Description: Located at the intersection between 'health', 'education' and 'morality', sex education has for a long time been a complex site of political struggle across a number of jurisdictions - particularly in the UK. Determining what is 'good' or 'truthful' or 'appropriate' sex education requires consideration not only of children's best interests but also the rights of parents, the role of the state and competing knowledge and understandings of sexuality generally. Consequently children's rights claims are contingent on a number of variables and discursive formulations. This paper focuses in particular on sexuality - but the issues and theoretical framework apply to teenage pregnancy and more general issues relating to sex education. In the UK the high profile debates surrounding both the enactment and eventual repeal of the explicitly homophobic Section 28 have been well documented. But, 'homosexuality' has in far less explicit ways had an enormous impact on the legal framework and structure regulating sex education. This paper will highlight the progressive reforms that have been achieved in this area since the election of New Labour in 1997 and the concepts of 'rights' and inclusiveness' that have been used to legitimise them. It asks a number of questions: Does the expression 'gay youth' impose an overly essentialist view of sexuality? Can progressive sex education be reconciled with the increase of faith/religious schools? What are the implications of HIV/AIDS in strategies aimed at developing addressing the special needs of 'gay pupils'. To what extent does the apparently more 'liberal' approach of New Labour represent a shift in 'governance' towards a more interventionist method of control? To what extent can sex education ever be beyond the political and to what extent does it serve as a reflection of national and cultural values?