LGBT+ History Month Book Displays

Many of us trainees are tasked with, or collaborate with, colleagues on creating book displays in our libraries. This gives us a chance to further explore our libraries’ collections and conduct research on topics that we are passionate about, or topics which are entirely new to us! The month of February is LGBT+ History Month and this year’s theme is Activism and Social Change. In this blog post, three trainees (from the Social Science Library, New College Library and the English Faculty Library) talk about LGBT+ History Month in their libraries, the process of creating displays, and the relevant titles which they are currently exhibiting.

If you would like to learn more about LGBT+ History Month, head on over to the Schools Out! website for more details. There has been a great deal of work done on the accumulation of LGBT+ history resources in recent years. The History Faculty Library held a LGBT+ history hackathon in November 2024 with the aim of crowdsourcing information and resources on LGBT+ history. One of our 2024/25 trainees was involved in the organisation of this event.

Social Science Library – Gia Simmons

Hello again from Manor Road! It’s Gia here, the SSL trainee. One of the most interesting and creative parts of my job is the work that I get to put into the book displays. Luckily for me, we do a lot in the SSL! Every few weeks I get to update our new book display with both Legal Deposit and Research acquisitions as well as our eBook displays. In addition to this, around once a month, we put together a special pop-up display in the SSL. These displays generally surround a particular theme, event or the time of year. This month is LGBT+ history month, so I got to collaborate with one of my colleagues to create a display that fell into the categories of this year’s theme, which was Activism and Social Change. The theme for the month is decided by the founding organisation, Schools Out!

A selection of book on LGBT+ History in the Social Science Library book display.

A colleague of mine in the SSL is the EDI Co-ordinator for Academic Library Services. Once I had come up with my very extensive list of items that I could include in this display, she very kindly helped me to narrow down the resources that I had accumulated throughout my search. Here are the books that were included in the display:

Transnational LGBT activism: working for sexual rights worldwide / Ryan Richard Thoreson https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/35n82s/alma990204582520107026 

Miss Major speaks : conversations with a Black trans revolutionary / Toshio Meronek & Miss Major https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/35n82s/alma991027128663607026 

Home is where your politics are : queer activism in the US South and South Africa / Jessica A. Scott https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/ohuutv/alma991026827538107026

Kenyan, Christian, queer : religion, LGBT activism, and arts of resistance in Africa / Adriaan van Klinken https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/ohuutv/alma990218360350107026

Coming out of communism : the emergence of LGBT activism in Eastern Europe / Conor O’Dwyer https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/ohuutv/alma990212984130107026

Queer African reader / Edited by Sokari Ekine & Hakima Abbas https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/35n82s/alma990214902680107026

Queering the public sphere in Mexico and Brazil : sexual rights movements in emerging democracies / Rafael de la Dehesa https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/35n82s/alma990218455460107026

Political voice : protest, democracy, and marginalised groups / Aidan McGarry https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/35n82s/alma991026938153107026

Between HIV prevention and LGBTI rights : the political economy of queer activism in Ghana / Ellie Gore https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/35n82s/alma991026941802407026  

Global LGBTQ activism : social media, digital technologies, and protest mechanisms / Edited by Paromita Pain https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/1tb00os/alma991025409040407026

Queer activism in India a story in the anthropology of ethics / Naisargi N. Davé https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/35n82s/alma991002540669707026

Turning the page : storytelling as activism in queer film and media / David R. Coon https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/1tb00os/alma991026785379807026

The Oxford Handbook of Global LGBT and Sexual Diversity Politics / Edited by Michael J. Bosia, Sandra M. McEvoy & Momin Rahman. https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/35n82s/alma991022098169007026

Queer data : using gender, sex and sexuality data for action / Kevin Guyan https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/1tb00os/alma990233653430107026   

Activist identity development of transgender social justice activists and educators / Ksenija Joksimović https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/35n82s/alma991025429780907026

Transgender in the post-Yugoslav space : lives, activisms, culture / Edited by Bojan Bilić, Iwo Nord & Aleksa Milanović https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/35n82s/alma991025429780907026

Sometimes, there are multiple displays happening in the SSL at once. We are very lucky that we have the space for them all! The other book display that took place at the start of February was Green Action Week.

