Southampton Stonewall Lecture 2025

The University of Southampton is delighted to welcome Leah DeVun (Rutgers University) to present this year's Stonewall Lecture: "The Shape of Sex: A History of Nonbinary Gender Before Modernity". Guests are welcome to attend in person or online, with tickets purchased in advance via Eventbrite.This lecture focuses on ideas and individuals who allegedly crossed sex or gender categories in Europe from 200–1400 C.E. Ranging widely across premodern European thought and culture, the lecture will explore how and why efforts to define “the human” so often hinged on ideas about nonbinary sex and gender. In a moment when questions about sex, gender, and identity have become incredibly urgent, the lecture will cast new light on a complex and often contradictory past. It shows how premodern thinkers created a system of sex and embodiment that both anticipates and challenges modern beliefs about what it means to be male, female—and human.Leah DeVun is Professor of History and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Rutgers University in the United States. She is the author, most recently, of The Shape of Sex: Nonbinary Gender from Genesis to the Renaissance, and co-editor (with Zeb Tortorici) of Trans*historicities, a special issue of TSQ devoted to transgender history. DeVun is also the author of articles in GLQ, WSQ, Osiris, postmedieval, and Radical History Review, among other publications. In addition, she is a visual artist whose work is deeply concerned with LGBTQ+ history, as well as archives, collectives, activism, reproduction, technology, and other related topics. Her work or interviews have been featured in the New York Times, Artforum, Huffington Post, People Magazine, LARB, Redbook, Feature Shoot, Slate, Capricious, Art Papers, Gallerist and other publications. The recipient of fellowships and grants from the National Science Foundation, the Huntington Library, the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, and the Stanford Humanities Center, DeVun has lectured widely at venues in the U.S. and Europe.Since 2012 the annual Southampton Stonewall Lecture has explored the rich heritage that is lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) history. The lecture has been given by a range of prestigious international speakers including Professors George Chauncey, Laura Doan, Dagmar Herzog, Matt Cook, and Howard Chiang. Each lecture has offered an academic approach but one also geared to a broader public audience. A key purpose is to educate contemporary audiences, academic and public, about the past while also promoting the University of Southampton’s commitment to the principles of equality, diversity and inclusion. Through a greater understanding of discrimination and tolerance through the centuries, we can help to promote tolerance and inclusivity in contemporary British society.