Co-curating with trans people: the challenges of collaborating with heterogenous minoritised communities

ABSTRACT What are the challenges entangled with co-curatorial processes developed with highly heterogeneous, minoritised communities? Why do these exhibitions, even when co-created with community members, often emphasize community homogeneity over diversity? I address these questions by focusing on the Science Museum, London. I look back at a past project, What Makes Your Gender? (2014): a pivotal step in the Museum's treatment of gender diversity co-curated with trans young people and activists associated with Gendered Intelligence, a trans-led charity aiming to improve trans people's lives. Drawing on my exhibition analysis and ethnographic research of this co-creation project, I discuss why the heterogeneity and divisions within the curatorial team were overlooked in the co-curatorial process and final display. The discussion then shifts towards more recent debate surrounding the Museum's treatment of trans/gender people in the Who Am I? permanent gallery (2000 to present). The paper shows how inclusive curatorial projects attempting to validate minoritised communities, which are subject to discriminatory discourse in the media and wider public realm, can privilege homogenizing and easily 'consumable' representations of trans people at the expense of more accurate portrayals. It argues for greater attention to intersectionality and community diversity in curatorial projects co-created with heterogenous minoritised groups.


Introduction
In recent there has been a surge of creative work on and about trans people (Carter, Getsy, and Salah 2014, 469) and, primarily in Western countries, an increase of trans visibility within the public sphere, including in museums (Sandell 2017). Such a growing visibility cannot be uncritically applauded. Researchers and activists alike have drawn attention to how the media have tended to privilege reductive (Rigney 2003) 1 and dehumanising portrayals of trans lives (Madrigal-Borloz 2019). Carter, Getsy, and Salah (2014, 472) urge us to ask questions about the 'resistances and negotiations' that have made possible trans people' growing visibility in creative work and produced forms of trans commodification and suppression. Such commodifying and suppressing tendencies have resulted in museum exhibitions that privilege simplistic, monolithic representations of trans people and their identities and hesitate to address intra-group divisions. If these divisions are 'real and profound' within LGBTQI communities (Redding 2014, 9), they are also palpable within trans communities.
This paper is concerned with how these commodifying and suppressing tendencies occur in co-creation projects which, developed by mainstream museums in partnership with diverse trans folks, emphasise community homogeneity over diversity. At a time of rising transphobia, when trans rights are being pushed back against in several countries across Europe including the UK (Ilga Europe 2021, 2022; Reid 2021), such commodifying and suppressing tendencies call for attention.
The article begins by reviewing academic debates surrounding the representation of queer and trans lives in museums. The main body of the paper uses the Science Museum, London, as a case study. I look back at a pivotal step in its efforts to offer more nuanced representations of gender and trans lives: the temporary exhibition What Makes Your Gender? (WMYG) (2014). This project was co-created by a partnership of young trans curators and activists from Gendered Intelligence (GI), a trans-led charity aiming to improve trans people's lives 2 , and trans allies from the Science Museum, including myself in my capacity as both a member of the exhibition team and a researcher tasked with conducting an ethnographic study of the behind-the-scenes co-creation process. 3 Drawing on Macdonald's (2002) pioneering ethnography of exhibition-making, I contributed as a participant observer to the co-creation process, which (primarily) took place during content development workshops. Whilst acting as a workshop co-facilitator, I alternated periods of observations and note taking and led a focus group exploring the curatorial team's objectives and dilemmas. I conducted interviews with four Science Museum's staff members and GI's CEO/Co-founder, Jay Stewart, as well as repeated interviews with five young curators, before and after WMYG's inauguration. The data was analysed using thematic analysis.
In the paper I use queer theory and transgender studies as my main theoretical framework to understand trans lives and critically examine whether the curatorial projects discussed here convey the diversity of trans experiences and identities. Both queer and transgender studies challenge discrete categories of identities and are linked by similar activist investments and critical interrogations of gender and sexual normativity (Love 2014). I have found the critical and activist impulse of these disciplines especially useful in reflecting on how museums address trans lives and collaborate with trans people.
Presenting my critical analysis of the exhibition in dialogue with the young trans curators' perspectives (assigned pseudonyms to protect their identities), this paper shows how this well intended co-creation project failed to articulate the diversity of trans lives. My discussion draws attention to how and why the exhibition overlooked the nuanced and intersectional complexities tethered to differing gendered identities within the trans curators, as well as internal differences of race, faith, and class. If concealed in the co-creation process, these differences emerged in my interviews with the trans curators who themselves formed a highly diverse group of trans women, trans men, and genderqueer and non-binary people, with sharply differing gender identities and transition experiences. As noted by 'Reilly,' a trans curator: A lot of really different young people worked on this project, but we're all sort of similar in the sense that we all fall under the trans umbrella in some way, so we are all similar but also really different and we have to collaborate on this. 4 I discuss why homogenising tendencies mark trans-focused exhibitions, even co-curated shows in which trans people hold significant power and argue that this reduction derives from the impulse of both community members and museums to offer an easily digestible version of trans lives for non-trans visitors. I then turn my attention to recent debate surrounding the Science Museum's treatment of gender and transgender people in the Who Am I? gallery and reflect on the institution's trajectory towards shifting its narratives about gender and trans people.

