This new law, in part, comes as a result of efforts by Sriya Srinivasan, a high school student from Solano County who advocated for comprehensive menstruation education in schools after her own struggles with her menstrual health.
Srinivasan faced resistance when she asked for support of the bill at her local school board meeting.
"We said things like ‘blood,’ we said ‘vagina’ in our testimony because that's what menstruation talks about," Srinivasan recalled. “[School board members] were like, ‘The language that you used was grotesque.’”
She finds that this type of stigma around menstruation limits students' understanding of their bodies.
The bill, which goes into effect in the upcoming school year, ensures that all students in grades 7 to 12 will learn about menstruation, pre-menstruation, and related disorders in sexual health classes — an amendment to the California Healthy Youth Act.
"It’s almost a year since the idea had been conceived and for it to be California law was an incredible feeling," said Srinivasan.
Quinten Voyce, Srinivasan’s biology teacher, played a crucial role in identifying gaps in the existing sexual health curriculum.
"Really unless it's prescribed in the education code, there is quite a bit that we're not allowed to talk about, especially when it comes to sexual health,” he said. “So certainly it was lacking in menstrual education.”
Although the new law lacks stringent accountability measures, Srinivasan is committed to ensuring schools across the state follow through on the curriculum changes.
The bill, co-authored by Assemblymember Lori Wilson, recognized the state's financial challenges and intentionally crafted it without any allocated funding.
"We want to make sure that the minimum as a state was that we had menstrual health education overall but also ensuring that we gave flexibility to our Department of Education as well as our districts,” she said.
While Wilson will track the law's implementation, she encourages community members to monitor their local schools’ compliance with sexual health education standards.
This call to action follows a recent incident in April when Modesto City School District was found to be non-compliant with existing sexual health laws.
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