Trans-inclusive Vagina Museum smashes crowdfunding target following negative JK Rowling tweet

The Vagina Museum in London has smashed its £60,000 fundraising target in just three days, allowing it to stay open and meet its upcoming quarterly rent bill.

The LGBTQ+ inclusive Vagina Museum in Bethnal Green, London – which says it aims to “bust the stigma of the gynaecological anatomy and be part of a societal shift from bodily shame to celebration” – has faced closure before, having to relocate from its Camden location in 2022 due to its landlord renewing its lease.

On Friday (14 March), the museum announced that it was under threat of closure once again, claiming it may have to “permanently close our doors” due to high rents “which we are expected to pay quarterly rather than monthly”. The museum explained that despite trying hard to “negotiate an arrangement with our landlords”, they “refuse to exercise discretion”.

The museum posted a crowdfunder with the aim of raising £60,000 to help “overcome the forces that are against us”. As of Monday (17 March), the fundraiser has raised over £68,000.

We have hit our target! The Vagina Museum is saved! This #WomensHistoryMonth, together we prevented the Vagina Museum from becoming a footnote in women's history. Instead, we made women's history. This community prevailed against overwhelming forces! https://t.co/jc0IjjtInF

— Vagina Museum (@vagina_museum) March 15, 2025

“We cannot believe it! We’ve raised enough to save the Vagina Museum in the immediate future,” the museum wrote on Monday.

“But the real work starts now. We’ve been doing this for years on a shoestring budget with just about enough staff to keep functioning. There’s no room to grow. No room to thrive. So we’ve extended our target to our stretch goal.

“This is no longer about surviving, but about being able to thrive in a world with so many forces still against us… Together, we’re an incredible community. And we know we’ll thrive with you by our side.”

It is genuinely unprecedented for an organisation as small as we are to raise as much as we have in a single day. We're absolutely blown away. It is a testament to the power and strength of a community which stands defiant in the face of so many threats!

— Vagina Museum (@vagina_museum) March 14, 2025

The fundraiser wasn’t without its hurdles, however. On 14 March, author JK Rowling chimed in with a tweet slamming the museum. The museum has made it clear that it supports trans people, claiming it is “proudly committed to trans inclusion”.

“The Vagina Museum, which is currently begging for funds to remain open, has blocked me, so I can’t tell them directly why many former supporters’ reaction is ‘good riddance’,” Rowling wrote on Twitter/X, sharing a screenshot of the museum’s fundraising appeal tweet.

Following her tweet, which was viewed over 500,000 times, the museum went on to smash its funding target.

In 2022, Florence Schechter, founder of the Vagina Museum, told PinkNews that it was “obvious” the museum would be trans-inclusive from the moment it opened.

“Obviously, we’re going be trans-inclusive. I love many people who are trans. We have trans and non-binary staff and volunteers. They’re just people, and I don’t see why we shouldn’t include them,” Schechter explained.

She added that the very fact of being a museum dedicated to vaginas had placed them at the “epicentre of transphobia”.

“I find it’s not this steady undercurrent, it’s like we’ll do one thing and they’ll all clearly like sharing it around with each other, and there’ll be a huge wave of transphobia,” she explained.

“And then they’ll forget about us and then they’ll be quiet and we’ll just get on with our lives, it’s wonderful.”