The representation of queer and trans lives
The 'inclusion' of LGBTQI narratives in mainstream museums is a prominent strategy implemented within the museum sector to expand LGBTQI visibility since the 1980s (Chantraine and Brulon Soares 2020, 1). Nonetheless, the 'persistent absence' of LGBTQI stories in museum narratives (Sandell and Frost 2010, 152), as well as the gaps, silences, and 'distortions' surrounding LGBTQI histories (Levin 2010, 3), have been repeatedly observed in museum studies. Critics have acknowledged that LGBTQI-themed exhibitions have privileged 'some lives and identities over others' (Sandell, Lennon, and Smith 2018, 4), primarily those of white gay men, whilst the lives of bisexual, intersex, and transgender people have been suppressed (Levin 2010, 6;Mills 2006, 258;Sandell 2017, 122). These omissions and erasures marginalise trans experiences, marking their lives as unintelligible.
Recently, a growing number of museums have strived to respond to this critique by inaugurating exhibitions (or other programmes) seeking to offer more nuanced narratives related to sexual and, to a lesser extent, gender diversity (Sandell 2017;Adair and Levin 2020). Some claim that the twenty-first century has witnessed a 'global boom' in LGBTQI exhibitions (Chantraine and Brulon Soares 2020, 3).
Typically, LGBTQI exhibitions have endeavoured to simultaneously present all the identity groups under the LGBTQI acronym. They have often conflated the experiences of trans people with those of gays, lesbians, and other sexualities to foster solidarity, implicitly presenting the LGBTQI community as an all-encompassing, inclusive group. By focusing on similarities and solidarities, LGBTQI exhibitionsand activist circlesoften overlook the complexity and heterogeneity not only within the highly diverse LGBTQI community, but also within the trans community.
The trans community is itself highly heterogenous. Transgender people are individuals whose gender identity differs from the sex normatively assigned to them at birth. The term transgender or trans encompasses a multitude of identities, some broadly operating within a binary system (trans men and trans women) and those who move freely between and among genders, or whose gender identity falls outside the gender binary (genderqueer people) (Hatchel and Marx 2018, 2). The trans community includes disparate 'subidentity groups' (European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights 2014, 2) reflecting contradictory identity positions (Mills 2006), as trans people articulate their identities and accomplish their gendered selves following multiple trajectories.
Intra-group differences and divisions within the trans community can be acute, reflecting conflictual identity positions and leading to some trans people experiencing a sense of hostility within the trans community. As acknowledged by 'Mary', one of the trans young curators I interviewed 5 : 'Often, when it comes to [the] trans community online, they're quite … not hostile, but they can be a bit off … a bit dodgy.' 6 This poses challenges to curatorial projects seeking to represent the diversity of trans people, as I discuss below.
Curators and critics have drawn on the disruptive energy of queer theory to unsettle traditional binary thinking and heteronormative modes of representation around sexuality and gender prevalent in exhibitions (Levin 2010, 6;Levin 2012). Sandell (2017, 67) labels 'queer perspectives' those queer theory-inspired interpretative approaches employed by, for instance, artist-curator Matt Smith to challenge binary accounts of sexuality. Tyburczy proposes a 'queer curatorship' consisting of 'an experimental display technique' that creates alternative configurations between objects and bodies to construct 'new epistemological frameworks for understanding and exhibiting sexuality ' (2013, 108). Focused primarily on the representation of sexuality, arguably these curatorial and interpretative strategies, devised by queer-identifying curators/artists, have often been conceived as scholar-/artist-led endeavours. These initiatives differ sharply from those implementing co-curatorial approaches advocated by some (Scott 2019), which privilege the lived experiences of community members, rather than exhibition-makers' curatorial/artistic vision.

The growth of trans-focused exhibitions and their pitfalls
According to trans curator E-J Scott (2018), recent trans-focused exhibitions have sought to satisfy audiences' growing appetite for museum programmes addressing contemporary debates about gender and identity. Such increasing attention also stemmed from advancements in gender recognition policies occurring in several countries in the 2010s. Some commentators even claimed that a 'tipping point' had been reached (Ellison et al. 2017, 162;Sandell 2017, 23;Scott 2018, 19): a major shift in how trans issues and rights are approached that has fuelled a growing trans visibility in public life, including in TV reality shows, magazines, and exhibitions.
