Brighton Museum brings trans peoples’ stories into the limelight

This July, Brighton Museum & Art Gallery launches [Be Bold], a series of collaborative events and exhibitions funded by Arts Council England and programmed in partnership with Brighton & Hove’s LGBTQ communities. The exhibitions will begin on Thurs 20 July with the acclaimed [The Museum of Transology], and aim to reflect and connect with LGBT+ lives, histories and culture.

Taking place in the Spotlight Gallery, until June 2018, [The Museum of Transology] will exhibit a bold and profound collection of trans peoples’ artefacts and photographic portraiture with the intent of challenging the stigmatised idea that gender is fixed, binary and biologically determined, by exploring how these relics have helped create self-shaped gender journeys. Collector and curator E-J Scott said it “will address issues including violence against trans people, intersex identities, medical transition and the presentation of trans peoples’ lives by the mainstream media.”

Visitors will be presented with a typical domestic sphere before moving into the medicalised realm of a hospital, where they will be invited to leave their own tag describing their personal gender journey. Free with museum admission, The show will also feature portraits of trans people by photographers Bharat Sikka and Sharon Kilgannon, behind the scenes footage from [Born Risky] by Grayson Perry, Lewis Hancox [My Genderation] films and [Sexing the Transman] and [Mr Angel] documentaries by adult film star Buck Angel, and many more exciting features.