Thoughts on teaching controversial sex issues.

When I re-teach my sex class, I think I'll do optional attendance units on campus rape and radical feminist criticism of transgender women.

What's the point of a university, if not the vibrancy of ideas?

Campus rape is a hugely important issue, and the radical feminist criticism is both influential and in some respects substantive, as well as representative of historical trajectories of which students should be aware.

The latter is often accused of being transphobic, but engagement should always precede and inform criticism, I think, and I'll make clear from my coverage of pronouns and discussion of my work that I try my best to be a transgender ally.

I'll def. make both units optional attendance, though, so students who might have visceral and disabling reactions can choose to absent themselves from discussion.