Yet, recent years have seen a surge in transphobia and anti-trans narratives across Europe including in the UK (Ilga Europe 2021, 22), which has become an increasingly hostile country for trans people. Since 2020, much debate in the UK has revolved around the use of puberty blockers and the NHS Tavistock and Portman's Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS), England's sole provider of gender identity health services for children and young people until spring 2023 (Brooks 2023). 7 In 2022 regressive measures were introduced in the UK in areas such as sport and healthcare. For instance, access to gender-affirming healthcare was restricted for young trans people, and battles were fought over whether a proposed legal ban on so-called 'conversation therapy' should also protect trans people (Pritilata 2022). 8 Transphobic hate crimes rocketed in England and Wales: a trend linked, according to the Home Office, to heated social media discussions on trans issues (Dearden 2022). Trans rights have been increasingly pitched against women's rights and an anti-trans rhetoric has been mainstreamed by mass media, politicians, and members of the UK government (Ilga Europe 2022). Opposition to trans rights was weaponised by several candidates for the Conservative Party leadership contest of summer 2022 (Pritilata 2022). In January 2023 Rishi Sunak's conservative government employed a never-before-used legislation to block the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill passed by the Scottish parliament in December 2022 (Crerar and Brooks 2013). 9 Such regressive anti-trans moves call for reflection on how museums and exhibitions can offer more authentic, accurate and human portrayals of trans lives working in partnership with members of trans communities. Sandell describes exhibitions striving to more authentically explore transgender lived experience as a 'form of human rights work' (Sandell 2017, 115). As I discuss in this section, however, the increase of trans visibility of the last decade has not been devoid of problems, even in exhibitions praised for offering more nuanced explorations of transgender lived experiences.
Critics have pointed to a tendency of trans exhibitions to prioritise well-known and 'exceptional' trans individuals (Sneeuwloper et al. 2020, 265), thus neglecting the diversity of 'ordinary' trans lives. Arguably, this tendency marked April Ashley: Portrait of a Lady (2013)(2014)(2015) at the Museum of Liverpool. This exhibition looked at the history of transgender people in Britain over the previous 70 years, 'focusing on the experiences of one exceptional individual': April Ashley, an iconic trans woman, former Vogue model, and actress, considered one of the first British people to undergo gender reassignment. Just as media representations, through prioritising highly gendered roles (e.g., beauty icons or actresses), convey a 'one dimensional expression of identity' (Pieper 2015, 192), these exhibitions also potentially flatten trans peoples' lives and experiences.
Exhibitions that put under the spotlight trans people whose gender identity operates within a female/male binary, and whose transition reflects a unidirectional (primarily male-to-female) journey entailing medical interventions also privileged in mass media (e.g., Caitlin Jenner, Laverne Cox, and Paris Lees), are especially pernicious. They favour normative representations of primarily (white) trans women who adhere to the transsexual model of care and who 'pass'.
These representations reduce trans people to one group who are considered, as activist Shon Faye claims, 'more palatable by media gatekeepers', as 'younger, prettier, nondisabled and white' 10 trans people enjoy greater visibility, while trans men and non-binary people are ignored. In so doing, they overlook the diverse groups forming the trans community with sharply differing ideas of gender selfhood, especially erasing heterogenous gender identity positions such as genderqueer people who articulate a fluid gender selfhood. They neglect the different ways in which trans lives are lived, thus portraying as homogenous a community marked by heated politics of inclusion (Sneeuwloper et al. 2020, 266).
Exhibitions have rarely sought to bring attention to the trans community's heterogeneity, or at least these efforts have received limited academic attention (e.g., A. Levin 2012; Sneeuwloper et al. 2020, 273;Sandell 2017, 117). When referring to the trans community's heterogeneity, I allude to both its members' multiple gender identity positions and their overlaps with other intersectional identity featurestwo issues closely examined below.
Identities that challenge and undo 'the homo/hetero binary' (Mills 2006, 258) and express more fluid ideas of gender selfhood, as well as intersections of race and class with gender, have been poorly articulated. Intersectional identities have been disregarded even in collaborative trans-focused exhibitions, perhaps surprisingly, as it is widely acknowledged how gender intersects with other identity categories including sexuality, race, ethnicity, and class (Parent, DeBlaere, and Morandi 2013). These identity categories are significant as they intersect with trans people' gender identity positions to define their hierarchical locations on 'society's grids of power' (Yuval-Davis 2015, 94) and mark their exclusion.
Another critical issue is who curates trans-focused exhibitions and how twenty-first century mainstream museums striving to represent gender diversity and trans lived experiences are expected to involve trans folks. As seldom museums host communitybased collecting and exhibition projects independently developed by trans curators, 11 typically cis-gender museum professionals work in partnership with trans communities. Community collaborations are pivotal in efforts to 'queer' museums, 12 including in co-curatorial trans projects. Critics argue for the importance of implementing queer community curating (Scott 2019) or 'queer/ing engagement' (Sullivan and Middleton 2020, 83) in which communities significantly shape exhibition-making processes. However, the involvement of trans community members has been often limited to some form of consultation or contribution (McSweeney and Kavanagh 2016). Rarely museums have implemented co-creation approaches in which trans people held significant influencefrom the exhibition's inception to its launch. Importantly, even co-created exhibitions purposefully developed to address the marginalisation of the trans community often overlook its intra-group differences around gender self-hood and intersectional identities, for reasons I discuss below.
What Makes Your Gender? at the Science Museum WMYG offers a rare example of a co-creation project seeking to establish, from the outset, an equal power relationship between a minoritised group and a national museum. 13 It resulted from a partnership between the Science Museum and Gendered Intelligence aiming to introduce more nuanced narratives around gender diversity and transgender identities in the Who Am I? gallery and transform the institution's approach to gender. 14 The Who Am I? gallery explores how advances in genetics and brain science shape people's identities but does so in a way which conveys binary notions of gender identity prevalent when the exhibition was inaugurated. WMYG was conceived as a temporary intervention in the Who Am I? permanent gallery.
