This #TransDayOfVisibility, we want to share some of the incredible art produced by trans and non-binary artists and showcase their creativity. We hope you'll discover some new artists as well as well as some favourites, and you're inspired to learn more...
Claude Cahun (1894-1954) was a non-binary surrealist photographer, sculptor and writer whose work frequently took on personas and transgressed gender binaries.
Claude Cahun, c1927, Courtesy of Jersey Heritage Collections
Wu Tsang (born 1982) is a filmmaker, artist and performer based in the USA. Her work often focuses on hidden histories and marginalised stories. This still is from her 2016 film Duilian, looking at the queer inner life of revolutionary Qiu Jin.
Zackary Drucker (born 1983) is an artist, activist, actor and producer. Much of her work explores gender, sexuality and ways of seeing. She has won an Emmy Award for her series "This Is Me".
"Don't Look At Me Like That" by Zackary Drucker and Manuel Vason, 2010.
Greer Lankton (1958-1996) was a New York East Village artist best known for creating lifelike sewn dolls of celebrities and people she knew. This 1996 installation, "It’s all about ME, Not You" was the last she created.
Courtesy of Mattress Factory
Amos Mac (b1981) is a writer, photographer and publisher from Georgia. He founded magazine "Original Plumbing" in 2009. His photos have appeared in numerous publications and digital. This 2017 portrait of Schuyler Bailar was commissioned by Instagram for Trans Day of Visibility.
Cassils (born 1975) is a Canadian performance artist and body builder. Their work explores struggle, survival, violence and representation. This photo is from their performance "Becoming An Image" where they attack a 900kg clay block in darkness, lit only by the flash of a camera
Vaginal Davis (date of birth private) is a USA-born performing artist, painter, curator and filmmaker. She is genderqueer and intersex and considered the progenitor of "terrorist drag". This painting comes from her 2012 exhibition Various Hags.
Sisters Lana (born 1965) and Lilly Wachowski (born 1967) have collaborated on 10 movies and a TV series. This still is from their 1999 film The Matrix, which Lilly has confirmed was a trans allegory.
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It's been a while since we've shown you a weird fad in medieval Christian art, so here's one you might enjoy - Lactatio Bernardi: The Lactation of St Bernard.
Now it's important to note that St Bernard of Clairvaux isn't the one doing the lactating. He's the kneeling guy. That's the Virgin Mary right there doing the lactating, with baby Jesus on her lap.
Bernard of Clairvaux was a 12th century abbot and one of the founders of the Knights Templar. Here's a couple of depictions of him outside of the milky miracle.
The Cholmondeley Ladies (circa 1600-1610) is a painting raising many questions. Today we're not going to talk about the puzzle in pegging down the identities of the women - we will focus on a different, more mundane puzzle...
Image courtesy of Tate Britain.
The Cholmondeley Ladies painting is accompanied by an inscription, which says "Two Ladies of the Cholmondeley Family, Who were born the same day, Married the same day, And brought to Bed the same day."
Many scholars have explored the identities of these ladies, who are unknown, wondered who the unknown artist who painted it was. Even the donor who gave the painting to the Tate is anonymous.
A hundred years ago, there was a research centre, archive, clinic and museum space dedicated to sexuality whose work might seem ahead of its time, even now.
This is the story of Magnus Hirschfeld's Institute of Sexology #LGBTHistoryMonth
Founder of the Institute of Sexology Magnus Hirschfeld was a German Jewish gay man, a qualified doctor. Born in 1868, Hirschfeld's interest in using his skills to advocate for LGBT+ rights was sparked when he noticed many of his gay patients were dying by suicide.
In the late 19th century, Hirschfeld began researching sex and sexuality across cultures. He was especially interested in homosexuality in his early research.
Have you ever wondered what's going on in there during penis-in-vagina sex? Where do the pelvic organs go? What stretches where?
Scientists have. At length. And here's what they thought and how they finally found out.
One of the first scientists to take a guess at what's going on anatomically during PiV sex was Leonardo da Vinci himself, who drew this anatomically incorrect diagram in around 1493.
Image courtesy of the Royal Collection.
You'll notice most of the pelvic organs on the woman are missing in da Vinci's diagram. You also may notice a weird vein leading up to the breasts. That's the vein that brings period blood up to the breasts to turn into milk. This is not how anything works.
Okay muff-lovers, you'll probably know the answer to this one. How many holes are there in the vulva?
The answer may surprise you. Yes, even you.
The hole you'll definitely know about if you follow us is the vaginal entrance, which leads to the vagina. That one's easy.
Next up - and not everybody knows this one - is the entrance to the urethra. Pee doesn't come out of the vagina, it comes out of the urethra. The urethra is positioned above the vagina and below the clitoral glans.
Reindeer are a little unusual among deer. In most species, only males grow antlers, but in reindeer, these big old head bones are a perfectly normal feature for females, too! And how and why they grow antlers is rather interesting...
Antlers in reindeer are deciduous. They're not a permanent fixture on the head of the animal, but rather, antlers grow and are cast in cycles.
In male reindeer, the antlers start growing in around April, and are shed in late December. In females, antlers grow in May, and are cast at around that time the next year.