The Science Museum has reinstated a trans-inclusive display a year after its controversial ‘Boy or Girl?’ exhibit featuring a fake penis and chest binders was removed.
The museum took down the display last year following complaints the exhibit – which described transitioning from the ‘wrong body’ as a ‘hero’s journey’ – was propaganda rather than biology.
The reworked exhibit in the museum’s What Am I? gallery though has irked gender-critical campaigners who say it is more ‘insidious’ than the previous display.
Although it is ‘less in your face’, Helen Joyce, at campaign group Sex Matters, feels it ‘continues to push a sexist view of the world’ based on ‘men’s and women’s things’.
The Science Museum insists there have been significant changes following extensive discussions with scientists and medical professionals.
It comes a year after several museumgoers and researchers questioned the scientific value of the ‘Boy or Girl?’ display.
The Science Museum’s reworked trans-inclusive exhibit comes a year after the controversial ‘Boy or Girl?’ display featuring a fake penis and chest compression vest was taken down
The new display at the Science Museum (above) has irked gender-critical campaigners who say it is more ‘insidious’
The ‘Boy or Girl’ sign is now removed in the updated version which is split into three sections – birth, puberty and adulthood.
It includes testimonies from a transgender man and woman who detail how their transition was ‘liberating’, reported The Telegraph.
A non-binary person also tells of their ‘relief’ at ‘learning living outside the gender binary was possible’.
The gallery states ‘some people’s gender doesn’t match the sex they were born into’, which also discusses the use of puberty blockers.
Of the 20 stories detailed at the renamed ‘What makes your sex and gender?’ exhibit, three are based on transgender experiences.
Ms Joyce said: ‘They have made it less in your face but in some ways that’s more insidious.
‘The fake penises and chest-binding equipment may be out of sight, but so are the obvious warning signs for parents.’
A Science Museum spokesman said: ‘We would encourage everyone to visit the Who Am I? Gallery, which has benefited from several updates since it first opened in 2000.’
Millions of people visit the free-to-enter Science Museum each year, many of them schoolchildren visiting for educational tours.
Last year Baroness Nicholson or Winterbourne Baroness wrote to the museum’s chairman, Sir Ian Blatchford, to argue the Boy Or Girl? gallery ‘promotes social and medical transition in a way that is not neutral’.
Last year’s exhibit caused concern among several museumgoers, including Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne, who accused the Boy Or Girl? feature of peddling ‘propaganda’ over biology
Scientists were also left confused over a ‘sex-o-meter’ included in the exhibit that could apparently reveal whether a person’s brain is male or female. The game was later removed.
In a 2016 blog post, former head of exhibitions and programmes, Alex Tyrrell responded to a brewing online row over the controversial Boy Or Girl? display.
‘The thinking behind Who am I? – and the sex and gender display in particular – was to communicate the latest research clearly and accurately, but we also believe that featuring contributions from other viewpoints and disciplines is essential when examining a question as complex and profoundly personal’, he wrote.
‘The idea of Who am I? was always to raise questions. We present issues in ways that provoke debate, however we would never want to compromise the accuracy of the content on display.’
has contacted the Science Museum for further comment.