By curating these book display, I not only get to become more familiar with the collection in my library, but I also get to show off the wide range of resources that the SSL and the wider Bodleian collection has to offer.

Furthermore, I created a suggestion booklet to be included in the display. This allows readers to indicate books on LGBT+ history to us which are important to them and also gives them the opportunity to suggest something for the library to purchase that we may not have in our collection. We also included this call for suggestions on the blog post that I wrote for the SSL blog.

We’ll see you next month with our Women’s History Month display!

New College Library – Jess Pascal

A selection of books on LGBT+ History in the New College Library book display.

Never one to shy away from a themed book display, this month I’ve put one together for LGBT+ History Month. Having a smaller library collection to work with, I wasn’t able to stick closely to the theme of Activism and Social Change, however, I selected as many books as possible relating to this theme, such as We are everywhere: protest, power, and pride in the history of Queer Liberation. I also put the most relevant books at the top of the display, as these will be the most visible. Searching for titles to include in this display was relatively easy, as books about gender and sexuality are grouped together in New College library’s in-house classification system under the fairly new shelfmark Q. This meant I could go to that section and browse for the appropriate books. I aimed to incorporate as much variety as possible; this meant including various identities under the queer umbrella as well as differing geographical locations and time periods to showcase the diversity and extent of the queer community. With this in mind, I designed the label for the display around the progress pride flag and included a variety of flags representing queer identities that aren’t yet consistently included in books about LGBT+ history. As always, the final step is to publicise the display here and on our social media, reminding people that these books are there to be read!

Books used:

In Her Hands : Women’s Fight against AIDS in the United States / Emma Day  https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/35n82s/alma991025354505507026

Transgender Warriors: Making History from Joan of Arc to Dennis Rodman / Leslie Feinberg  https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/35n82s/alma990210863520107026

Queer (Re)Readings in the French Renaissance: Homosexuality, Gender, Culture / Gary Ferguson  https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/35n82s/alma990228559620107026

Queer Cambridge: An Alternative History / Simon Goldhill  https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/35n82s/alma991027156561107026

The Lesbian Revolution: Lesbian Feminism in the UK, 1970-1990 / Sheila Jeffreys   https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/35n82s/alma990217995000107026

LGBT Victorians: Sexuality and Gender in the Nineteenth-Century Archives / Simon Joyce  https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/35n82s/alma990231097600107026

The Other Side of Silence: Men’s Lives and Gay Identities: A Twentieth-Century History / John Loughery  https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/35n82s/alma990223290420107026

Queer Philologies: Sex, Language, and Affect in Shakespeare’s Time / Jeffrey Masten  https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/35n82s/alma990214013820107026

Spaces Between Us: Queer Settler Colonialism and Indigenous Decolonization / Scott Lauria Morgensen  https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/35n82s/alma990218530000107026

Sex Change, Social Change: Reflections on Identity, Institutions, and Imperialism / Viviane K. Namaste  https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/35n82s/alma990214902070107026

We Are Everywhere: Protest, Power, and Pride in the History of Queer Liberation / Matthew Riemer & Leighton Brown.  https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/35n82s/alma990218614470107026

Queer Identities and Politics in Germany: A History, 1880-1945 / Clayton John Whisnant  https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/35n82s/alma990208178650107026

English Faculty Library – Harry Whattoff

The English Faculty Library decorated with pride flags.

Whilst the English Faculty Library does not have a designated LGBT+ History Month display like some other libraries do this year, we are, of course, still celebrating in style. Each year, for both LGBT+ History Month (February) and Pride Month (June), the library dons its most colourful finery (various pride flags) and doesn’t it look lovely! Furthermore, our current display (curated by yours truly) is particularly topical and refers to one of the most famous queer books to be banned: The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall (1928).

The display is titled “TO BE DESTROYED:” The Legal History of Book Censorship in the UK and it is essentially a (mostly) complete timeline of the major events/publications that resulted in the creation of the 1959 Obscene Publications Act. This piece of legislation, which is still in use today, took huge steps in reforming previous laws aimed at curbing the publication, sale, and distribution of material deemed to be obscene and corruptive. In numerous instances, these historic laws resulted in the censorship of an array of queer literature such as that of Radclyffe Hall.

