Sunday, October 4, 2009

Sex at the Office: The Other Problems

David Letterman’s admission of fooling around with his employees has got me thinking about sex at the academic office, and particularly about sexual relations between professors and their graduate students, or between senior and junior faculty. Especially since sex researchers appear to be famous for engaging in this behavior.

I don’t happen to be one of those feminists who thinks that sex between someone in a superior role and someone in an inferior role can never really be consensual. I think men and women can actually be grown up enough to manage sexual advances at the office in a way that is respectful and fair.

Monday, June 22, 2009

How and Why to Take "Gender Identity Disorder" Out of the DSM

As a wizened gender rights advocate, I know better than to assume the activists making the most noise are actually representative of “the community” they insist they represent. So, while American transgender activists have lately been fairly unified and very vocal about the need to remove “Gender Identity Disorder” (GID) from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), I know that not all trans people agree.