LGBTQIA History Month Review

LGBTQIA History Month Review by Emma Yapp

As we enter LGBTQIA history month, I have been exploring the Library’s queer collection, admittedly seeking out materials that shed light on my own identity and experience. From a gender quiz in a 1970s copy of Sappho on which I scored ‘androgynous’, to Halberstam’s famous work on Female Masculinity, both my gender identity and my knowledge of  the collection are ongoing.

In a blog post in 2012, Halberstam described his gender as ‘improvised at best, uncertain and mispronounced more often than not, irresolvable and ever shifting’. His articulation, while 

intentionally vague, is the clearest I have found in relation to my own experience. This is particularly because while I am not cis-gendered, I recognise that I am afforded certain privileges by the fact that I am typically perceived as such.

In Female Masculinity, Halberstam exposes extensive nuances in the ways that we understand gender and sexuality, interspersed with analyses of works by greats such as Catherine Opie. He starts by discussing what he calls ‘the bathroom problem’ – the experience of trans or gender non-conforming folk being told they’re in the wrong bathroom. Perhaps this exemplifies my gender privilege, but I had never before considered that the women’s bathroom is much more alert to perceived ‘intruders’ than the men’s, for what are really quite obvious reasons. That’s not to say that it is more dangerous, but it certainly goes some way towards explaining the horrifying rise of TERFs, and their perceived entitlement to legitimacy.

Shon Faye’s The Transgender Issue is another title that I have my eye on, available to buy in the Library’s weekly bookshop on Saturdays. I am particularly interested to read Faye’s book, not least because she is iconic and a personal idol, but because she draws on some of the same theorists that TERFs frequently cite themselves – Andrea Dworkin and Catherine MacKinnon.

If you are interested in browsing any of the above material, the Library’s opening hours for this month are: 

Wednesdays 11am – 5pm
Thursdays 11am – 5pm
Fridays 11am – 5pmSaturdays 1pm – 4pm (Book Shop)

Book a visitor ticket on our eventbrite page