Transology

The Museum of Transology (MoT) began collecting everyday material culture reflecting trans, non-binary and intersex lives in 2014. It is now a massive community project, with hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people involved. Over 1,000 objects and 2,000 protest placards are saved in the collection. Each and every one has been archived, condition checked, measured, catalogued, described, explained and interpreted, photographed and mounted (many on handmade mounts using upcycled materials) by members of our community who for years now have been donating their time for free, resisting capitalist models of monetising the value of our efforts where we can: it’s a community project borne of the heart.

The aim of this collective, hands-on approach to archiving is to transform the ‘museum project’ that historically has either demonised us or left us out altogether. When we put our objects into ‘the institution’, we avoid putting the institution into our objects (we even write all our own keywords as search terms, so that our community’s language describes the artefacts and is not erased by cis-heteronormative terminology).

Each of the objects is donated with a brown cardboard tag attached to it. On it, a handwritten message explains the significance of the object to the donor. This means both story and object are archived as two parts of a whole, in a deliberate strategy to ensure the experiences surrounding trans, non-binary and intersex people’s everyday lives are recorded in our own words, in perpetuity. We are a museum of voices that speaks up for itself, drowning out the onslaught of misinformed bigotry through the might of our collective lived experience. The collection has been designed to halt the erasure of trans lives from history; to tackle the misrepresentation of trans people in the political sphere; to combat the spectacularisation of trans bodies and experiences by the mainstream media; to both embrace trans bodily autonomy both beyond a medical model and within it; and to learn from lesbian and gay history: leaving behind records of our own voices to counterbalance the cis-heteronormative commentary that surrounds us.

I started the Museum of Transology’s collection as a form of curatorial direct action designed to halt the erasure of transcestry. It began by saving a collection of hospital room artefacts I’d convinced my nurse to let me take home following a gender-affirming surgical procedure (including my medical documentation, ephemera and bedding) and the human remains saved from a gender-affirming surgical procedure. Rather than asking trans, non-binary and intersex people to go into the museum environment (of which they were sceptical) to continue building the collection, I held morning teas in a queer pub in Brighton (the Marlborough Pub & Theatre). This built trust within the broader trans community over the intent and integrity of the project and from there, it swiftly grew in scale.

The Museum of Transology was therefore built for the trans community, about the trans community and by the trans community. The project has been designed to be open-source, with all workshops, artefacts, logos, object photography, collections documentation and exhibition interpretation– including the community-built exhibition set – free to borrow, use, or replicate. The MoT’s ambition is that with this open-source philosophy, trans communities will have the mechanisms necessary to build their own Museum of Transology collections, and museums and galleries everywhere will have the means to display trans content by consent. By collecting under the banner The Museum of Transology, we establish a visible network that brings our diverse local cultures together, providing us with a chance to learn more about each other and to make more friends. Collecting is connecting.

Ultimately, Museum of Transology’s collections will make more museums and archives recognisably more welcoming for trans, non-binary and intersex visitors, their friends, lovers and families. As our 2023-2026 collecting project draws to a close (funded by the Art Fund and the National Heritage Lottery Fund), our community curators have built 16 local Museum of Transology collections across the UK and Ireland. This secures them a visible place in their area’s local history and in our community’s collective memory.

There are too many people to possibly thank, but in a way, that’s exactly what it’s all about. Together, we are a force of nature. It’s not about one of us, it’s a collective