Whilst her book was unfortunately banned until after her death, Hall’s case was a landmark one in showcasing the frustration of censorship laws of the time and the need for change; as such, this year’s LGBT+ History Month theme (Activism and Social Change) is especially relevant. Wan writes that “Norman Birkett, the defence lawyer, had assembled a formidable group of witnesses, including E.M. Forster, Desmond McCarthy (the editor of Life and Letters), Leonard and Virginia Woolf, [and] Vita Sackville-West” (150) to defend the novel and oppose censorship. Most of these figures were queer creatives, and all were members of The Bloomsbury Group – an influential artistic social circle of the early twentieth century. The obscenity trial which took place received a huge amount of publicity and consequently, Hall’s status as a lesbian icon was firmly cemented. In many ways, Hall’s trial also led to wider exposure to this so-called ‘obscene’ material, thus, having the opposite of the intended effect.

Changes to obscenity laws would only come about in 1959 after much legal back and forth. To find out more about this, and Radclyffe Hall’s case, head on over to our own blog site here for a more in-depth view. Additionally, please do pop into the EFL for a look at the display – it covers almost 600 years of a long, complex history so it’s not one to be missed!

*It is important to note that, whilst Radclyffe Hall can indeed be viewed as a courageous advocate for social change, her personal politics can divide opinion. To understand more about her life, I would recommend listening to the Bad Gays podcast featuring Jana Funke, Professor of Modern Literature and Sexuality Studies at Exeter University. The link to the episode can be found here!*

Works Cited

Wan, M. (2016). “The Well of Loneliness trials: lesbianism and the return of the repressed.” Masculinity and the Trials of Modern Fiction, Routledge, 2018, pp. 138-170.

The English Faculty Library decorated with pride flags.

LGBTQ+ History Month at the Bodleian Law Library

British LGBTQ+ history has an involved and often traumatic relationship to the Law. At the Bodleian Law Library (BLL), we’ve taken the opportunity to highlight some of those relationships through a display of our primary and secondary collections. In this post, we want to briefly touch on just a few pieces of legislation, currently on display or accessible on open shelf in the BLL, that were vital to the progression of LGBTQ+ rights in the UK, showing how the Law Library can be a key resource for studying its history.

Three books on display against the background of a rainbow flag
Physical copies of the Wolfenden Report, a Homosexual Law Reform Society annual report, and Peter Wildeblood’s memoir.

In 1954, Peter Wildeblood, Lord Montagu of Beaulieu and Michael Pitt-Rivers were convicted for “consensual homosexual offences” and sentenced to 12 to 18 months in prison. The trial invigorated a reform movement that triggered a Commons “committee on homosexual offences” that, in 1957, would publish the seminal Wolfenden Report, which advised that “‘Homosexual behaviour between consenting adults in private be no longer a criminal offence”. The report was debated in parliament, but the government did not act on its recommendations, galvanising new organisations agitating for gay rights, such as the Homosexual Law Reform Society (a 1960s report of the Society is on display in the Law Library). Also in the Law Library, you can read the Wolfenden Report itself, as well as Wildeblood’s brave memoir Against the Law, which appeared in the same year.

Picture of a book display showing various primary and secondary resources related to LGBTQ+ history
Part of the LGBTQ+ History Month display at the Bodleian Law Library.

The library-held collections of historical and in-force statutes (such as Halsbury’s or online legal databases like Westlaw or Lexis+ subscribed to by the Bodleian – see the list of legal databases at Legal databases | Bodleian Libraries (ox.ac.uk); not quite as up to date but freely accessible to everyone is the government’s own Legislation.gov.uk) are a key source of LGBTQ+ history. In 1967, ten year after the recommendations in the Wolfenden report, the Sexual Offences Act finally decriminalised in-private sex between men over 21 (i.e. only a partial decriminalisation: the age of consent, moreover, was not equalised until 2000). Another key statute is the Gender Recognition Act 2004, which finally gave Trans people the legal right to full recognition of their gender (we also hold the 2018 parliamentary consultation material regarding its reform). And there is the Marriage (Same-Sex Couples) Act of 2013, which legalised gay marriage, or the 2010 Equality Act, Britain’s key anti-discrimination legislation. All these laws have a direct impact on people’s daily lives and experiences, as well as our sense of what kind of society we are and/or want to be.

