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This interdisciplinary guide has been compiled to enable the discovery of resources exploring gender and sexuality in the collections of UCL Libraries. In line with current collecting policy and practice, resources in this subject area reflect a range of voices and perspectives. Some of these may include controversial viewpoints, or harmful, discriminatory or offensive terminology.
For more information on the work UCL is doing to address bias and inclusivity in library collections, visit the Inclusive Library Collections webpage.
Photo by Magda Ehlers from Pexels
This guide has been put together by the subject librarian for Gender and Sexuality Studies and it supports all teaching and research across UCL for those that study gender and sexuality topics. This guide is an overview of the library resources and support available to you to help you in your studies or research.
Use the menu to find out what is available, including key information on:
Please get in touch through the help channels on this page if you have any enquiries!
This Element focuses on how individuals' gender values and populations' gender norms influence their attitudes toward political authoritarianism in economically advanced democracies. It theorizes that individuals' higher support for gender equality and freedom of sexuality (GEFS) decreases their support of political authoritarianism. This operates directly through the development of a belief system that is incompatible with political authoritarianism as a system rooted in and sustained through conformity to hegemonic masculine dominance. The Element shows evidence consistent with these theories through analysis of data on OECD countries from 1995 to 2022 based on waves 3–7 of the World Values Surveys.
In Between Rights and Rightfulness, Nicole George investigates how gender violence is regulated in Pacific Island countries, the factors that impede regulatory effectiveness, and women's own efforts and expertise in decreasing gender violence. Incorporating comparative fieldwork in Fiji, Bougainville, and within Kanak communities in New Caledonia, George assesses how gender violence is enabled and constrained by regulations created within and beyond the state. Drawing on feminist institutional theory and feminist theories of scale, George argues that the regulation of gender and gender violence occurs at a range of scales, and that efforts to enhance women's security require a clear and contextualised understanding of this regulatory complexity.
Following the stories of exiled Burmese activists in Thailand who struggle to end gender violence among refugees, Border Humanitarians offers a critical lens to understand the politics of local and global human rights and aid work in contexts of displacement and mobility
This innovative Handbook examines how gender shapes social activism and is shaped by activism. With a unique interdisciplinary focus, it explores the effects of the gender binary on experiences of activism, considering how different movements negotiate and, at times, challenge these traditional conceptions. It then moves beyond the binary to explore how gender is challenged by contemporary movements.
Male voices on women’s rights is a timely complement to the studies undertaken in recent years on men’s roles in the history of feminism. This unique collection of seminal, little-known or forgotten writings, spanning from 1809 to 1913, will help the revision of many common assumptions and misconceptions regarding male attitudes to sex equality, and give some insight into the tensions provoked by shifting patterns of masculinity and re-definitions of femininity. The documents, drawn from a wide range of sources, throw a light on the role played by the radical tradition, liberal culture, religious dissent and economic criticism in the development of women’s politics in nineteenth–century Britain.
For decades, Singapore's gay activists have sought equality and justice in a state where law is used to stifle basic civil and political liberties. In her groundbreaking book, Mobilizing Gay Singapore, Lynette Chua asks, what does a social movement look like in an authoritarian state? She takes an expansive view of the gay movement to examine its emergence, development, strategies, and tactics, as well as the roles of law and rights in social processes.
In Motherland, Ioffe turns modern Russian history on its head, telling it exclusively through the stories of its women. From her own physician great-grandmothers to Lenin’s lover, a feminist revolutionary; from the hundreds of thousands of Soviet girls who fought in World War II to the millions of single mothers who rebuilt and repopulated a devastated country; from the members of Pussy Riot to Yulia Navalnaya, wife of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, she chronicles one of the most audacious social experiments in history and how it failed the very women it was meant to liberate―and documents how that failure paved the way to the revanche of Vladimir Putin.
Odd Men Out is a social, cultural and political history of gay men living in Britain during the 1950s and 1960s. It covers the period from the circumstances leading up to the appointment of the Wolfenden Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution in 1954 to the emergence of the British Gay Liberation Front in the early 1970s. The book draws on a wealth of source material from archives, newspapers, magazines, memoirs, diaries, oral histories, interviews, television broadcasts, radio programmes, films and plays.