The framing of WMYG within the Science Museum is noteworthy. With the notion of 'framing' I refer to the institutional context within which narratives are presented and knowledge is articulated (Macdonald et al. 2021). The location in a science museum implicitly framed trans identities and experiences within discourses of science and human biology, and in the business of offering public education around STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) subjects. Such a scientific framingand its association with notions of 'objectivity' and 'truth'was especially valued by the trans curators, as will emerge, for offering a validation that other museums could not. Both the institutional framing and WMYG's positioning in a free-entry gallery of a large national museum impacted the exhibition's intended audiences: primarily the general visiting (mainly non-trans) public, including schoolchildren and families.

The exhibition's concept, content and design
The exhibition's concept, content and design were developed by young trans curators 15 and Gendered Intelligence activists during demanding co-creation workshops co-led by two Gendered Intelligence facilitators and staff from the Science Museum. To reflect the diversity of trans lives, the curatorial team chose the concept 'gender is a spectrum' (Yarbrough 2018, 17) as the exhibition's central message, intending to challenge the female/male binary and advocate for the individuality and multeity of gender identities and expressions. However, in doing so, WMYG implicitly placed trans people on a continuum respectively bookended by the very gender binary it sought to contest. While this may not reflect how some trans people think of their identities (Browne and Lim 2010, 617), the trans curators considered it inclusive of differing trans experiences.
The limited exhibition space that WMYG was to occupyone of the fourteen large display cases comprising the Who Am I gallery 16 (see Figure 1)magnified the major challenge confronted by the curatorial team: how to develop a simple but intelligible concept for such a limited space? In this display we could present only a 'snapshot', a specific viewpoint on the subject, as claimed by a Science Museum staff. 17 'Gender is a spectrum' was regarded by the team as a simple, non-medicalised concept to convey in a restricted exhibition space.
Efforts were made to convey community heterogeneity by presenting a mix of objects and storiesmostly loaned or donated by the trans curatorsrelevant to trans women and men and, to a lesser extent, genderqueer people. Three oral history interviews recorded by the trans curators with two trans women and one trans man were presented. Trans-specific objects used by trans men and trans women and gender-queer people included non-medical gender affirming items, including a packer (Figure 2), or a penile prosthetic device used under clothes to suggest a penis (Plis and Blackwood 2012, 192), a binder to safely flatten breasts (Figure 3), and a pair of breast enhancers ( Figure  2). Medications for gender affirming hormone therapy were also shown, specifically an estrogen pill pack and a testosterone box. A few artefacts spoke to non-binary trans lives including 'BMO,' a character from the Adventure Time cartoon conceived as genderless by its creators but whose gender seems to fluctuate throughout the series, as well as Judith Butler's ground-breaking book Gender Trouble.
Alongside these trans-specific artefacts, objects used by both trans and cis people were shown including make-up, waxing materials, items of clothing, shaving cream, jewellery, shoes, and a wig ( Figure 4). Together with a large mirror, the above panel's final question -'Which objects do you use?' (Science Museum 2014)invited visitors to turn their gaze on themselves and reflect on the objects they use to express their gender identity. The aim was to emphasise that everyone 'does' gender, including cis people, as conveyed in a text panel ( Figure 5).
The mirror, objects, and (some) labels were displayed in an open 'closet' equipped with a clothes rail and shelves (Figure 1), conceptualised by the team as a gender 'toolkit.' Although WMYG was intended for both non-trans and trans/LGBTQI audiences, the significance of particularly non-medical gender affirming items may have not been obvious for uninformed cisgender visitors. In the absence of any explicative label, non-trans visitors might have not grasped the use of packers, for instance. Rather than 'teaching' visitors the specific ways in which different trans people express their gender selfhood, WMYG sought to emphasise the shared human experience of drawing on a 'gender toolkit' to express one's own gender identity and to live and breathe their gendered life.
In so doing, WMYG privileged a unidimensional representation of transgender people focusing on gender identity only. Other identity categories that significantly affect trans lives and experiences, such as race, class or sexuality, were not addressed. WMYG's disengagement with intersectional dimensions and intra-group divisions requires attention, as my reflexive work can support future co-curating practices more reflective of internal community heterogeneity. The remainder of the paper considers the challenges entangled in co-curating efforts with heterogenous trans communities.

Managing intra-group differences in co-creation processes
The trans community is highly diverse, comprising individuals with differing gender identity positions but also 'representing all racial and ethnic backgrounds, as well as faith backgrounds'. 18 As such heterogeneity was reflected in the composition of the curatorial team, we implemented techniques seeking to foster open dialogue, mutual respect and inclusivity in the co-creation process.
GI's expertise was critical in this respect, particularly its experience running workshops for all young trans people, irrespective of their gender identity positions or the stage of their transition. 19 For example, each workshop began with a 'grand rules' exercise reiterating our commitment to inclusivity, respect and kindness: an established practice within GI's youth activities. Nonetheless, significant gaps emerged between such aspirational commitments and the participants' experiences, as surfaced in individual interviews. Despite, or   perhaps because of, our efforts to foster inclusivity and mutual respect in the co-creation process, unspoken tension rose around the selection of some objects for display.