The BLL does not only hold the final product when it comes to legislation. In the Official Papers collection, the often fascinating (and not rarely disturbing) parliamentary history of LGBTQ+ – related legislation can be followed, for instance through the debate reports printed in Hansard (also online at https://hansard.parliament.uk/). From the first discussion of Lesbianism in parliament in 1921 (a Criminal Law Amendment bill, which would have criminalised all sex between women, was defeated in the House of Lords that year) to the long history of the repeal of the repressive section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988 (which prohibited the so-called “promotion” of homosexuality by local authorities, inspiring the activism of Stonewall and OutRage!), readers can discover how House discussions and committee reports reflected (or not) debates, prejudices, advocacy and reform in wider society. Behind the glass of the main reading room, for instance, three volumes on display chart the repeal of section 28: from the 1988 introduction of the paragraph which offensively termed gay partnerships “pretended family relationships” into the 1986 Local Government Act, over the introduction of repeal in the Standing Committee stage of the 2003 Local Government Bill, to the eventual enactment of repeal in the Local Government Act 2003 (a government apology, however, did not follow until 2009).

Two statute books and a parliamentary committee report on display, resting on bookstands.
Tracing the repeal of Section 28 at the BLL

If you want to know more, a good first place to start is the Oxford LibGuide prepared by the Law Library: Home – LGBTI law – Oxford LibGuides at Oxford University. The secondary literature on display until the end of this month in the main reading room, moreover, highlights not only titles about the UK, but also the US, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East. On the first floor of the library, in addition, there are extensive collections of statutes from Australia, Canada, India, and many other jurisdictions: on the first of February, for instance, we displayed the Canadian Civil Marriage Act, which legalised same-sex marriage in the country on that day in 2005 (on the same day in 2009, incidentally, Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir became the prime minister of Iceland, and with it the world’s first openly gay head of government).

There are many more legal resources accessible through the library, either in physical form (such as reports on the trial of Oscar Wilde, notoriously convicted under the infamous Labouchère Amendment of the 1885 Criminal Law Amendment Act, at KB65.ENG.WIL on the second floor), or in electronic form. As such, the library constitutes an excellent resource in remembering and making visible LGBTQ+ history, the constraints and repressions that the Law has inflicted, and the trajectory of its reform and the construction of anti-discrimination legislation.

 

Celebrating LGBT+ History Month at the Bodleian Libraries

February is LGBT+ History Month. Across the Bodleian and college libraries, the Graduate Trainees have been hard at work creating displays that showcase a wide array of books which explore and celebrate LGBT+ history.

The Oxford Union Society Library

The Oxford Union Society’s LGBT+ History Month display explores LGBT+ history from across the world.

Homosexuality in ancient Greece is discussed through famous historical figures like Sappho, the romantic poet who is widely believed to have been lesbian (indeed, she lived on the Isle of Lesbos which is where the word “Lesbian” comes from),[1] and Ovid who wrote in his Art of Love that ‘a boy’s love appealed to me less’ – although this was later deliberately mistranslated as ‘a boy’s love appealed to me not at all’.[2] This censorship is not unusual, though amusingly some writers who translated Greek texts would translate the more risqué passages into Latin, thus counterintuitively highlighting the very sections they wanted obscured.[3]

Additionally, ancient Greek literature is used to explore LGBT history: Plato’s Symposium includes a brilliantly varied discussion of the origin of man in which Aristophanes, a comic, suggests that humans used to be two beings fused together, some male and female, others male and male and yet others female and female. These original humans were split in half by the angry gods and that is why we search for our “other half”.[4]

Transsexualism and homosexuality in various parts of Asia are also discussed:

  • In Mesopotamia, the deity of love and war, Ishtar, could be depicted as either male or female depending on what aspect of divinity the artist wished to portray. Ishtar’s male followers were even considered feminine and their sexual identity ‘in some way irregular’.[5]
  • The Hindu deity Lakshminarayan is a combination of two deities: male Vishnu and female Lakshmi. Similarly, the deity Ardhanarishvara represents the goddess Parvati and the god Shiva (who is romantic with Vishnu and even gives birth!).[6]
  • Japanese and Persian cultures are discussed through comparing Japanese samurai, who often had relationships with their pages and juniors and valued male love, with a similar practice in Persian royal courts.[7]

