Lack of mention
Science museum makes changes at the behest of science-denying loonies.
The Science Museum is set to alter its Boy or Girl? display following complaints over a “lack of mention of transgender”.
The museum in question is the science museum, just as it says in the name, the one in South Kensington, inspired by Dear Albert in the wake of the Great Exhibition. It matters, the way the one on Central Park West matters.
Curators will make changes to a gallery covering human biology in order to “update (the) non inclusive narrative”, it can be revealed.
But science has nothing to do with being “inclusive” at the expense of being accurate. Science isn’t a club or a gang or a party, it’s a form of systematic inquiry and testing which creates bodies of knowledge. It’s not there to be “inclusive” for the sake of it.
A display on sex characteristics titled Boy or Girl? has received complaints “due to the lack of mention of transgender”, according to internal documents, and there are plans to make alterations to the exhibit which asks “how are boys and girls different?” … Boy or Girl? had previously been altered to remove a sign which stated “your X and Y chromosomes define your biological sex” following complaints in 2016.
X and Y are such non-inclusive letters.
Yes, that’s why LQBQIAS+ will never include the letters X or Y. Hmm.
Isn’t that how Dillahunty, or whatever his name is, argues?
It was a joke.
An intentional reference to him?
No, just a joke. I’ve always found the name a little bit funny. London & the rest of the world type of thing. Like the New Yorker cartoon about New Yorkers.
Not just cartoon, cover.
I for one would love to see a display that shows all of the science behind “transness.”
It certainly wouldn’t take up much space.
I don’t understand – since trans boys are boys, and the exhibit mentions boys and girls, aren’t they already included??? This is so confusing (stupid, actually ;-) )
I’ve always loved that cover. And it’s a pretty accurate representation of how I see the world, having been born in NYC and lived the vast majjority of my life here.
Pierre Masson, Nonbinary is also included in “transgender”.
See the helpful guide here.
That phenomenon isn’t unique to New York, though. I experience it a lot in Nebraska, and certainly when I was in Texas. Oklahoma to a slightly lesser extent. I suspect it is a universal phenomenon, the tendency to see the world through only your own eyes.
Thanks for the link GW (#9) (and Ophelia)! Very hummm informative… I think… not sure though ;-) .
Yes, I expect an upcoming exhibit on the Evolution of Gender Identity, starting from the Cambrian Explosion and continuing today, with a special emphasis on how males and females with sex drives failed to procreate as well without an additional internal sense of being male or female. Selective pressure (as opposed to the political and emotional kind.)
I’m sure it’s well established. If not, look for budding evolutionary biologists to be stampeding towards a fruitful area generating multiple lines of hypotheses and research.