Dwelling in Probabilities

This article is a survey of recent work in trans and intersex historical studies covering the medieval period. Wingard notes that these topics have only been seriously included in book-length studies since 2020, following something of a hiatus in queer medieval history publications in general since the early 2000s. This particular survey focuses on work that studies “lived experience” via documentary sources and non-fiction texts, rather than a broader scope that includes literary and artistic materials.

Queer medieval history has revolved around three topics: identity, community, and repression. The first involves identifying individuals where there is probable evidence for sexual, romantic and intimate acts classifiable as queer, though the evidence rarely addresses interiority. Wingard notes the debt owed to approaches developed for women’s history to identify methods and approaches for marginalized subjects.

The field involves several significant theoretical disagreements of approach and method. One position argues against the concept of “persistent sexual identity” being meaningful in the medieval period, much less a clear binary classification of homosexual and heterosexual. In this context, “heteronormativity” is not a useful interpretive framework. Another position (which the author holds) is that while medieval concepts do focus more on acts than identities, there is a clear privileging of male-female relations, which are uniquely classified as “natural.” The result is difficult to distinguish from heteronormativity.

Studies into medieval community again hit a clear divide between those who reject Boswell’s image of an “international gay subculture” and those who more narrowly identify specific contexts for networks and normalized practices among queer men. [Note: And with regard to “communities” the discussion is entirely focused on men.]

The third theme relates to repression and persecution and the forces and logics that drive fluctuations in official attention to queer practices.

Having laid out the map of the field of queer history in general, Wingard discusses a number of very recent publications that explore new ground specifically with regard to trans and intersex studies. [Note: I’m not going to list individual titles, but many of them are on my shelves and will be blogged at a later date.] This field is moving on from anecdotal studies of specific individuals, to studies that address larger theoretical questions, such as philosophical and medical understandings of transness and intersex. These questions are relevant to the study of sex and gender in general because they challenge the nature and definition of sex and gender categories.

Trans history is based on several key principles: that gender is socially constructed, that biological sex itself is—to some extent—socially constructed (i.e., that societies have had different focuses and frameworks for determining how to classify someone as biologically male or biologically female), and that “individuals whose gender identity does not line up with their assigned gender at birth have always existed in all human cultures,” and have used various strategies to negotiate that mismatch. Wingard notes that using a trans history approach to these questions is productive regardless of whether the subjects of study can be considered “transgender” either by modern definitions or by some medieval analog. The parallel to Judith Bennett’s “lesbian-like” approach is noted. Several specific historic individuals are discussed to illustrate these points.

Intersex history also speaks to the social construction of sex and gender, as well as the agency that intersex individuals had to manage their own classification, within certain limits.