For instance, during a collection-focused activity, the trans curators were introduced to collection pieces pre-selected by the museum's Curator of Medicine as of potential interest to WMYG, including a pair of breast implants. Their selection was strongly criticised by Mary. For her the object encapsulated narrow understandings of who 'counts' as a trans woman and its established attributes, such as enlarged breasts (from augmentation surgery) and a 'pretty' appearance.
Mary's position echoed the criticism towards trans (and cosmetic) surgeries expressed by some for reinforcing 'oppressing gender stereotypes' or being motivated by 'politically naïve dissatisfaction with appearance' (Heyes and Latham 2018, 176). As her perspective was not disputed by other curators, the other facilitators and I (mis)understood that the group concurred with Mary. During an individual interview, 'Nicky' in fact shared her resentment towards Mary's perspective: We make the pact at the start [of each session] to be very sensitive of what we say, but Mary said something horrible one day. She said how some trans women … she basically called them bimbos who get their boobs done, who want to look pretty and feminine, and she kind of was like: 'Oh, stupid bimbos!' And I didn't pull her out on that, but I wanted to, because I am one of those, I'm a bimbo … well, I'm not a bimbo, but I want to look pretty, and I like to dress nice, and I want to have a boob job. If I had done the opposite and said something against trans women that look ugly, not saying that she's ugly, but that don't want to dress nice and don't want to do makeup and hair and have boob jobs, it would have been a big thing. And I wish I had said something because it's not very fair. 20 Nicky's statement articulates the conflicting positions held by the two curators around which objects could best convey the differing perspectives and lived experiences of trans women. Having recently identified as a trans person, Nicky had 'been thrust from … the gay community into a new community' 21 and felt her views were less significant. Yet, the co-creation of WMYG had provided Nicky with a sense of belonging to the trans community, which she had been keen to preserve by not voicing her disagreement. While not referring to this occurrence, Mary was aware of the divergences between her opinions and those of other curators; she explained to have found it challenging, during the co-creation workshops, to be 'listening to their ideas and trying to incorporate their thinking … particularly if … you don't necessarily agree at all'. 22 Nicky's decision to refrain from commenting on the breast implants 'incident' could be interpreted as a matter of 'respectability politics' (Finley 2020): the tendency to silence behaviours falling outside what is regarded as acceptable and worthy of 'respect' by dominant groups within marginalised communities. As a trans woman who had started to transition earlier, Mary counted, at least in the eyes of Nicky, as a more experienced or dominant member. Respectability politics may have made it difficult for contested topics such as how one should present oneself as female to be openly discussed during our workshops, but also differences in class status and racial disparities to be addressed below.
Experiences of invisibility and silence especially mark the lives of non-binary trans people (Wright et al. 2021), who often face challenges in societies such as the UK that largely function around two binary genders. Non-binary identifying trans people may silence their perspectives and experiences, especially when not feeling safe to express them. However, the unvoiced disagreement between Nicky and Mary around trans femininities, and Nicky's decision to silence her dissent, show that conflictual positions exist even within self-identifying binary trans groups and can result in discriminatory and silencing behaviours and interactions. Significantly, these can occur when unintended by those who occupyor are perceived to occupymore powerful positions within the community, and within initiatives such as WMYG aiming to foster respectful collaborations.
If Nicky's reticence allowed the group to sidestep what may have been a difficult discussion and keep the co-creation process harmonious, it also resulted in a missed opportunity to reflect upon the internal differences within the curatorial group and, by extension, the trans community. Arguably, such a discussion could have added nuance to the exhibition narrative by bringing attention to conflictual gender identity positions within the trans community. Instead, the curatorial team's aim for an uncomplicated and positive representation of the trans communitywhich could reach the museum's general publicled to the suppression of intra-group divisions and tensions, and even the outright neglect of intersections between gender and other identities.

Intersectional identity features
In their individual interviews, the trans curators also addressed how other intersecting identity categories had significantly shaped their lives. Three categories emerged as particularly significant: race, religion and class. These identity features combine and intersect with gender in ways that inform not only how trans people see themselves but also how they are perceived by others (de Vries 2012). Queer heritage specialist Sean Curran claims that curating narratives of people with intersecting marginalised identities opens up opportunities for 'transformative and radical curating', but also poses challenges (2015,2). As I show below, a significant challenge is how to productively address intersecting identity features other than gender in co-creation processes involving diverse trans folks.

Race
WMYG's only subtle reference to the intersection between gender and race was Miss Kimberley's oral history interview: a trans woman of colour, cabaret star, and actress. Race turned out to be a salient identity feature for 'Alexis,' a genderqueer trans person of colour, as did religion (elaborated below).
