The Museum of Transology (MoT) is the UK’s most significant collection of objects representing trans, non-binary and intersex people’s lives. 

Never again will historians be able to say that you can’t call trans people ‘trans’ in the past. Never again will trans, non-binary and intersex people be hard to find in history. And never again will the records of our lives be written by the media that spectacularise us, the legal systems that criminalise and the psychiatrists who pathologise us. 

With our own museum we will write ourselves back into history, on our own terms, in our own words. 

Collectively, we will halt the erasure of transcestry.

Each object donated to the Museum of Transology has a brown swing tag attached to it, with a hand written message explaining its significance to the  owner. This means both the story and the object are archived as two parts of a whole, never to be erased or overwritten. This is a deliberate strategy to ensure the experiences surrounding trans, non-binary, and intersex people’s everyday lives are recorded in our own words, forever.

The growing collection currently consists of 1,152 object entries (many assigned multiple objects from a single donor, such as Isaac’s 732 testogel sachets, and performance artist, scholar (NADA) and dramatist Nando/Nancy Messias’ costume, accessories and stage prop collection spanning 20 years), an estimated further 1000 objects being progressively accessioned at the Bishopsgate Institute by Senior Archivist Stefan Dickers using object entry forms completed in free public community archiving sessions, and 435 Jpgs. There are approxiamately 5000 individual objects in the collection.

In 2023/24, the Museum of Transology built 15 regional collections to widen geographical representation. Over 500 objects were collected at 15 locations across the UK.

And yes, we are still collecting.