13-06-2025
Museums put trigger warning on manual about trigger warnings
A group of museums have put a trigger warning on a new training manual about trigger warnings.
The 'trigger toolkit' provides advice on how to prevent heritage sector workers becoming traumatised in training sessions.
The manual suggests issuing content warnings to alert staff to any upsetting material, ranging from 'Islamphobia' to 'transphobia' and 'colonialism'.
But the document has itself been given a trigger warning, cautioning readers about its own 'potentially triggering content'.
The guidance was shared by Museum Development North, a heritage sector organisation that works in partnership with Arts Council England.
The manual was produced to help staff in the heritage sector handle material relating to British history, and periods in which 'intolerant, discriminatory, and offensive attitudes and behaviours were significantly more prevalent than they are today '.
The guidance warns that museum workers will inevitably have to discuss 'material which represents a break with the diverse social and cultural landscape of the present day '.
It states that this may be emotionally triggering, and some workers may not be able to 'comfortably engage with the material at hand'.
The manual urges museum bosses to clearly signpost any material that could be emotionally disturbing, and provides a list of topics that could be upsetting.
These topics include 'classism', 'politics', 'policing', 'transmisogyny', and 'genomics' – the study of an organism's genetic structure.
The guidance also advises museum workers to flag triggering content in all emails, discussions, presentations, and training materials.
It adds that staff can recognise if material is triggering by the reaction to it, including people 'crying'. If a training session has been particularly triggering, psychological aftercare should be provided to any upset participants.
The guidance states: 'Preventing triggers from happening is the most effective and inclusive way of demonstrating an active commitment to your training participants' mental health and psychological wellbeing.'
Trigger warnings have become widespread across British universities and the publishing industry.
In 2024, The Telegraph revealed that new editions of the James Bond novels and Agatha Christie mysteries had been given printed trigger warnings alerting readers to potentially outdated and racist attitudes in the books.
Passages of these books were also rewritten ahead of release to remove words that could be deemed offensive.
The Telegraph has previously revealed that Works by Virginia Woolf, Ernest Hemingway, EM Forster and PG Wodehouse have been given trigger warnings, cautioning readers about their more antiquated contents.
In higher education, students have been alerted to the potentially upsetting nature of literary works from Beowulf to the novels of Thomas Hardy.
