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LGBTQ+ Equality at UCL History of Art

LGBTQ+

LGBTQ+ students and staff are an important part of both the Department and UCL. We aim to create a welcoming and inclusive environment throughout the department with a strong emphasis on reflecting the distinctive needs and priorities of different communities.

Preventing and challenging transphobic bullying and harassment

Support and Resources at UCL

  • UCL has an active LGBTQ+ Equalities Action Group (LEAG) and an LGBTQ+ staff social network (Out@UCL) which meets at least twice a term. Staff at UCL can become a Friend of Out@UCL, and UCL provides training for staff to become LGBTQ+ allies. More information on UCL supporting trans and non-binary staff in the work place can be found here.
  • There is also an active research network called qUCL, a university-wide initiative that brings together UCL staff and students with research and teaching interests in LGBTQ studies, gender and sexuality studies, queer theory and related fields. At History of Art we are especially well-placed to support LGBTQ+ students – our current Head of Department, Professor Bob Mills, is the inaugural Director of qUCL, and he is involved at Out@UCL and a member of LEAG. Read more about Bob’s interests in LGBTQ+ equalities at We Are Out@UCL.
  • The support and wellbeing service offers support to LGBT+ students. On their website you can find information on transitioning gender, the UCL Policy and Guidance for Students transitioning Gender and details of external support for the transgender community, especially in London.
  • There is a UCL Trans Network for staff and students at UCL who identify as trans (including non-binary, genderqueer & all other identities not identical with the gender assigned at birth). You can join the network here. 
  • The LGBT+ Students’ Network is here to support you in your study and work, to provide you with social activities, as well as to campaign on your behalf and raise awareness of your issues. 
  • Find the LGBT+ Facebook here and the Instagram here.
  • LGBTQ+ Equality Implementation Group (LEIG) - The LGBTQ+ Equality Implementation Group (LEIG) has been created to further enable UCL to understand and support the concerns and priorities of our members of the LGBTQ+ community. The LEIG operates as a task and finish group, projected to conclude by the end of May 2023. Full details can be found here. 

External Support and Resources

LGBTQ+ in Art Resources

 

 

 

 

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Saint Jerome in a dress. Detail from miniature by Herman, Paul and Jean de Limbourg in the Belles Heures of Jean de Berry, c.1405–1408/9. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Cloisters Collection, 1954, fol. 184v. 

“This painting, which appears in a magnificent book of hours made for an aristocrat in late medieval France, shows Saint Jerome (c.340–420) being tricked into wearing a woman’s dress when attending a service in the monastery where he was living. Jerome was one of the early ‘Church fathers’ who established the doctrinal foundations of Christianity. He is particularly known for his efforts to translate the Bible into Latin as well as his advocacy of chastity. There’s an episode in Jerome’s biography describing how some of his fellow monks planted a dress in his room while he was asleep to make people think that he had a woman staying with him at night. As such, the trick constitutes an attempt to impugn his reputation as a chaste holy man. It was very unusual to depict men dressed in feminine attire in medieval art and this particular image is unprecedented. It potentially serves to demonstrate both differences and similarities in the ways in which gender and sexuality are understood today compared to the distant past.”
 
- Prof. Bob Mills

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