Out in the Union tells the continuous story of queer American workers from the mid-1960s through 2013. Miriam Frank shrewdly chronicles the evolution of labor politics with queer activism and identity formation, showing how unions began affirming the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender workers in the 1970s and 1980s. She documents coming out on the job and in the union as well as issues of discrimination and harassment, and the creation of alliances between unions and LGBT communities.
Japan's Takarazuka Revue is arguably the most commercially successful all-female theatre company in the world. Renowned for its glamour-laden staging of musicals and revues, the company's signature shows are heterosexual Western romances where women play both male and female roles. Since its audience consists almost entirely of women, Takarazuka creates a space for queer intimacy between performers and ardent female fans. This Element analyses the recent experimental show, The Poe Clan, directed by Koike Shūichirō, which portrays a male homoerotic relationship, argued as a façade for a queer, kin-like relationship between women.
This edited collection brings together the experiences of those who have been subjected to queer conversion therapy - it is an effort to expose conversion practices for what they are - pseudoscientific, bogus, ineffective, and wildly traumatic - and to recognise and listen to survivors. With contributions from Gregory Elsasser-Chavez, Chaim Levin, Lexie Bean, Syre Klenke, and many more from across the LGBTQ+ spectrum - this is an attempt to ensure that what happened within these pages cannot - and will not - happen to future generations.
Synthesizing critical theory, transgender studies, and extant law and society research, author Courtenay W. Daum argues that trans individuals, particularly those situated at the intersection of gender, race, class, and immigration status, are regulated by myriad forces of governmentality that work to maintain the sex and gender binaries and associated power hierarchies. The Politics of Right Sex advocates for a more confrontational approach that directly engages and challenges the hegemonic power structures that govern and discipline trans individuals, to disrupt the dominant discourse and hierarchical power arrangements in pursuit of collective liberation for all as opposed to rights for some.
The Routledge Companion to Gender and Childhood brings together scholars, practitioners, and activists to explore the diversity of children’s gender identities, expressions, and embodiments across historical, geographical, and cultural contexts. This volume investigates how historical, institutional, and cultural forces have shaped children’s relationship to gender, the pivotal role children have played in the construction of gendered categories, as well as children’s responses to these forces and constructions.
While transgender lives are at the forefront of contemporary politics, what do we really understand about the complexity of trans experience? Trans people who go through various aspects of gender transition experience shifts not only in their gender, but also with regards to other categories of identity such as race, social class, sexuality, disability, and more. Centering the stories of trans people and their loved ones, Sojka and de Vries investigate how intersectionality operates at various levels of social meaning – the individual, the interpersonal, and the structural – in the experiences of transgender people. Collectively, they present an argument about why gendered and racialized processes, in intersection, are central to understanding trans lives.
Violence against Women and Regimes of Exception provides a wide-ranging examination of how migration law discriminates against women, heightening their risk of being subjected to violence and intensifying their experiences of it. Catherine Briddick identifies patterns of disadvantage, scrutinizes justifications for differential treatment, and delineates legal obligations relating to violence against women. Integrating doctrinal, empirical, and theoretical material, it explores the difference that migration status makes to an experience of violence, investigates where existing regimes fall short, and establishes how the resulting compounded disadvantage should be remedied.
Materials for gender and sexuality studies are distributed amongst several collections in UCL's libraries.
To locate books, remember to use the library catalogue Explore, it will give details of the library site and collection in which the book can be found. Click here for instructions on how to find a book. Self-guided tours and getting started introductory information is also available.
Key electronic resources in your subject area include:
Cross-search with other Gale/Cengage primary sources in Gale Primary Sources. Access is to all six collections: Community and Identity in North America, International Perspectives on LGBTQ Activism & Culture, L'Enfer de la Bibliotheque National de France, LGBTQ History and Culture Since 1940, Part 1, LGBTQ History and Culture Since 1940, Part 2 and Sex and Sexuality, Sixteenth to Twentieth Century
Best streamed on Chrome, Safari, or Edge. Providing video streaming to over 26,000 films including thousands of award-winning documentaries, training films and theatrical releases. The collection includes a number of leading producers, such as the Criterion Collection, PBS, Kino Lorber, New Day Films, The Great Courses, California Newsreel, BBC and hundreds more. Accessibility statement for Kanopy.
Access for UCL students and staff only. Database of news and company information (formerly provided as LexisNexis 'Executive').
