In the Poetic Edda, written between the ninth and 13th centuries, Thor and the Asgardians have a problem: His hammer has been stolen. To get it back, they devise a scheme: They’ll disguise Thor as a woman and send him into the land of giants. Thor protests: What if people think he’s “queer”?

Medieval Icelanders had no problem with this story, and I’ve used it many times in the classroom to help students talk about gender expression, and subversion, in the Middle Ages. However, thanks to the administration of Texas Tech University (TTU), I am no longer allowed to teach it to our students. And the people who will pay the highest price for this change aren’t professors like me—they are the students and communities of Texas.