Our Museum Mission

The Museum of Transology’s collection has been designed to:

• Halt the erasure of trans lives from history;
• Tackle the misrepresentation of trans people in the political sphere by providing our side of the story;
• Combat the spectacularisation of trans bodies and experiences by the mainstream media;
• Reject the pathologisation of trans experiences by evidencing trans life both beyond the medical model, and within it by consent;
• Evidence our community’s contribution to society, providing alternative documentation to the centuries of state records that criminalised us;
• Learn from the lessons of lesbian and gay history by leaving behind records of our voices to counterbalance the cis-heteronormative commentary that has previously documented our history for us;
• Foreground the fact that our LGBTIQA+ communities are inextricably entwined and inseparable, recognising that our shared histories strengthen the bonds that hold our movements together;
• Provide primary research materials grounded in lived experience;
• Ensure that trans people author their own archive by accessioning the handwritten stories that accompany donated objects;
• Build a community-curated collection in which donors, volunteers and archivists collectively care for the material record of trans life;
• Centre anti-racism within our curatorial practice by foregrounding the herstories of Black trans women at the beginning of all our exhibitions;
• Practise environmentally responsible exhibition making by building displays from found, donated and recycled materials, and reusing exhibition furniture crafted by our community’s own hands;
• Treat accessibility not as an add-on, but as a creative philosophy that transforms how exhibitions are made and experienced by everyone.