Modern British history, on the other hand, is filled with the poor treatment of LGBT+ people. In the 18th century homosexuality was a capital offence and the word “Molly” was used as a term of abuse towards flamboyant men.[8] In 1895, Oscar Wilde was tried for being gay and imprisoned in Reading gaol,[9] and in 1952 Alan Turing was discovered to be homosexual and charged with ‘gross indecency’ and chemically castrated.[10] Later in the 20th century, homosexuals were interrogated and discharged from the armed forces.[11] In fact, homosexuals were banned from British Armed Forces up until 2000.[12]

LGBT+ history is varied and fascinating. If you’d like to learn more about how it has been celebrated at the Oxford Union, check out the posts about the display for Transgender Awareness Week 2023 on Twitter and Facebook.

[1] R.B. Parkinson. 2013. A little gay history : desire and diversity across the world. 306.766 PAR

[2] Simon LeVay. 2012. Gay, straight, and the reason why : the science of sexual orientation. 155.3 LEV

[3] John Boswell. 1982. Christianity, social tolerance, and homosexuality : gay people in Western Europe from the beginning of the Christian era to the fourteenth century. 306.766 2 BOS

[4] Simon LeVay. 2012.

[5] R.B. Parkinson. 2013.

[6] Ibid

[7] Ibid

[8] Simon LeVay. 2012.

[9] Hugh David. 1997. On queer street : a social history of British homosexuality, 1895-1995. 306.766 DAV.

[10] Andrew Hodges. 1992. Alan Turing : the enigma. 510 HOD.

[11] Edmund Hall. 1995. We can’t even march straight : Homosexuality in the British Armed Forces. 306.766 094 1 HAL.

[12] Ministry of Defence, Cabinet Office, Office for Veterans’ Affairs, The Rt Hon Dr Andrew Murrison MP, The Rt Hon Johnny Mercer MP, The Rt Hon Rishi Sunak MP, and The Rt Hon Ben Wallace MP. 2023. ‘Government apologises to veterans for egregious historic LGBT policy in the Armed Forces: The PM and Defence Secretary apologise to LGBT personnel and veterans impacted by the historic ban.’ Gov.uk. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-apologises-to-veterans-for-egregious-historic-lgbt-policy-in-the-armed-forces

 Connie Hubbard

 

The Taylor Institution Library

A picture showing the Taylor Institution Library’s LGBT+ History Month display.

The study of LGBT+ history is a rapidly growing field in academia. This is reflected in Oxford University’s Centre for Gender, Identity and Subjectivity, as well as the LGBTQ+ History Faculty Network which runs fortnightly seminars and research sessions (@oulgbtqhistory). As for the Taylorian, we have a growing focus on gender and sexuality, not only on our ‘G.GEN’ marked shelves in the Main Reading Room and Research Collection but interspersed throughout our modern language and film collections.

While the official theme for this year’s LGBT+ History Month is ‘Medicine: Under the Scope’, we at the Taylor Library decided to stick to our subject specialisms of modern language and European history while putting together our display. As a result, we have two separate displays, a DVD display in the Teaching Collection and a display of our most recent acquisitions of LGBT+ history books in the Research Collection, to keep up to date with current scholarship.

The displays aim to present examples of the vast array of items the library has, from the history of coming out in Wales (A Little Gay History of Wales) and lesbian desire in nineteenth century Italy (Eccentricity and sameness: discourses on lesbianism and desire between women in Italy, 1860s-1930s), to histories of queerness in medieval French courts (Courtly and queer: deconstruction, desire, and medieval French literature) and anthologies of transgender historical scholarship. They are centred around uncovering lost historical narratives, whether that be because of scholarly neglect until relatively recently, or explicit attempts to erase the voices of those who did not “fit” within the heteronormative historical narrative. To recognise these voices, the display also contains the works of 19th and 20th century LGBT+ writers and artists. These include the likes of Renée Vivien, a lesbian Parisian poet whose childhood friend-turned-lover, Violet Shillito, is often evoked in her works such as this display’s A Crown of Violets. Another example you will find is that of Mário Cesariny, a surrealist artist and poet who left Portugal for the UK to escape persecution for his homosexuality. The Taylor recently held an exhibition of his work, which you can read about here. 

