it is hugely significant that there has been a movement in the modern world to avoid causing extra trauma to people by labeling potentially-traumatic subjects that are being discussed in documents and media. sadly, the vast number of possible traumatic subjects makes it impossible to identify any but the most frequently-shared of them. i will do my best to point out content that will be particularly sensitive to sufferers of sexual trauma or hate crimes. i may (and certainly will in some cases) miss even these, especially as much of this content is academic and was originally created for a specific audience before being shared online.
so what i ask is not forgiveness or acceptance. as a sufferer of past trauma, i understand the potential harm unexpected encounters with triggering material can cause. rather than encounter negative effects and try to recover from them, if you are particularly sensitive to a certain topic, whether a common trigger or not, please feel completely free to reach out to me and let me know what you would like not to see and i will signpost any specific instances of that topic for you to avoid. while that may seem like an odd offer for the general public, this content is mostly for my students so i feel it is my duty as an instructor to accommodate, as much as possible, their needs and this is a completely reasonable thing to expect from any educator.
from a more general perspective, you will find that in the history section there are frequent references to physical violence, rape both as a military policy and an individual act, genocide, slavery and systematic oppression. if any of these topics are particularly sensitive for you, i can certainly provide a list of which specific areas you can safely browse without encountering them. these topics are fundamental to the study of human history and can’t be avoided when writing about them but it is certainly possible to minimize their effect on students by accurately addressing the individual needs of each and allowing them to either avoid documents when possible or at least be aware of the content before encountering it.
