ABSTRACT
April Ashley: Portrait of a Lady, an exhibition at the Museum of Liverpool in the North West of England, which ran from September 2013 to March 2015, stands out as a still-rare example of a museum project that presents a rich, nuanced and substantive exploration of transgender1
lived experience. The exhibition2 occupied a prominent position within the city’s recently opened flagship museum, in a central location overlooking the atrium and entrance hall at the heart of the building, ensuring that the majority of the nearly 1 million visitors during that period could not fail to see it. The exhibition not only explored the life of the iconic figure of April Ashley (Figure 5.1) – a former Vogue model and actress, one of the first people in the world to undergo gender reassignment surgery, and a renowned campaigner for transgender equality – but also examined her life in the context of the broader social and political changes out of which the transgender rights movement has emerged (Figures 5.2 and 5.3, Plate 5.1). Alongside this account of Ashley’s remarkable life, members of the transgender and gender-variant communities of the region also shared their own personal stories, offering visitors a way of appreciating the diverse ways in which people experience and express their gender in the present day.