As for our DVD display, this aims to celebrate the impact and contribution of LGBT+ artists in cinema worldwide. The collection on display consists of films that were produced by LGBT+ directors and are a mix of early and more recent productions. From French historical drama such as Portrait of a Lady on Fire to South Korean thriller The Handmaiden, Swedish bildungsroman Show Me Love to Thai romance Tropical Malady, these award-winning productions all explore and celebrate the multifaceted experiences of those in the LGBT+ community. Overall, the displays reflect the purpose of LGBT+ History Month as a whole, to create safe and inclusive spaces for all readers and staff members at the Taylorian.

Reading List: Histoire de la Sexualité by Michel Foucault; The Transgender Studies Reader, ed. by Susan Stryker and Stephen Whittle; Queer Genealogies in Transnational Barcelona, by Natasha Tanna; Derivas Del (Mal)decir, by José Javier Maristany; Queer Square Mile: Queer Short Stories from Wales, ed. by Kirsti Bohata et al.; Un Été Avec Colette, by Antoine Compagnon; Pena Capital by Mário Cesariny; A Crown of Violets, by Renée Vivien (trans. by Samantha Pious); Lesbian Decadence, by Nicole G. Albert; Peripheral Desires: The German Discovery of Sex by Robert Deam Tobin; A Little Gay History of Wales by Daryle Leeworthy; Eccentricity and Sameness, by Charlotte Ross; Public City/Public Sex, by Andrew Israel Ross.

DVD List: Tropical Malady, directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul; Show Me Love, by Lukas Moodysson; Happy Together, by Wong Kar-Wai; Tomboy, by Céline Sciamma; A Fantastic Woman, by Sebastián Lelio; Portrait of a Lady on Fire, by Céline Sciamma; The Handmaiden, by Park Chan-Wook.

Clara Oxley

 

English Faculty Library

This year for LGBT+ month, the EFL has decided to do something a little bit different for its Book Display. Under the capable hands of Sophie, our Reader Services Senior Library Assistant, and in collaboration with the LGBTQ+ Campaign, the EFL put out a call to its readers to help co-curate this month’s display. Our readers were asked to submit their favourite queer book with a short blurb on why they chose it. Needless to say, we were blown away by the response!

10 people took the time out of their day to send in a suggestion, and it was wonderful to see how varied the responses were. Here’s a sample of some of the choices and a taste of why they were chosen:

  • Loveless by Alice Oseman, a contemporary coming-out novel with an aro-ace protagonist. In the anonymous nominee’s words, it’s about ‘the multitude of ways that love can be defined’
  • Ready to Catch him Should he Fall by Neil Bartlett which nominee Jasper described as ‘[capturing] the horror and grief of the 80s AIDS crisis’
  • And (of course) classics such as The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, in which nominee Isaac highlighted how ‘with the lens afforded to a modern queer man, the homosexual repression jumps off the page’.

A full reading list can be found below if you’re interested!

It has been fascinating to see how different the responses are, and to see what exactly our readers are reading in their own words – particularly as queer voices have been (and are still being) silenced. In the spirit of allowing people their own voice, I’ve asked Sophie to write a few words of her own about the display:

“The idea for the collaborative display between the English Faculty Library and the SU LGBTQ+ Campaign was first raised by student reps  earlier this academic year, who expressed an interest in the library having a display for Trans Awareness Week back in November (which we did!). The LGBT+ History Month display was a natural follow-up from this, and couldn’t have been made without the help of the SU LGBTQ+ Campaign, who reached out to their connections and collected suggestions from the student body. This has helped us to create a display where Oxford’s LGBTQ+ community can talk about their history, experiences, and literature in their own words.”

This display will be on at the EFL for the entirety of LGBTQ+ History Month until March 4th 2024, so we highly encourage you to see it in person! If you’re unable to make it to the EFL though, a virtual display will be being posted onto the EFL Blog later this month so do keep an eye out.

