At Options for Sexual Health (Options), our mission is to champion and celebrate the sexual health of all people in British Columbia by supporting, providing, and promoting inclusive and accessible health care and comprehensive sexual health education. We believe that a key part of celebrating and promoting the health of all people in British Columbia is taking accountability and recognizing the systemic, colonial harms that have been caused in health care and education. Given that sexual health care and sex education in Canada are located within the context of colonial health care and education, we recognize that sexual health care and sex education have also perpetrated colonial violence against Indigenous Peoples across Turtle Island, in what is colonially known as Canada.
Healthcare has been used to enact colonial violence against Indigenous people—sexual health care is no different. Examples of colonial violence perpetrated against Indigenous Peoples through the provision of sexual health care include historical and ongoing forced and coerced sterilization, the Sixties Scoop and birth alert system that arose after, the banning of traditional healing practices and ceremonies around birth, and the increasing biomedicalization of birth and sexuality (Boyer & Leggett, 2022; Dyck & Lux, 2016; Sinclair & Dainard, 2024; Sanders, 2026; Hayward & Cidro, 2021). Similarly, education in Canada has been used to perpetrate colonial violence against Indigenous Peoples. These colonial violences include the residential school system, the perpetuation of eugenics ideology in Canada, and the systematic erasure of Indigenous conceptualizations of gender, sexual practices, and identities (Miller, 2026; de Bruin & Robertson, 2019; Dyck & Lux, 2016; Simpson, 2017; TallBear, 2018).
This is not to say that sexual health care or sex education are inherently harmful. Instead, we recognize that the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation is an opportunity to deepen our understanding of the effects of colonialism and reflect on our commitment to decolonization. Acknowledging the harms of colonialism is a necessary step for reconciliation and social justice. As leaders in sexual health care and sex education in BC, we would like to echo the TRCC’s Call to Action 22 by calling for all sex educators and sexual health practitioners in BC to join us in re-evaluating their practice to ensure that it is inclusive of Indigenous Peoples and traditional ceremonies relating to sexual and reproductive health. We invite the Options community to join us in reviewing the TRCC’s Calls to Action and examining how they can be better committed to decolonization.
Options for Sexual Health recognizes that true commitment to decolonization must move beyond symbolic gestures and the metaphorization of decolonization. As part of Options’ commitment to decolonization, we are excited to introduce our community to our new Indigenous Sexual Health Educator, Hayley Rennie, and the work that they are doing at Options.
Sangáay ‘láa! My name is Hayley Rennie (she/her), and I am the Indigenous Sexual Health Educator and Field Educator at Options for Sexual Health. I am a proud Haida woman, a skaanaay (aunty in X̱aad Kíl), and have over 20 years of front line experience as a Youth Worker. I’ve been working for Options for over 6 years—I started teaching online in 2020, so some kids still ask about my cats who they met online! Today I spend most of my time in person, in the classroom, teaching comprehensive sexual health education to K-12’s in engaging, current, and age-appropriate ways.
Before my move into sexual health education, I was working as an outreach worker to youth being sexually exploited. Most of the youth I worked with in that role were First Nations, Inuit or Métis. The grossly disproportionate number of Indigenous youth being exploited seemed unfathomable to many I worked alongside, yet it highlighted systemic failures Indigenous people endure, including the ongoing human rights crisis of MMIWG2S both in BC and across Turtle Island. That work changed me and led me to finding Options for Sexual Health and the Sexual Health Educator Certification (SHEC) program. SHEC developed and enriched my education. I was onto a new red road into sexual health.
In my new expanded role as Indigenous Sexual Health Educator, I look forward to continuing to work with Indigenous communities and schools, decolonizing sexual health information, and absorbing as much as I can about any bands’ traditional approaches and ceremonies related to sexual and holistic health across Turtle Island. This spring, I’ll be traveling up to northern BC and working in community with local Indigenous youth. I’ll be providing decolonized sexual health and traditional knowledge, along with some cultural activities and a bunch of food and snacks. It’s not work to be in community, it’s medicine.
In the future, I hope to take part in more land-based learning, including learning how to apply plant medicines teachings, sacred protocols, and modern wellness tools to support physical and spiritual well-being. In collaboration with Options for Sexual Health, I am also working on developing more education about Indigenous and decolonial sexual health for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous members of the Options community. We are currently in the process of building an Indigenous Curriculum Team to identify Indigenous-specific sexuality and sexual health issues and work on decolonizing sexual health information. If you’re interested in connecting, you can reach me at hrennie@optbc.org.
Haawa | Thank you
We remain committed to supporting the health and wellbeing of First Nations people and communities. If you or someone you know is impacted by the ongoing effects of residential schools, intergenerational trauma, or residential school denialism, please reach out to the following resources:
- Indian Residential Schools Crisis Line: 1-866-925-4419 (24/7)
- KUU-US Crisis Line: 1-800-588-8717
- National Hope for Wellness Help Line: 1-855-242-3310 or visit www.hopeforwellness.ca for online chat.
- First Nations Health Benefits provides access to mental wellness and counselling services: 1-855-550-5454.
- BC Mental Health Support Line: 310-6789 (no area code required)
- Qwemtsín Health Society: 250-314-6732
Sources:
Boyer, Y., & Leggett, R. (2022). Forced Sterilization: A Malicious Determinant of Health. In
Greenwood, M., De Leeuw, S., Stout, R., Larstone, R., & Sutherland, J. (Eds.), Introduction to Determinants of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis Peoples’ Health in Canada (pp. 69-85). Canadian Scholars.
de Bruin, T., & Robertson, G. (2019). Eugenics in Canada. In The Canadian Encyclopedia. Retrieved from https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/eugenics
Dyck, E., & Lux, M. (2016). Population Control in the “Global North”?: Canada’s Response to Indigenous Reproductive Rights and Neo-Eugenics. The Canadian Historical Review, 97(4), 481–512. https://doi.org/10.3138/chr.Dyck
Hayward, A., & Cidro, J. (2021). Indigenous Birth as Ceremony and a Human Right. Health and Human Rights, 23(1), 213–224.
Miller, J. (2026). Residential Schools in Canada. In The Canadian Encyclopedia. Retrieved from https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/residential-schools
Sanders, L. (2026, June 12). $66M settlement reached in B.C. birth alert class action. APTN News. https://www.aptnnews.ca/featured/66m-settlement-reached-in-b-c-birth-alert-class-action/
Simpson, L. B. (2017). Indigenous Queer Normativity. In As We Have Always Done (pp. 119-144). University of Minnesota Press.
Sinclair, N. J., & Dainard, S. (2024). Sixties Scoop. In The Canadian Encyclopedia. Retrieved from https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/sixties-scoop
TallBear, K. (2018). Making Love and Relations Beyond Settler Sex and Family. In Clarke, A. E., & Haraway, D. J. (Eds.). Making Kin Not Population. Prickly Paradigm Press.