In addition to tackling some USA-related articles, I've picked the rise of sexology as this month's podcast topic, hence the choice of a couple of items on this topic to post. Sexology and its consequences are about half the reason why the Lesbian Historic Motif Project cuts off around 1900. The other half of the reason is that information on lesbians in the 20th century is so much more plentiful that it would swamp earlier material (and the earlier material is where my heart is). But mostly, models and understandings of lesbianism changed significantly around 1900.
LHMP
Blog entry
Today's article is a survey of recent research in trans (and to a lesser extent, intersex) research on the middle ages.
When I see pirate novels in the new book listings, I sometimes sigh over how all of them are based on a Hollywood-fantasy version of history. But then, this is part of a grand tradition, because the story we have about Anne Bonny and Mary Read is, itself, a fantasy version of their lives, written within existing fictionalized genres and carefully tailored to audience expectations.
Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 318 - On the Shelf for July 2025
- Transcript
(Originally aired 2025/07/08 - listen here)
Welcome to On the Shelf for July 2025.
I did one of those things where I started out writing a blog intro to the LHMP entry and ended up with an essay that needed to move into the entry commentary instead. (I really do need to do an explainer on the underlying structure of the data here.)
This is just a placeholder for a cross-reference. Go about your business.
There's an entire genre of articles on the theme "why is it so hard to find historic evidence for female same-sex relations?" It covers everything from the types of erasures and displacements that Faderman talks about in this article, to the deliberate and selective exclusion of f/f vocabulary from the Oxford English DIctionary (which continues the process of erasure to this day, as people relying on it to be complete and detailed). Time after time you get slapped in the face with the understanding that f/f relations were erased because people considered them shameful and embarrassing.
I like setting myself little challenges for the Project to keep up my momentum and to avoid the sense that it's become an endless march from one random publication to the next. Thus, I alternate between thematic groupings and simply working my way through what's left in a folder or on a shelf. Doing an "every day" push for Pride Month helps kick-start me out of a period of distraction where other projects take priority. At this point, I have enough written up to continue posting every day into mid-July.
In the group of articles I've been reading lately, there are two interesting meta-topics: scholars talking about the process of research and their relationship to their subjects, and philosophical questions about the nature of "romantic friendship." I have some thoughts on the latter, which I'll put in the comments that display with the entry itself.
As noted previously, the number of the entries is going to get a bit weird for a bit. But since I don't expect that much of anyone besides me pays attention to the numbering, this is no big deal. The most relevant part is that I've identified which article I want to slot into #500, so now I have to keep track of that as I fill in what comes before.
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