Despite being an outspoken curator, Alexis had never discussed how race had shaped their experience as a trans person. When articulating their intention to lend or donate a packer for WMYG, however, Alexis explained, after some encouragement, during an interview: I wanted to donate one because I knew that it was the only thing … I don't know how to put it … Because it's the only thing I could donate that would denote something to do with skin colour. Because it's not something that I'm hung up on, but at the same time … I don't know many other trans people of colour, and I kind of feel like, if there was something, even subtly, like having a dark skin packer rather than a light skin … Because a phrase that I'm used to hearing since I was a kid is 'That's white people nonsense, black people don't do stuff like that!' 23 For Alexis, it was imperative that WMYG referred, even subtly, to trans people of colour, a particularly marginalised group within the LGBTQI community (Backmann and Gooch 2018, 5). Alexis regarded this championing as their own individual responsibility, rather than one shared with the other (primarily white) trans curators. Alexis' concern for the absence of trans people of colour echoes broader concerns of activists, critics and professionals around 'the persistent centricity of White narratives as normative' in museums (Bunning 2021, 5;original emphasis).
Alexis took on the (uncomfortable) role of 'community representative', tied with feelings of responsibility and anxiety (Malatino 2015, 397). With only Alexis and one cisgender person of colour (a Science Museum staff) working on the project, the conditions for creating a space for critical enquiry around how gender intersects with race were lacking. This confirms that who does the curating matters, as what is represented (or overlooked) results from exhibition-makers' interests and preoccupations, whether community curators or professional staffan issue that requires further attention.

Religion
Faith emerged as another salient intersecting identity feature for some trans people. Amongst trans people attitudes towards religion differ. If some trans people reject their religious identity (Beardsley, O'Brien, and Wooley 2010, 271-72), others embrace it in their journey of gender identity affirmation (Curran 2015, 2). The heritage project 'Twilight People: Stories of Faith & Gender Beyond Binary' challenges assumptions that 'trans and gender-variant identities are inherently at odds with faith' (Curran 2015, 2), 24 thus echoing Alexis' position.
In an interview, Alexis also emphasised their religious identity, presenting themselves as a religious person of Christian faith. 'I grew up in a very religious family, and … my family is really religious. I grew up in a religious country … ', Alexis stated, also revealing their migratory experience. 25 They shared that, as a young trans person, they had received no positive affirmation from their family due to their strict religious belief. Yet, Alexis added: 'I still believe in God, and I still pray, I still go to church, but churches which are very accepting about everybody', referring to an inclusive church welcoming gay, bi and trans people in North London.
If 'for faith groups, becoming more LGBT-inclusive involves questioning and reframing deeply-held beliefs and practices' (Backmann and Gooch 2018, 18), Alexis was still hopeful that WMYG could reframe the beliefs of trans deniers, particularly their mother. Like all trans curators I spoke with, Alexis hoped it would give 'scientific validity' 26 to trans identities: I am holding out that she [my mum] might come and see the exhibit. She refuses to even talk about anything like this, but I'm kind of hoping, because it's the Science Museum … If I say 'look, the Science Museum has … let us … ' It most likely won't, but I think just the chance that it might make her see it in a different way, that [it] is not something I made up in my head. 27 Whilst not explicitly referring to religion, Alexis revealed their perception of the Science Museum as an ally in their efforts to argue against their mother's denial of transnessa position rooted in her conversative religious beliefs. The significant role played by faith in Alexis' experience as a trans person is striking, as is their conviction that a science museum would validate their experiences. Yet, they did not suggest that WMYG should have addressed religion, perhaps considering it as a private matter.
Nonetheless, faith remains an identity feature causing trans and other LGBTQI people of faith to experience discrimination, from both members of their faith communities (because of their sexuality and/or gender) (Backmann and Gooch 2018, 5;Beardsley, O'Brien, and Wooley 2010, 277) and other LGBTQI people (because of their faith) (Backmann and Gooch 2018, 12). 28 Alexis' attempt to negotiate intersectional features of their identities as a trans person of both colour and faith exposes the importance to attend to how gender intersects with faith when presenting trans experiences, beyond specialised initiatives such as 'Twilight People'.

Class
Class also emerged during one-on-one interviews as an important intersecting identity category for Nicky and Mary. Nicky presented her working-class background as both a disadvantage and an opportunity: I got a lucky break, because I'm from a working class, 'underprivileged' background … and my parents didn't go to university. And the University of Arts London … before I studied there, they have an arts and participation department and do outreach with kids from underprivileged backgrounds, and there was a project with Tate. And then once I got my foot in the door with Tate, I felt very lucky that they kept wanting to work with me. And then from that I've got other work, and I've started working with other galleries a lot. That's very lucky. Being poor pays off [laughs]. 29 Nicky explained how her working-class background had facilitated access to the elitist art sector. This had led to freelance work as a creative producer working for institutions such as Tate and the V&A, which had strengthened Nicky's confidence and self-esteem. Even so, she had confronted challenges in the transition journey, despite her mother's support. For Mary, on the other hand, working as a trainee chef in a kitchen had limited her opportunities to engage in critical thinking around gender issues. Whilst not disclosing her class background or identity, she stated: [B]ecause when you work in the kitchen, you don't get time to sit and think about it, it's heads on. Whereas when you're workshopping, you start brainstorming … It's something that I don't get to do very often, so it's nice to … get your mind working in other things and listen to other people's points of view, trying to put your point of view forward. 30 Both Nicky's and Mary's statements point to how their life experiences have been shaped by their working-class background or employment.