Reading List: Gender Trouble by Judith Butler; The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde; Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan le Fanu; After Sappho by Selby Wynn Schwartz; Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier; Hauntings and Other Fantastic Tales by Vernon Lee; Loveless by Alice Oseman; Gallathea by John Lyly; Tales of the City by Armistead Mapuin; Ready to Catch him Should he Fall by Neil Bartlett

Leah Brown

New College Library

A picture showing New College Library’s LGBT+ History Month display.New College Library’s book display for LGBT+ History Month draws from our extensive Gender and Sexuality collection, a section of the library dedicated to books which explore and amplify LGBT+ peoples’ lives, voices, identities, and experiences, both historically and in the present day. I also identified some exciting new titles which we acquired for the library.

In honour of this year’s theme, ‘Medicine – #UnderTheScope’, the display includes books which explore LGBT+ people’s experiences of and contributions to healthcare and medicine. David France’s How to Survive a Plague, which was based on the 2012 documentary he directed of the same name, provides a raw and powerful social and scientific history of AIDS. France spotlights the vital work of activists of all genders who were the driving force behind the development of life-saving drugs for the management of HIV. Also on display is The Hidden Case of Ewan Forbes by Zoë Playdon. This book chronicles the life of Scottish nobleman Ewan Forbes, a transgender man, and the 1968 court case regarding the inheritance of his baronetcy. Drawing on the fields of medicine, psychology, biology, and law, Playdon provides the first analysis of this little-known event in LGBT+ history, drawing on records that had been suppressed until very recently.

Other books on display in New College Library this year explore a variety of different aspects of LGBT+ history, reflecting something of the range of different experiences, voices, and identities. Dr Kit Heyam’s monograph Before We Were Trans, for example, moves widely through time and space proposing a broader concept of trans history which encompasses everyone ‘doing fascinating, creative, messy things with gender’. Other books on display include a history of the Stonewall uprising in America and the imposition, repeal, and legacy of Section 28 in Britain, alongside explorations of the culture, history, and science of bisexuality and asexuality.

The display has proved really popular, and readers have borrowed several of the books which we have replaced on the display with others from our collection. There are so many amazing new releases in the field of LGBT+ studies, and I am keen to support in the acquisition of more of these books for the library.

Reading List: David France, How to Survive a Plague: The Story of How Activists and Scientists Tamed AIDS (London: Picador, 2017); Zoë Playdon, The Hidden Case of Ewan Forbes: The Transgender Trial that Threatened to Upend the British Establishment (London: Bloomsbury, 2022); Kit Heyam, Before We Were Trans: A New History of Gender (London: Basic Books, 2022); Martin B, Duberman, Stonewall: The Definitive Story of the LGBTQ Rights Uprising that Changed America (New York: Plume, 2019); Paul Baker, Outrageous! The Story of Section 28 and Britain’s Battle for LGBT Education (London: Reaktion Books, 2022); Julia Shaw, Bi: The Hidden Culture, History, and Science of Bisexuality (Edinburgh: Canongate, 2023); Angela Chen, Ace: What Asexuality Reveals about Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex (Boston: Beacon Press, 2020).

Jessica Hodgkinson

History Faculty Library

A picture showing the History Faculty Library’s LGBT+ History Month display

At the HFL, a former trainee has put together a display of books covering a wide range of LGBT+ history.

For those keen to delve into this year’s theme of “Under the Scope” and explore how LGBT+ people have experienced and contributed to medicine and healthcare, there are titles such as How to survive a plague: the inside story of how citizens and science tamed AIDS, which tells the story of activists and medics fighting to find a solution to the AIDS crisis.

Looking more broadly at LGBT+ history, there are a number of titles which make a deep dive into British queer history, such as Same-sex sexuality in later medieval English culture, A lesbian history of Britain: love and sex between women since 1500 and Queer voices in post-war Scotland: male homosexuality, religion and society. Or why not venture further from home with Red closet: the hidden history of gay oppression in the USSR or Stonewall: the definitive story of the LGBTQ rights uprising that changed America?

And if you’re not able to come into the Radcliffe Camera in person there is a selection of suggested digital titles, ranging from the broad – such as The Routledge history of queer America – to the highly specific Plane queer: labor, sexuality, and AIDS in the history of male flight attendants.

