Course on women's health - nervous about the sex/gender question

[RustBuck]

I have name changed and I'm being a bit vague for obvious reasons.

This semester I'll be teaching a course on women's health as part of a humanities degree. In the first workshop, I'll be saying that the words 'women' and 'men' will be used to denote sex class. I won't make a big deal of this because I don't want to invite debate. But I want to make sure that the language is clear from the start.

Today I've had a list of students on the course. There are a couple who have been involved in the SU's LGBT+ groups and trans-rights campaigns at the University.

I am getting nervous about how things are going to go.

Has anyone had any experiences of teaching courses about sex-based experiences, which have then generated some unhappiness from students? If so, how did you deal with it?

I don't think things will escalate hugely famous last words but I suspect there may be some murmurings among students about my essentialist approach to women/men. I'd appreciate any insights into how this might play out, and how I pay it if it does.

Hi @CleverKnot
Thanks for following up. I was clear at the start that 'women' meant the female sex-class. I didn't get any come back on this throughout the course, which surprised me. I had my articles and defenses ready (thanks to previous posters).

I had some students throughout the course talking about 'pregnant people' and the like. But these kinds of phrases were mostly used between themselves and to each other, rather than in conversation with me or directed towards me.

I had three transmen in the course, one of whom had previously been the Student Union's representative for LGBTQIA++ students. I'd expected a little trouble from them all. But, no. The only problem I had was one of these students emailing me about my use of the term 'biological women' in my feedback on their work. They sent tonnes of material about why that phrase is problematic. It was mostly absolute bullshit, of course, about sex not being binary. But I didn't bite. After taking issue with my use of 'biological women', this student said that as a trans student, they'd felt included and welcome throughout. Phew.

In workshops, these three students were very focused on transmen's experiences of healthcare. Fine. As I said above, my focus on women's health also includes transmen - they are female. I noticed two things on this. Firstly, that the trans/gender issue is all encompassing for some people, and that people invested in the issue find it hard to widen the conversation without bringing it back to trans issues. Secondly, that students who aren't invested in the trans issue are just about tolerating it. They don't believe in the gender woo. They know sex is binary. The majority of students could barely hide their eye-rolling when the trans issue came up.

There is hope for our youngsters, they're not all captured!