black youth
Reviewed the normal milestones of adolescent sexuality
Discussed the disparate criminalization of the sexuality of youth of color in your jurisdiction
Considered how we can use data, research, and history in our case advocacy and systemic reform

This session was built around Chapter 4, Raising “Brutes” & “Jezebels”: Criminalizing Black Adolescent Sexuality, of Prof. Henning’s book, The Rage of Innocence: How America Criminalizes Black Youth.