'We don't live single issue lives': This exhibition is celebrating trans joy amid the culture wars

It’s nothing out of the ordinary, on first glance: A clip-on school tie, blue with white and green diagonal stripes.

But to the person who donated it to the Museum of Transology, the unassuming neckwear was a ticket to a “new and more positive future”.

“This is the tie I wore on my first day living fully as a boy,” a brown paper swing tag reads. “I moved school to transition… this tie means so much because it was like a new birthday.”

The tie – and more than 1,000 other objects – are on display in a groundbreaking exhibition: TRANSCESTRY: 10 years of the Museum of Transology, hosted in the Lethaby Gallery at Central Saint Martins.

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A half-empty pot of shaving cream; a dark red tube of lipstick; a rainbow Kippah; an ‘it’s a boy’ balloon; dildos; hundreds of empty tubes of Testogel; the exhibition represents a decade of community collecting and archiving.

From medical ephemera to protest t-shirts, gorgeous gowns to pronoun name tags: it’s varied, colourful and a hell of a lot of work to put together, according to the Museum of Transology founder and Big Issue Changemaker of 2025 E-J Scott.

“It took a lot of people, a lot of late nights,” they tell Big Issue at the exhibition opening. “We all got slightly obsessed I think.”

Hundreds of community curators have been involved in the making of the show – through national collecting, object archiving and photographing, exhibition design and installation. The result is the largest exhibition of its kind, drawing from local collections and trans Prides groups up and down the UK and Ireland.

First and foremost, E-J adds, it is a “celebration of trans joy and resilience”.

“Trans people have been thrown into the middle of the culture wars,” They said. “We wanted to ask: how can our collection talk more joyfully about the vibrancy and excitement and happiness that exists in our community?”

“By telling everyday stories of real people enjoying their lives and exploring what freedom feels like, we can rise above the misinformation that is perpetuated about our communities.”

TRANSCESTRY is divided into themes including fashion, healthcare and beauty; transology, pride and protest; memory and milestones.

As E-J promises, examples of trans joy are everywhere. “This lipstick was from my wonderful sister who was the first family member to accept and support my transition,” one tag reads.

“This is a prop from the last movie made by a comedic film group I started at university,” says another, attached to a train ticket labelled TransPenis Express. “Most comedy featuring trans characters seems to use us as cheap punchlines, so the films were a way of being funny on our terms.”

Equally, the exhibition does not shy away from the harder parts of trans life. It is not an easy time for the community. From 2013 to 2023, transphobic hate crimes in England and Wales escalated by an astounding 1,211%. Just 64% of the British public described themselves as “not prejudiced” towards transgender people in 2022, down from 82% in 2021.

An exhibition section entitled “lost but not forgotten” commemorates trans people who have lost their lives during this period.

“WE WON’T FORGET HIS NAME,” reads one exhibit. “One of the outfits in this cupboard belonged to our close friend and comrade who died five weeks after he wore it. They were strong and brave and could run like the wind, I’ve never seen anyone dance for as long as he could without losing breath.”

Nearby, there are a pair of damaged glasses, broken by two men who called their owner a “gimp”. A selection of internet-sourced hormones remind the viewer of the difficulty of obtaining gender-affirming medical care in this country.

Such reminders of transphobia’s grim consequences are an important part of the exhibition, E-J says. But the overall theme is one of profound hope.

Surrounding the exhibits – the tragic and the joyous, the quotidian and the extraordinary – are dozens and dozens of protest signs.

“Trans Joy saves lives,” one reads. “Trans Futures are Sacred.”

“There are stories of hope and acceptance everywhere,” EJ adds. “It can feel like everyone would have you believe that trans kids’ lives are dire, that their families don’t love them, that they’re ostracised at school and don’t have friends. Of course, there’s tragedy too, and that is also a part of trans reality. But just like everybody else, we don’t live single issue lives.”

“What the collection tells us is that trans people live ordinary lives as well, with families who love them, with friends that they have fun with, and with ordinary pressures like rent and putting food on the table, like isolation and loneliness. You know, this is as much an exhibition about the human experience as it is an exhibition about trans life.”

TRANSCESTRY runs until 11 May at the Lethaby Gallery at Central Saint Martins. It is free to visit – more information here.

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