Libraries & Campus Centers
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Department of Gender and Women's StudiesProvides information about classes, programs, and research.
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Gender & Sexuality Resource CenterHosts events and other programming; provides resources and information related to the campus LGBT community.
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Women's Resource CenterImplements intersectional programming and provides support services.
Library Catalog
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Library CatalogFor more materials and research please visit the Library Catalog
About This Guide
This guide provides resources for researching LGBTQ+ life and issues in Europe. This topic intersects with multiple disciplines and may require a variety of resource types such as journal articles, world news, organizational reports, legal documents, and more. Please explore each tab to locate both university and non-university resources. Links to related subject guides are provided below.
The European Union plays a pivotal role in promoting LGBTQ rights through various initiatives and policies. The EU LGBTQIA Equality Strategy aims to ensure equal rights for LGBTQ individuals, focusing on combating discrimination and violence based on sexual orientation and gender identity. This strategy outlines concrete actions to support LGBTQ communities and enhance their visibility in society.
Despite these advancements, significant challenges persist. Many LGBTQ individuals still face discrimination, stigma, and violence, particularly in regions where conservative attitudes prevail. The EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) has documented these issues, providing valuable insights into the experiences of LGBTQ individuals across Europe. Their reports emphasize the need for comprehensive policies and community support to combat hate crimes and improve the overall quality of life for LGBTQ persons.
In addition, local and national organizations are crucial in promoting LGBTQ rights and providing resources for support and advocacy. For example, ILGA-Europe works to advance LGBTQ rights throughout the continent, offering tools and resources for activists and policymakers.
LGBTQ+ Issues in Europe
Where Europe Stands on Gay Marriage and Civil Unions
Pew Research Center, October 2019
2024-rainbow map EU
ILGA-europe 2024 edition of rainbow map
Europe's LGBT Population Mapped
Statista, 2016
Research Databases
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Gender: Identity and Social Change This link opens in a new windowEssential primary sources documenting the changing representations and lived experiences of gender roles and relations from the nineteenth century to the present. This collection offers sources for the study of women's suffrage, the feminist movement, the men’s movement, employment, education, the body, the family, and government and politics.
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GenderWatch This link opens in a new windowGenderWatch is a full text database of unique and diverse publications that focus on how gender impacts a broad spectrum of subject areas. With its archival material, dating back to 1970 in some cases, GenderWatch is a repository of important historical perspectives on the evolution of the women's movement, men's studies, the transgendered community, and the changes in gender roles over the years. Publications include scholarly journals, magazines, newspapers, newsletters, regional publications, books, and NGO, government and special reports.
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LGBTQ+ Source This link opens in a new window
Provides indexing and abstracts of worldwide literature on gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender issues, as well as full text for more than 50 journals, magazines and regional newspapers and dozens of monographs; also includes a specialized LGBT thesaurus with over 6,400 terms.
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LGBT Studies in Video This link opens in a new windowLGBT Studies in Video is a cinematic survey of the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people as well as the cultural and political evolution of the LGBT community. It features award-winning documentaries, interviews, archival footage, and select feature films exploring LGBT history, gay culture and subcultures, civil rights, marriage equality, LGBT families, AIDS, transgender issues, religious perspectives on homosexuality, global comparative experiences, and other topics. A primary partner for this collection is Frameline, a nonprofit media organization that produces the San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival, the oldest film festival devoted to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender programming currently in existence.
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LGBT Studies This link opens in a new windowLGBT Studies is an online resource hosting books, periodicals, and archival materials documenting LGBT political, social and cultural movements throughout the twentieth century and into the present day. The collection includes documents ranging from letters, speeches, interviews, and ephemera covering the political evolution of gay rights as well as memoirs, biographies, poetry, letters and works of fiction that illuminate the lives of lesbians, gays, transgendered, and bisexual individuals and the community. It features select rare works from notable LGBT publishers including Alyson Books and Cleis Press, as well as mainstream trade and university publishers. It is also seeking to represent the major winners of both the Stonewall Book Awards and Lambda Literary Awards, many of which are no longer in print.
