I must admit that, when I first came across it and started to watch it earlier, my gut reaction was to dismiss a video discussing the gay and transsexual elements in The Lord Of The Rings as something of an insult to one of my favourite authors. Tolkien was, after all, a highly conservative catholic – the notion that any form of homosexuality or sexuality in general could be read into any of his work was an utter nonsense. Yet the more I watched this fairly long Youtube video doing just that, the more intrigued I became. I won’t try to summarise or relay any of the arguments presented here, other than to say it is an impressive, scholarly video essay: the speaker admits that it is a reading that Tolkien obviously did not intend, but nevertheless as modern readers we can find queer elements in his work if we look. The character Eowen, for example, could be read as trans, or as having trans elements. Naturally, not everyone will agree, but even so I think this is another great example of how sophisticated online analysis is becoming; it is well worth a watch.