Collection of primary source exhibits focusing on queer history and culture. The database uses “queer” in its broadest and most inclusive sense, to embrace topics that are gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender and to include work on sexual and gender formations that are queer but not necessarily LGBT
See the LibrarySkills@UCL guide to Scopus. Multi-disciplinary database containing references to journal articles, conference proceedings, trade publications, book series and web resources. Please use IE 8 or higher, Google Chrome or Firefox browsers.
Paul B. Preciado (1970 -) is a Spanish philosopher, writer, and curator known for his work on gender theory, sexuality, and the politics of the body. His work interrogates the constructs of identity, challenging binary notions of gender and advocating for a more nuanced understanding of subjectivity. In "Testo Junkie,", the book that introduced him to the wider public, Preciado employs a philosophical lens to analyze the impact of pharmacopornography on identity formation, exploring how societal norms shape our perceptions of gender and sexuality. His writings draw on a diverse range of philosophical traditions, including feminist theory and queer studies, to critique the ways in which power operates through the regulation of bodies. Preciado's insights encourage a rethinking of identity as fluid and dynamic, emphasizing the importance of personal agency in the construction of self.
bell hooks (1952 - 2021) was the pen name used by the American public intellectual, author and activist Gloria Jean Watkins. Her work covered a range of issues and genres including, but not limited to; gender, race/racism, class, sexual politics, spirituality, love, education and pedagogy, cultural criticism, poetry, and children’s fiction.
bell hooks: Cultural Criticism & Transformation (film)
Image: Alex Lozupone
Michel Foucault (1926–1984), born Paul-Michel Foucault, was a French philosopher, literary critic and political activist. His work is foundational in gender and sexuality studies. He explored how power operates in society—not just through laws or institutions, but through everyday practices, language, and norms. Foucault argued that power and knowledge are deeply connected: what we consider “truth” is shaped by systems of control.
In his influential book The History of Sexuality (1976), Foucault challenged the idea that sexuality has always been repressed. Instead, he showed how modern societies actively produce and regulate sexual identities through discourse—how we talk about sex, define it, and study it. This insight helped pave the way for queer theory and critical approaches to gender.
BoB National - Thinking Allowed: Michel Foucault, 26th August, 2013, 30 minutes, BBC Radio 4.
Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) was a French philosopher, writer, and feminist whose work has had a lasting impact on modern thought. She is best known for her groundbreaking book The Second Sex (1949), where she explores how society constructs gender roles and famously writes, “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.” Her ideas helped shape feminist theory and challenged traditional views about identity, freedom, and equality. de Beauvoir also wrote novels, short stories, biographies and other books on philosophical, political and social issues.
BoB National - Bookmark: Daughters of de Beauvoir - 22nd March, 1989 (60 minutes), BBC2.
Judy Chicago (born Judith Sylvia Cohen; 1939-) is an American feminist artist, art educator, and writer known for her large collaborative art installation pieces about birth and creation images, which examine the role of women in history and culture. During the 1970s, Chicago founded the first feminist art program in the United States at California State University, Fresno, which acted as a catalyst for feminist art and art education during the 1970s. Her most well-known work is The Dinner Party which celebrates the accomplishments of women throughout history and is widely regarded as the first epic feminist artwork.
Omnibus: Judy Chicago's Dinner Party (BBC1)
Rebel women: the great art fightback (BBC4)
Women's Hour (BBC Radio 4)
Judith Butler (1956-) is an American feminist philosopher and gender studies scholar whose work has influenced political philosophy, ethics, and the fields of third-wave feminism, queer theory, and literary theory. Butler is best known for their books Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (1990) and Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex (1993), in which they challenge conventional, heteronormative notions of gender and develop their theory of gender performativity. This theory has had a major influence on feminist and queer scholarship.
HARDtalk: Judith Butler - Philosopher and Gender Theorist (BBC News 24)
Susan O'Neal Stryker (1961-) is an American professor, historian, author, filmmaker, and theorist whose work focuses on gender and human sexuality. She is a professor of Gender and Women's Studies, former director of the Institute for LGBT Studies, and founder of the Transgender Studies Initiative at the University of Arizona. Stryker is the author of several books and a founding figure of transgender studies as well as a leading scholar of transgender history.
Masculinity / femininity (Kanopy)