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Access World News This link opens in a new windowAccess World News from NewsBank provides full-text information and perspectives from over 600 U.S. and over 700 international sources, each with its own distinctive focus offering diverse viewpoints on local, regional and world issues. Date coverage varies with individual newspaper
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PressReader This link opens in a new windowPressReader provides online access to over 700 newspapers from more than 55 countries, displayed in their original format and accessible by country, language, or title. The PressReader App is available for reading papers on tablet devices. Formerly Library PressDisplay.
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World News Connection Database This link opens in a new windowOffers translated and English language news and information compiled from non-United States media sources. Coverage includes political, environmental, scientific, technical, and socioeconomic issues and events. Contains information derived from full-text and summaries of newspaper articles, conference proceedings, television and radio broadcasts, periodicals, and non-classified technical reports.
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International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (IBSS) This link opens in a new windowIBSS covers core social science literature in disciplines of anthropology, economics, political science and sociology, as well as a wide range of interdisciplinary fields. IBSS provides bibliographic citations to more than two million journal articles, reviews, books and selected chapters - from over 100 countries and in more than 90 languages. Over 2,800 journals are regularly indexed and some 7,000 books are included each year. The Atlas thesaurus aids in finding works on a country or region; other speciaized thesauri and indexes are provided.
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MLA International Bibliography This link opens in a new window
Indexes critical materials on literature, languages, linguistics, and folklore. Proved access to citations from worldwide publications, including periodicals, books, essay collections, working papers, proceedings, dissertations and bibliographies.
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Sociological Abstracts This link opens in a new windowAbstracts and indexes the international literature in sociology and related disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences. The database provides citations from 1952 to the present to journal articles, book reviews, books, book chapters, dissertations, and conference papers. Major areas of coverage include culture and social structure; demography and human biology; economic development; environmental interactions; evaluation research; family and social welfare; health and medicine and law; history and theory of sociology; management and complex organizations; mass phenomena and political interactions; methodology and research technology; policy, planning, forecast and speculation; radical sociology; religion and science; rural and urban sociology; social development; social differentiation; social psychology and group interaction; sociology of the arts, business, education; studies in violence and power; substance abuse and addiction; welfare services; women's studies.
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JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Provides page images of back issues of the core scholarly journals in the humanities, social sciences, and basic sciences from the earliest issues to within a few years of current publication. Users may browse by journal title or discipline, or may search the full-text or citations/abstracts. New issues of existing titles and new titles are added approximately on a weekly basis. The University of Illinois has access to the following JSTOR collections: Arts & Sciences I-XV, 19th Century British Pamphlets, Business IV, Global Plants, Hebrew Journals, Ireland, Life Sciences Collection, Lives of Literature, Security Studies, Struggles for Freedom - South Africa, Sustainability, and World Heritage Sites - Africa.
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Human Rights Studies Online This link opens in a new windowSearchable database of documentation, analysis, and interpretation of major human rights violations and atrocity crimes worldwide. The collection takes a case study approach, providing primary and secondary materials for each selected event, including Armenia, the Holocaust, Cambodia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Rwanda, Darfur, and more than 30 additional subjects. This database provides access to books, primary documents, audio, maps, images, and video.
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Legal Resources for Non-Law StudentsA library guide for conducting legal research. Includes links to useful legal databases such as HeinOnline and a page dedicated to foreign and international law.
Databases
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Eastern European LGBTQ Collection This link opens in a new windowA unique collection of ephemera (brochures, clothing items, booklets, flyers, etc.) documenting LGBTQ movements in several Eastern European countries and offering important insights into LGBTQ activism in Eastern Europe and the Balkans in the past decade.
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LGBT Studies This link opens in a new windowLGBT Studies is an online resource hosting books, periodicals, and archival materials documenting LGBT political, social and cultural movements throughout the twentieth century and into the present day.
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LGBT Magazine Archive This link opens in a new windowThis database contains the archives of 26 of the most influential periodical publications covering LGBT interests from 1954-2015. It includes publications from both the US and UK. This resource also caters to interests in many related fields, such as 20th-century history, sociology, health studies, political science, and psychology.