Hormones play an immense role in everyone’s life, yet few people stop to consider how important they are.
Transitional States: Hormones at the Crossroads of Art and Science delivers an international programme that uses art and public debates to raise awareness about the important impact hormone therapies can have. It explores the theme of hormone use and abuse, both in the past and in the present.
Even before we are born, hormones are at work; they affect us in the womb and, as we get older, they regulate our moods, sleeping patterns, and growth. Once we hit puberty we are practically at the mercy of our hormones; they dictate our sexual development and impact our emotional and, in many ways, psychological development. As we grow older, they affect our fertility.
Hormone treatments affect the lives of millions of people and they are used in a variety of ways throughout contemporary society: contraceptive pills use hormones to prevent pregnancy and transgender people use hormones to express themselves more freely.
Dr Chiara Beccalossi (University of Lincoln) leads the project, which is supported by the
Wellcome Trust. Contributors to the programme include a range of LGBTIQ organisations, feminists, artists, psychologists, sociologists, historians, medical scientists, art galleries, gender clinics, universities and cultural centres across the UK, Italy and Spain.