The Birds and the Bees and My STD

This past Thursday, I exposed myself, warts and all. Literally.

I first learned about House Bill 1032 – Comprehensive Human Sexuality Education from a dear friend whose conservative friends were all up in arms about it. I asked her, “Did they wait until their wedding nights to have sex?”

“No, they both were sexually active in high school.”

Neither got pregnant or an STD. Lucky for them. Not all of us have had it so easy.

Sex education is not a requirement to graduate in Colorado so schools can choose to not teach it at all. The bill is an if/then scenario. If you are going to teach sex ed in your school, then it needs to be comprehensive, meaning it must include healthy relationships and consent, LGBTQ, pregnancy options including adoption and abortion, birth control, and STDs. It reinforces an already existing ban on abstinence-only sex education. Parents will be notified when sex education classes are coming up so they can choose to prevent their kids from participating. I encourage you to read more on the bill because there is far more to it than I can include in a blog post.

This bill hits close to home for a lot of reasons:

• I have several friends who have been sexually assaulted, one as young as 5-years-old.
• I can’t count how many amazing people I know and love from the LGBTQ community; I am aware of multiple suicide attempts by young LGBTQ who were misunderstood.
• I adore my niece and nephew who were adopted.
• I have to use birth control because my husband and I are not able to start a family.
• In my 20s, I contracted an STD. As a Virgin.

You read that correctly. For years, the STD (warts, a form of HPV), hung on for dear life to my lady parts to the point that I had to undergo laser surgery. It was the most horrifying, shameful experience of my life. I kept it a secret from most of my closest friends and family.

When I learned of this bill, I knew I needed to finally tell my story.

My friend Sarah’s organization was involved, and she helped me get connected to testify for the bill in the Senate Health and Human Services Committee. She and my brother Chris helped me edit my testimony.

I arrived around noon on Thursday and checked in as a proponent of the bill. I was given a pink, laminated piece of paper with the number 21 on it. I settled into the overflow room across from the room where the testimonies were being heard.

The hearing started at 1:30, and 213 people were set to testify. I knew it was going to be a long day.

Panels of four, alternating proponents and opponents of the bill, took turns telling their stories.

It was fascinating.

A transgender student said, “Without comprehensive sex education, I would be dead with a gravestone with a name I don’t recognize.”

I cried when a 15-year-old lesbian girl talked about how she tried to take her life and landed in a mental institute for four days because she didn’t understand who she was. My heart went out to the Christian mom of a transgender 20-year-old who shared that she and her husband were completely ill-equipped to understand their daughter for years due to a lack of education.

I was floored by the man who claimed we’d become Nazi Germany or modern-day Venezuela if this bill passed. And the man who vehemently stated HIV can spread through sneezing.

I was particularly taken aback by the persistence that abstinence-only sex education is the only way to go.

Because that is what I was taught. And look what happened to me.

I was nervous to tell my story because as my brother-in-law Nick pointed out, “Good luck going on public record talking about your vagina.”

My dear friend and neighbor Angela came to support me, as did Sarah. Having both of them there gave me the courage I needed to follow through with it. My name was finally called at 9 p.m.

Here is the video of my testimony and the script below.

My name is Katie Doble; I am representing myself in support of House Bill 1032. Thank you for listening to my story, one that I thought I’d never tell a soul, let alone public record.

Growing up in a Catholic family and in junior high my so-called sex education was abstinence. And I swore to stand by that.

When I was 15, my mom died of cancer before we could have more conversations about sex. By senior year, half my class was sexually active. I wasn’t because I’d never had sex. But I’d had oral sex. Another misstep in my education. My boyfriend and I never even talked about having vaginal intercourse. Sex felt like the only piece of my innocence I could control.

When I went to college, I wore my v-card proudly. That did not stop me from doing everything else under the sun, which included skin to skin contact.

In my mid-20s, I noticed a bump on my genitals. I saw my gynecologist and learned I had a genital wart, a form of HPV.

Still a virgin and with a serious boyfriend, I had contracted an STD.

Stupid, Katie. DUH. Insertion does not need to happen for an STD to spread.

The shame and embarrassment that ensued was debilitating.

The wart, which is typically burnt off and gone, wreaked havoc on my lady parts to the point that I had to have SURGERY on my vagina.

The warts continued to pop up after my surgery. It wasn’t until working with a therapist that they finally went away. It then took me a couple years to regain my confidence and start to shed the immense shame that had blanketed me for four years.

When I think of sex ed now and reflect on my own painful experience, it angers me to know what a disservice is being done to young people by not equipping them with the truth. Sex is not just about procreation.

As an example, I still have an IUD because I am battling stage 4 cancer and physically cannot get pregnant. My husband and I still make love even though we’re not able to start a family right now.

I would have saved myself a world of heartache had I been better educated. Telling a child “just don’t do it” is in no way educating them. Aren’t we, as a society, better off if we allow our youth to understand the truth? I sure wish teenage me would have been entrusted with more information. Let’s not allow this to happen to anyone else.

After the fourth person on my panel finished speaking, one of the senators told me I was very brave to share my story. I stood up to head to the back of the room and a woman in the front row mouthed to me, “Thank you.”

Sarah said everyone around her was commenting on my testimony and how brave it was. I believe I was the only person to speak first-hand of having an STD. We grabbed our coats and the same senator, Brittany Pettersen, met me outside and gave me a very long hug and thanked me again. After meeting her then learning more about her background, I am a forever fan.

I learned the following morning the bill passed the committee with a 3-2 vote. Next it goes onto the full Senate vote, where Democrats hold a narrow majority.

It was a far more emotional experience than I expected. Cancer has made me fearless, and I am pleased to have the courage to finally share this piece of me so that another young man or woman hiding this secret can shed the shame and know he or she is not alone.

If you live in Colorado, please contact your representative to voice your support of this bill so no other young person has to endure the humiliation I did.

If you’re a parent, PLEASE talk to your kids about sex. All of it. My friend Meagan put it best, “My mom always said, if I was old enough to be asking questions, I was old enough to hear the truth.”