Lee

I wrote this essay for a medieval art history course this past uni semester and thought some folk here might find it interesting. All words are my own, and NO gen ai has been used. All rights are reserved to myself and the institution. I will link the full essay in a google doc below, but here is a piece of the introduction. Happy pride month!

The absence of contemporary queer terminology in the medieval era, as well as the glaring differences in what were considered normative sexual behaviours, does not mean that artistic divergences from the understood gender/sex binary were completely unheard of nor does it mean that they were particularly uncommon in the medieval era. Through reviewing literature surrounding discussion of what we may describe as transgender or non-binary bodies in medieval art, particularly texts describing the intersection of “holy” and “non-binary” bodies, a significant understanding is developed into deep-rooted, socially fundamental traditions of non-standard expressions of gender in the medieval era that may be otherwise overlooked in art history literature.