A 2022 exhibition at the Science Museum in England has resurfaced and caused controversy due to its claims and representations of gender and sexuality. The exhibition was titled “Seeing Things Queerly.”
The museum’s Gender and Sexuality Network created a guide for visitors to conduct a self-led tour through the exhibit.
According to the Science Museum, the Gender and Sexuality Network’s mission is to create “more visibility and inclusion for the LGBTQ+ community in the Science Museum Group’s museums and collection.”
“Seeing Things Queerly” provides a short history of LGBTQ-identifying individuals who invented devices, equipment, accouterments, and other items that have significance to the LGBTQ community.
The museum describes transgender as “an umbrella term that covers many different experiences for people who do not identify as the gender they were assigned at birth.”
Additionally, the description claims:
“While a biological human female usually has XX sex chromosomes and a biological human male generally has XY, we now know there is diversity in the presence and combinations of sex-determining features, including variation in sex chromosomes. Some people who have a difference of sex development identify as members of the intersex community.”
An object known as a “female urinal” was presented at the exhibit. This device was used in the 18th century. The museum expressly created this object to resemble a man’s anatomy. The guide describes this object as “explicit” and “sexual” in terms of its shape, and even says those used centuries ago were “likely less explicit.” Today, this device is reportedly used by transgender men “to alleviate gender dysphoria,” according to the museum.
Lego blocks were another feature of “Seeing Things Queerly.” Blocks requiring one brick with pins and one brick with holes for conjunction are said to be a “heteronormative” representation of “mating.” The guide states:
“[A] bucket of lego bricks… is an example of applying heteronormative language to topics unrelated to gender, sex and reproduction. It illustrates how heteronormativity (the idea that heterosexuality and the male/female gender binary are the norm and everything that falls outside is unusual) shapes the way we speak about science, technology, and the world in general.”
Whether there was an age limit for the “Seeing Things Queerly” exhibition is unknown.