Yet, for both trans and non-trans people employment is only 'one of the many indicators that can determine one's class' (Iervolino and Sergi 2022b, 15), intersecting with features such as gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity and disability. When telling the stories of trans people, however, employment alone may be especially insufficient in addressing the role that class plays in shaping trans people's lives. This is because the experiences of trans people in working-class jobs but with a middle-class backgroundwith the privilege this may entail in terms of access to knowledge, financial resources and supportcan be strikingly different from those of trans people with a working-class background. Material aspects of working-class trans people's lives can significantly hinder their transition journeys, impact on their livelihoods, and even lead to experience violence. Yet, as the role played by class in shaping the young trans people's experiences was not discussed during our workshops, class did not feature in WMYG. Its absence reflects a wider trend seeing museums paying limited attention to working and poverty classes (Chynoweth 2021; Iervolino and Sergi 2022a, 2022b).
As my discussion has shown, for several trans curators, other identity dimensions intersected with gender to produce complex subject-positions and shape their lived experiences as trans people. Notably, only in the intimate context of one-on-one interviews, the trans curators disclosed additional aspects of their identities that had impacted them beyond gender. This points to the necessity of facilitating reflexive work in co-creation projects involving highly heterogenous communities, where homogenising tendencies and peer pressure can be real. It is critical to create space for reflection to consider the impact of these tendencies and pressure. The ethos of WMYG to develop a shared, inclusive, and positive representation of trans people compelled the curatorial team to subdue individual viewpoints toward that collective goal and, in so doing, put forward a homogenous portrait of trans identities.

Recent developments
WMYG aimed to foster a transformation in the Science Museum's approach to gender. The project nurtured change by facilitating the acquisition of knowledge around trans issues and objects embodying trans lived experiences (Author 2018). However, once WMYG was dismantled, the Who Am I? permanent gallery remained largely unchanged 31 , repeatedly attracting criticisms for its treatment of gender and transgender identities.
Criticisms from visitors concentrated especially around the display 'Boy or girl?' whose objects and stories attracted attention from many different communities holding conflicting perspectives. Differing audiences found the packer shown in this display especially challenging. 32 In 2016, criticisms about the Who Am I gallery focused primarily on the interactive game, 'What sex is your brain?', inviting visitors to answer questions supposedly measuring 'whether a person's brain is more typically male or female'an idea debunked by neuroscientists (Devlin 2016). Also, the label 'Hardwired gender?', featuring in the display 'Boy or girl?', was criticised by differing groups for opposing reasons. 33 In response to this, the Museum admitted that the gallery's content required urgent review as it reflected outdated scientific research on sex and gender and social attitudes prevalent when the exhibition was last updated in 2010 (Tyrell 2016). In fact, only minor changes were made, limited to the removal of some content, including the 'What sex is your brain?' game and the 'Hardwired Gender?' label. 34 In 2021, 'Boy or Girl?' received new criticisms, this time for its lack of transgender representation, leading the museumaccording to media coverageto initiate a content update process (Simpson 2021). If an update of the gallery's text, font size and position had been already planned, this was combined with a review of (part of) the content of a few showcases. 35 Intriguingly, before the new content had been developed, the Museum decided to almost entirely empty out the infamous display to create a 'blank canvas' to populate with 'new stories around sex development and gender identity'. 36 Under development in autumn 2022, the display does not aim to appease transgender critics, as claimed by media coverage (Simpson 2021), or any other group of critics. It strives to show that everybody's story of sex development and gender identity is different, and to address differences and similarities of experiences across various life stages through presenting science research and a range of personal perspectives. The experiences of a few transgender people associated to Gendered Intelligence will feature alongside perspectives of individuals associated to DSD Families, a peer support charity for families with children with Differences of Sex Development (DSD), 37 and menopause organisations. 38 Significantly, the Science Museum is striving to include trans perspectives in the Who Am I? gallery by once again collaborating with Gendered Intelligence. Yet, the content development is being led by the Science Museum, with GI's members only contributing personal stories and reviewing final texts. 39 The controversies surrounding the Who Am I? gallery's treatment of gender and transgender people indicate that, after 2014, the knowledge, expertise, community connections and trust developed during the co-creation of WMYG were not channelled into a substantial renovation of the gallery. This was perhaps also due to the departure from the Science Museum of the two staff members leading on WMYG who were personally committed to shift the museum's treatment of gender, as well as the significant responsibility of the Curator of Medicine in the Medicine Galleries project, completed in November 2019not long before the Covid-19 pandemic hit the UK, altering museums' priorities. This shows that several factors, both internal and external, can set back wellintended efforts to transform mainstream museums' treatment of gender and transgender people. It also signals that the process of shifting approaches and attitudes to gender is lengthy, and may accelerate or decelerate and draw on weaker or stronger community collaborations, depending on the particular project.

Conclusion
My analysis of the Science Museum's efforts to queer its narratives around gender and transgender people draws attention to several challenges faced by mainstream museums when representing marginalised, highly heterogenous and contested communities. I have explored co-creation efforts involving diverse trans people, and the issues entangled in communicating their differing and even conflicting identity positions. My analysis offers the following learning points that can inform future trans and queer cocuratorial efforts.
