UK museums have been given a new 44-page set of guidelines on how to offer more inclusive experiences for transgender children.
“Museums should be places not just where trans kids go, but where they want to go,” the new Inclusive Trans Culture guidelines read.
“Signs of support are easy to brag about.”
The booklet, published by the University of Leicester, is designed to encourage museums to help children explore their gender identity and “stimulate positive gender exploration.”
The university’s Research Center for Museums and Galleries (RCMG), encourages arts institutions to use “posters, stickers, flags and badges” to help encourage children to “explore self-expression without fear of reprisal.”
In addition, the guidelines recommend institutions provide access to restrooms and locker rooms that identify their visitors’ preferred gender and that staff choose their words carefully to avoid causing any offense.
One guideline offered to museums includes not asking children to “reveal their identity”, but to “reconfirm their identity” – if they choose to tell staff.
The University of Leicester encourages the museum to help children explore their gender identity and to “stimulate positive gender exploration.” Getty Images/iStockphoto
“If the child chooses to do so, it is important that your response is affirmative and that you remember it is the child’s decision whether they choose to share that information with others,” the guidelines read.
“If you’re not sure what a person’s pronouns are, using gender-neutral pronouns is a holistic approach and introducing your own pronouns conveys your trans awareness.
“Cultural organizations can play an important role in making trans children, young people, and their care[give]rs feel welcome, safe, valued and accepted.”
The guidelines also offer advice on other situations regarding the LGBT+ community, including how to handle discriminatory co-workers and recommending men’s rooms also stock feminine hygiene products.
“Museums should be places not only where trans children go, but where they want to go,” the new guidelines – published in a 44-page document – read. RCMG
It also warned that a “climate of fear” had been created as strong voices “became bolder” on anti-LBGT+ matters.
These guidelines are endorsed by a number of major organisations, including the International Council of Museums UK. The Federation of Scottish Museums, and the Association of Museums, among others.
Despite having some big supporters, critics are quick to draw their own conclusions.
The university’s Research Center for Museums and Galleries (RCMG), which created the guidelines, encourages arts institutions to use “posters, stickers, flags and badges” to help encourage people to know they are welcome. Getty Images/iStockphoto
The director for the non-profit Sex Matters, Helen Joyce, told The Telegraph that the guidelines were a “work of bigotry.”
“They treat the belief that there are two sexes as if it’s really extreme,” she told the UK outlet. “Participation in the way activists use it always means exclusion. The exclusion of views that do not fit a particular ideology.”
Author Joan Smith told the outlet that the university is “creating a problem where it doesn’t exist.”
“[It’s] using language that can only be described as frightening,” he told The Telegraph.
He also said the guidelines “hurt those of us who know that humans cannot change gender, and I feel sorry for the staff in any place that practices it.”
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
