The College Fix

Course ‘sounds like the result of a prank,’ medical reform group says

​The University of Minnesota regularly offers a course titled “Intersectional and Decolonizing Approaches to Transgender Health,” as part of several graduate degree programs.

This fully online, three-credit course is part of the Transgender and Gender Diverse Health Certificate program and the Master’s of Professional Studies in Sexual Health.

According to the university website, the course uses an “intersectional approach” and examines “systemic marginalization of gender-diverse populations.” The course also addresses the “historical pathologization of diverse gender and sexual identities within healthcare.”

Students are encouraged to critically assess biases and “western assumptions” related to “gender identity, sexual orientation, sex assigned at birth, and gender expression.”

Professor Nic Rider has taught the course in the past. The academic did not respond to an emailed request for comment, nor a voicemail left in the past month by The College Fix.

The Fix asked Rider (pictured) for a copy of the syllabus, what “decolonizing” healthcare means, and if the class examines current debates about the safety and efficacy of transgender drugs and surgeries. The Fix also reached out to fellow instructor Taymy Caso for comment, but the professor did not respond.

Rider uses “they/them” pronouns, and has an interest in “intersectionality, improving various health disparities, sexual health and pleasure, decolonizing healing justice, systems change and social justice advocacy,” according to the professor’s bio.

The research director for a medical reform group criticized the course

Do No Harm Director of Research Ian Kingsbury said the description “sounds like the result of a prank: ‘How many leftist buzzwords can we fit into a single course description?'”

When asked what a course on transgender healthcare should cover, Kingsbury said it should “earnestly grapple with ethical concerns surrounding the ability of minors to provide informed consent.”

He said it should also “provide information relevant to clinical practice, including the risks associated with cross sex hormone therapy and puberty blockers.”

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“Given the framing of the issue, I’d be shocked if this course meaningfully addressed topics like the Cass Review, detransitioners, or the appalling state of medical literature cited to justify pediatric gender medicine,” he said.

The Cass Review is an official study undertaken by the National Health Service in the United Kingdom to look at the safety and efficacy of transgender drugs and surgeries.

Dr. Hilary Cass generally warned against their use in her official review.

On the inclusion of “decolonizing” in the course’s title and curriculum, Kingsbury remarked: “It’s a leftist shibboleth which broadly hints at a departure from Western traditions like the scientific method. It’s an immediate indicator that the work doesn’t deserve to be taken seriously.”

The university’s transgender health program does not appear to take issue with injecting minors with drugs or removing their healthy organs. It offers a class called “Considerations in the care of Transgender and Gender-Diverse Children and Adolescents.”

“This course will examine the health care (broadly defined) needs and care of transgender and gender-diverse children and adolescents,” the description states. “To lay the groundwork, we will discuss the importance of a well-balanced, nuanced, and thoughtful approach to the available research, clinical knowledge, and dilemmas in the field.”

Meanwhile, biologists have confirmed that sex is immutable, as previously reported by The Fix.

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IMAGE CAPTION AND CREDIT: University of Minnesota Professor Nic Rider; Gustavus Adolphus College/YouTube

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