Space limitations squeeze much out of exhibitions, demanding simplicity and clarity of message, and tough decisions around what to include and exclude. These limitations make it tricky to create multi-layered exhibition narratives addressing the trans community's heterogeneity and the intersection of gender with other social identities, as in WMYG. However, even large exhibitions have rarely, if ever, conveyed the internal diversity of trans and LGBTQI communities. Clearly then, the homogenising and simplistic tendencies of trans-focused exhibitions are also due to the exhibition medium's inherent limitations in articulating complex subjects (Dillenburg and Klein 2012, 76), which lessen its effectiveness in addressing the heterogeneity and contradictions within complex minoritised groups.
Additional challenges stem from whom trans exhibitions are curated for, as their target audiences typically comprise both trans and non-trans visitors. While offering inclusion and recognition to trans audiences, these exhibitions simultaneously seek to de-sensationalize trans people and make them more visible to 'ordinary cisgender' 40 visitors. The differing knowledge about and perspectives on gender and trans identities held by these target audiences pose challenges to exhibition-makers, resembling those faced by exhibitions that represent other marginalised groups, while targeting both community members and mainstream audiences. 41 In a contemporary context in which transphobia is on the rise (Ilga Europe 2021), 'inclusive' exhibitions and programmes increase trans visibility and de-sensationalise trans lives. To enhance societal understanding and foster social justice, one must begin by creating relatable representations of trans people that facilitate broad engagement. This calls for 'inclusive' exhibitions that nonetheless somewhat simplify and flatten trans identities. This is why exhibitions have prioritised sub-identity groups that operate within the gender binary and adhere to the medicalised transexual model of care, primarily trans women, and have suppressed intra-group differences.
Within political systems 'organised around the recognition of identified "communities"' (Browne and Lim 2010, 621), forms of strategic essentialism (Spivak 2010) that privilege particular groups and project monolithic and cohesive ideas of the trans community are instrumental in supporting its political objectives. If politically pragmatic, 'inclusive' curatorial strategies of this kind reduce trans people to one dimensiongenderof their multi-faceted identities. They also risk alienating trans and genderqueer people whose identity challenges binary notions of gender, thus replicating the problematic tendencies of some (both activist and mainstream) media (Pieper 2015, 199). In so doing, they further marginalise the most discriminated-against members of the trans community.
Ideally, exhibitions should strive to offer more nuanced representations of trans people by making the identities and experiences of all its members intelligible and acknowledging the conflicting views on gender and trans identities held by different groups. In many contemporary societies, where binary ideas of gender are widespread along with misunderstanding of trans people, this approach appears premature. Thus, 'inclusive' if homogenising curatorial strategies are favoured even in co-curated exhibitions, as they propose positive and easily 'consumable' representations of trans people for cisgender audiences.
Ultimately, shifting the perspectives of cisgender people remains the primary political objective of trans collaborations with mainstream museums, particularly science and technology museums that offer scientific validation through their institutional frame. Thus, the institutional framing and disciplinary discourses shaping trans curational projects are also critical.
Museums and galleries need to be aware of the heterogeneity and complexity of trans identities, whilst keeping in mind both their partners' political objectives and their visitors' limited understanding of trans lives. Doing this in practice is challenging. Yet, 'activist museums' (Janes and Sandell 2019) cannot be complicit in according visibility to only some trans people, without becoming another unintentional site of exclusion.
Collaborations with trans voices are imperative when challenging monolithic definitions of gender. However, who the curating is done with matters, as it informs the preferred representations of trans people an exhibition offers. For instance, the relatively young age of WMYG's curators might have impacted their ability to advocate for heterogeneity. Also, active 'trans voices in the public discourse are often predominantly middle class' (Browne and Lim 2010, 621), white, and abled, which makes the representation of intersecting identities complicated even in co-creation projects. Thus, exhibitionmaking processes must contemplate 'how contingent, paradoxical and flawed collectivities are formed' (Browne and Lim 2010: 616), including around gender or other differences.
Issues of respectability politics can significantly shape collaborative projects with trans, or other heterogenous, groups. Respectability politics may make it difficult to address 'unrespectable' or 'unacceptable' behaviours (Finley 2020, 31) present in the trans community; for instance, those tethered to sexuality or differences of class, economic status, and race. Thus, exhibitions should strive to negotiate the striking paradoxes between respectability and un-respectability, inclusion and exclusion, solidarity and marginalisation, marking trans and other minoritised communities.
Surely, we need more queering curatorial projects that strive to attend to the differences within trans communities. Yet, we should be mindful of the limits of exhibitions in expressing complexity, heterogeneity, intersectionality and solidarities within and with the trans community. Museums and activists might be more effective advocates by transcending the exhibition medium altogether and relying on other programmes.
Critically, the knowledge, expertise and collaborations developed by mainstream museums through temporary projects should be channelled into shifting approaches to gender and trans experiences in permanent galleries. It will be interesting to see the display that will replace the 'Boy or girl?' showcase in the Who Am I? gallery. However, it may be time for the Science Museum to develop a new permanent gallery exclusively addressing gender and trans experiences.