1. Realising

February 20, 2019·28 min·2 clips

Museum curator EJ Scott kept his surgically removed breasts in mason jars next to the porridge — and they're now on display in a national museum.

Caitlin begins with uncertainty. She is figuring out her gender identity, while Amru has been out for a while and comes along as friend, mentor, and travelling companion. Brighton is their first stop. The road trip takes them to the Museum of Transology at Brighton Museum and Art Gallery, where gender history sits inside ordinary things. Amru arrives sparkly-eyed. The two of them are affectionate, lightly teasing, and easy with each other, with Amru offering what they have learned without turning it into a lecture. Caitlin gives her own context plainly. She works behind the scenes at Radio 4 at the BBC, moved from Australia to the UK in 2012, and brings that life into the trip. The episode stays close to bodies. At the museum, donated material carries stories that are funny, awkward, practical, and deeply personal at the same time. One memory has a dry warmth to it. A partner collecting intimate material becomes a strange household errand, then a joke about storing it near porridge. The laughter does not cheapen the feeling. It makes the private logistics sound human, specific, and less tucked away. The curator speaks with care. Their work comes from trans experience, but they resist turning the exhibition into a straight autobiography. That tension gives the visit its shape. The collection is part art exhibition and part museum exhibition, made through community meetings, workshops, and objects sent straight to a home. The cabinets do quiet work. Hormone boxes, donated belongings, and familiar everyday forms show why the exhibition had to be made with the community itself. The mood is not only heavy, though. What lingers is people taking up space and making themselves visible.

As heard by us

A first trip to Brighton becomes a patient, intimate look at non-binary self-recognition and community-made objects.

Caitlin's first road trip to Brighton takes the show to the Museum of Transology at the Brighton Museum and Art Gallery, with Amru helping frame what being non-binary can mean in practice.

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Why you'd press play

A tender road trip into non-binary identity and a museum of trans stories.

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