Reading List:

Tomboys and bachelor girls: a lesbian history of post-war Britain 1945-71

Britannia’s glory: a history of twentieth-century lesbians

Let the record show: a political history of ACT UP New York, 1987-1993

Before AIDS: gay health politics in the 1970s

Before we were trans: a new history of gender

Queer public history: essays on scholarly activism

The shape of sex: nonbinary gender from Genesis to the Renaissance

Same-sex sexuality in later medieval English culture

A little gay history: desire and diversity across the world

Outrageous!: the story of Section 28 and Britain’s battle for LGBT education

Sapphistries: a global history of love between women

Bi: the hidden culture, history and science of bisexuality

Journal of the history of sexuality (Online)

Seeing sodomy in the Middle Ages

GLQ (online)

Xanthe Malcolm

Promoting an Exhibition

One of the exciting projects we can get involved in as trainees is preparing for and promoting library exhibitions, whether open to the public or exclusively to university staff and students. For LGBT+ History Month, New College Library will be putting on an exhibition on Queer Love & Literature in our collections on 25th February. We have a display case in the main library for small, longer-term exhibitions of about ten items, accessible to college members only. However, this is not suitable for large exhibitions like this one. We therefore book a room in college with enough space for long tables, which also allows us to open our exhibitions to the public. The downside is the room is not secure enough to leave any of our rare books and manuscripts overnight, therefore our large exhibitions are open for one day and one day only! This involves a lot of preparation to make sure we can set up and take down the exhibition as quickly and securely as possible on the day.

Exhibition in Lecture Room 4

 

However, without people coming to see our wonderful collections, all our preparation would be in vain. For this exhibition, we’ve used some successful promotion tactics from our previous exhibitions as well as some new ones to usher as many people as possible through our doors on the day. First of all is the fun bit, designing a poster for the exhibition on Canva, with a uniform logo we’re using on all of our social media channels. We then sent the design off to a print company to have it printed in A2, A3, and A4. We “launched” the news of our upcoming exhibition on the 19th January on our social media, and sent an email out to the OLIS, Oxford Libraries Information System, mail list. I also changed our Twitter and Facebook profile headers to advertisements for the exhibition. Thanks to my fellow trainees, I sent out some posters to go up in other libraries and increase awareness of the exhibition throughout the university. I also go on a wander around college putting up posters in common areas such as the café/bar and the JCR. I’m also trialling some QR codes, linked to the event page on our website, displayed around the library.  The LGBTQ+ Officers for the college’s JCR and MCR do a great job of organising their own events throughout the year such as queer drinks and LGBTQ+ formals, so we let them know about our exhibition so they can spread the word around college.

QR Codes around the Library

Designing the Exhibition Poster

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As our exhibition is for LGBT+ History Month, a campaign founded by Schools OUT to increase the visibility of queer people’s histories and experiences, we added our event to their public calendar. However, we’ve found social media is the most effective method to reach a wider audience outside just New College and the University. On our Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, we’ve been further teasing our exhibition by posting some of the items we’ll be displaying on the day with our exhibition banner underneath to make sure our followers don’t get sick of the same poster over and over again. I have scheduled a sneaky motion graphic to go out in the week before the exhibition, just to add a little spice. We also asked the Lodge to let us put a poster in an A-frame outside the college entrance on Holywell Street on the day to draw in any walk-ins and notify visitors where the exhibition actually is, as New College can be a bit of a maze. We’re quite lucky that our collections speak for themselves, including a 15th-century manuscript copy of Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, early printed books relating to King James VI and I, Oscar Wilde’s Ravenna inscribed by the author, and a first-edition copy of Virginia Woolf’s Orlando. There might be a few surprise additions on the day as we continue compiling the labels, but we’re hoping to show at least 30 items of queer literature.

@newcollegelibrary Instagram Feed

Motion Graphic

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We’re quite a small library and our exhibitions only last one day, so we don’t have the same resources and following to generate as much hype as some larger libraries’ incredible exhibitions, such as those at the British or Bodleian libraries, but we try our best! We’re also looking into putting on online exhibitions, so that our collections can be viewed digitally for longer, as it’s a shame they’re only on display for 6 hours at a time. This is the first of our exhibitions that we’ve put in this much work to promote, particularly on social media, so only time will tell if it works.