For decades now Art Historians have been using a queer theoretical method to re-investigate Medieval Christian art to look for evidence of a ‘queer residue’ nestled within artistic choices, symbolism and a complex visual language. Whilst cynics may argue that this is a ‘woke agenda’ forcing modern ideas onto unwilling subjects of the past, it is undeniable that unusual gender representations, and homosexuality are frequently depicted — if you know where (and how) to look!
One of the most common artistic depictions of this time is devotional representations of the wound of Christ —a fleshy red oval shaped image, pulsating with blood flowing from its inner most point. To a modern eye, these illustrations appear overwhelmingly vaginal and when considered alongside theological arguments that Jesus was canonically conceived without physical sperm, they point to an internal femininity existing within a male body. At this time, women especially were encouraged to interact physically with images of Christ and his suffering through touch, taste, and devotion to bring them spiritually closer to his sacrifice, often via kissing images of the wound. Analysing this context, we can see both a genderqueer construction of Jesus and the encouragement of non-heteronormative sensual engagement with sexually-charged imagery. In fact, many art historians would argue that Jesus defies gender itself.
If you remain unconvinced by this example, we also see the depiction of the Christian Saint Wilgefortis appearing across this period with combined masculine and feminine characteristics including representation as a bearded lady and a consistent switching of gender across images. In a similar way, art historians have pointed out homosexual symbols in ivory carvings of Courtly Love stories (a medieval story-telling genre) where a symbol of two women ‘jousting’ has been identified to contemporarily signify a lesbian ‘special friendship’ between them.
So what does this mean for us today? Whilst gay marriage has been legalised since 2014 in the United Kingdom and since 2015 in the United States and public sentiment towards homosexuality has massively improved in the last decade, homophobic attitudes have been growing, especially since Trump returned to presidential office. Similarly, transgender people worldwide currently face a rise in hate against their existence, denial to necessary health care, and restriction to self-identification. Stonewall Scotland reports that in the last five years hate crimes against transgender people has increased 186%. Recently in the UK the redefining of the 2010 Equality Act, has further eroded transgender rights and threatened their place in society, making this topic important to discuss.
In this context, it is essential to look to large groups who promote hate against the LGBTQ+ community. Christianity has been used increasingly as a justification, or supposedly valid reasoning, to oppose gay and trans rights. One prominent example of this stretches back to 2014 in the ‘gay cake’ scandal where a Christian-owned Northen Ireland bakery refused to create a cake that carried a message in support of a gay marriage. Similarly, conversion ‘therapy’ aiming to ‘treat’ or ‘cure’ LGBTQ people often has a religious background — in a 2018 survey, 50% of people who had experienced the practice linked it to a religious source. Matthew Drapper, in an interview with the BBC, described in horrifying detail how St Thomas Philadelphia Church in Sheffield attempted to use prayer rituals to remove the “demons of homosexuality” from him, exorcism-style. These examples reflect a wider trend of manipulating religion to support a far-right conservative agenda.
It seems rather ironic that hundreds of years ago in a time often referred to as the ‘dark ages’ visual media expresses a tendency towards liberal gender expression and covert yet visible ‘queer residue’, whilst today Christianity is far too often used to justify hate. Perhaps governments who actively defund the arts, or those who think cultural studies are a waste of time, should consider the power in examining the origins and past interpretations of the religious texts currently being used to defend problematic belief systems.
“The Prayer Book of Bonne of Luxembourg, Duchess of Normandy” by Jean Le Noir is marked with CC0 1.0.
