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Clockwise from top left: A view from just near my hotel; modern medicine showcased at the Hunterian Museum, including a titanium skull plate; Damien Hirst's sheep in formaldehyde; specimens also in formaldehyde at the Hunterian. Large image, right, the stage of the Barbican before the LSO came onto the stage |
In some ways, this has been a lively few weeks.
At the start
of the month, I was at the amazing Classical Pride 2025, Voices of Joy and
Sorrow, at the Barbican in London.
In an event MC-ed by Johnny Woo, Oliver Zeffman conducted the London
Symphony Orchestra in pieces by LGBT composers, including Saint-Saens’ Bacchanale
from Samson and Delilah and a Swan Lake Suite (Tchaikovsky). The soloists were also from the LGBT
community; one of the highlights was the gay anthem ‘Somewhere over the rainbow’,
sung by mezzo soprano Jamie Barton.
Zeffman
founded Classical Pride in 2023, when it was a single concert, and this year it
was a series of events that ended with a concert in LA! Long may it thrive. The music was superb, as you’d expect from
the LSO; the one thing that did surprise me was that I’d expected a ‘Last Night
of the Proms’-type atmosphere with flags being waved, but the audience were
engrossed in the music and could have been at any concert – until the applause,
which had a lot of very unclassical whooping.
When I stay
overnight after a concert, I usually try to fit in a second visit/tour the
following morning – I think it helps me justify the expense to myself. The morning after Classical Pride, I visited
Tate Britain for the first time. I’d
seen adverts online for the Ithell Colquhoun and Edward Burra exhibitions. I’m a sucker for surrealist art, so it hadn’t
taken much to persuade me to buy a ticket!
I’m glad I went; Colquhoun’s work was genuinely fascinating. Burra was less my taste but still very much worth
seeing. I had a quick look around some of the
rest of the Gallery before heading off to catch my train (I’d got a timed
ticket) – I’ll be going back for a proper look some time before long. One thing I did see was Damien Hirst’s sheep
in formaldehyde. I’m still making my
mind up about what I think of it, but art is supposed to make you think as well
as being a purely optical pleasure!
Speaking of
formaldehyde, I was back in the scary big city on the 19th; I donned my sense
of adventure and braved the rain and forecast possible flash flooding. There were some impressive puddles but the flash
floods didn’t materialise. This time
around, my Other Half and I had had a change of plan; I went solo because he
was worrying about a recurrence of recent back problems when we were out and
about. I think he was wise to be
cautious!
Anyhoo, the
formaldehyde: I’d seen an item
highlighting three lesser-visited London Museums, with the Hunterian Museum
(Royal College of Surgeons) among them.
I can say that it’s well worth a visit; the display of Roman medical
implements at the start of the exhibits was stunning. There were probes, dental tools, a muscle
retractor, a thigh tourniquet, and an adjustable vaginal speculum. I had not realised their surgical kit and
techniques were so advanced!
As you walk through, you see many specimens from the animal kingdom, and yes, many human organs which were used for teaching and research. I gather that the museum has quite recently been renovated and refurbished; certainly, it was clean-lined and modern, and all the specimens were beautifully preserved in a very clear liquid. Most of the specimens were [simply] interesting, a couple were ‘gross’, and some were tragic. As an aside, the glass of the display cabinets was really high quality and pretty much non-reflective. The path through the museum tells the story of knowledge and surgery through time; the need for the specimens here as teaching aids before modern technology was clear.
Before the exit, you can examine a modern surgical
microscope and see a surgical robot – the cutting edge of surgery. There is a cinema area, with a human heart on
display; in one of the looped films, the woman the heart was removed from tells
us about how ill she had been before her transplant, and how good her life has
been since she received her donor organ.
Surgery can be stunning in its ambition and in its achievements!
I’m not sure
what August will bring, either in terms of events or visits* or in terms of UK
transgender people’s lives and place in society. We do know that the EHRC are still working on
their revised Code of Practice, having received more than 51,000 responses. I
suspect that that was a far higher response rate than they anticipated! We also know that two government committees
have recommended that Parliament should not appoint their preferred
candidate for the Commission's Chair when Baroness Falkner's term in the post ends. Effectively, as a community,
we are waiting for the second boot to drop. I don’t think anything will happen about either the Code or the Chairship until
Parliament reconvenes after the summer recess.
Nevertheless,
we will continue to live and to stand tall.
London Transgender Pride 2025 had a record turnout of 100,000 trans
people and allies; we will not ‘go quietly into that good night’, we will
continue to protest that we deserve lives equal to everyone else’s, with
workplaces that are safe for us, with the ability to visit museums and
galleries without crossed legs and without worry, and free from prejudice and
hate.
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*We do have
a visit to an Imax cinema planned, not too far from us; it will be a new experience
for us both!
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