Student says my class is hostile environment that is damaging his mental health

I guess this is my professor account now. I’m a newer TT professor in the social sciences at a primarily undergraduate state school.

Last semester, I started teaching a course related to sex/gender. I was a little nervous at first, as people can often have pretty strong opinions on the topic and I wanted to make sure that all discussion was civil and productive. I also wasn’t sure if students would feel weird about a straight man teaching a class about gender.

The class ended up going extremely well. Discussions were all really productive and students seemed to express that the course was a valuable learning experience. In fact, demand from majors in my discipline, WGS majors, and non-majors in need of a diversity credit has been so high that my chair has me scheduled to teach it every semester for the foreseeable future.

Earlier this week, however, I received an email from a student letting me know that the class has really had a negative effect on him. He said the class has become very hostile toward men and made extremely unfair generalizations of men without consideration for the exceptions. He said that as a gay person of color, he shouldn’t have to be subjected to negative generalizations on the basis of his gender as well. What’s more, he said my teaching has negatively impacted his mental health.

This is all really confusing to me. The other male students in his class seem pretty comfortable and receptive to everything. The hostile comments made by classmate that he referred to (e.g., “men are trash”) are pretty obviously said in jest and in response to learning about things like gender discrimination and sexual assault. Plus, I've never blamed men for these issues, but rather ways of thinking, social norms, etc. In fact, I’ve brought up on several occasions that social conventions surrounding gender often also have negative consequences for men.

I’d like to talk with him about it, but I don’t quite know what I would say. He’s stopped showing up to class. I feel really bad that he’s going through mental health issues, but I also don’t necessarily feel like I should apologize for the way I teach my class.

If anyone has advice, I’d really appreciate it!