Queer mobilities: critical LGBTQ perspectives of public transport spaces

ABSTRACT

This paper combines two case studies from the UK and Israel to question/‘que(e)ry’ LGBTQ people’s travel and mobility behaviours, to explore the issue of ‘queer mobilities’ and related exclusions from heteronormative public transport spaces. Our research demonstrates how the fear of anti-LGBTQ discrimination and violence have profound impacts on LGBTQ people’s travel options and activity spaces. Using a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods, we examine how LGBTQ identity/‘queerness’, visibility, and safety perceptions affect mobility opportunities and choices. We pursue feminist and queer approaches to expose how LGBTQ people embody a complex, intersectional set of mobility considerations. The study reveals grounded experiences of different LGBTQ travellers and their coping strategies to feel able to travel safely. It identifies how LGBTQ participants are not necessarily physically excluded from mobility opportunities. Rather, they pay hidden costs to travel safely, which take the shape of identity and visibility compromises and heightened levels of fear while travelling. They also use more expensive travel alternatives, such as taxis, or take less direct routes to overcome their experiences of unsafe and inaccessible public transport alternatives. Thereby, we advocate a view of mobility as another important dimension of the discrimination and exclusion of sexual and gender minorities.

KEYWORDS:

• LGBTQ
• queer
• mobilities
• transport
• safety
• UK
• Israel

Introduction

This paper adds significant new insights to mobility scholarship from the perspective of the opportunities (and mostly) limitations of public transport use by sexual and gender minority groups. More specifically, it draws from two substantive case studies conducted with lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans* and queer (LGBTQ) people in the UK and Israel to examine their lived experiences whilst travelling on public transport. Thereby, it explores if/how fear of persecution during travel had an effect on their travel choices.

Fear of violence and crime encountered on and around public transport, and its associated public spaces, can be an important factor in the travel choices (or lack of choice) of certain social groups. These include women, young, older and disabled people and some ethnic minorities, who have often recorded feeling more vulnerable than others (Department for Transport 2012; Future Thinking 2017; Gekoski et al. 2015; TfL 2015, 2016; Yavuz and Welch 2010). Less research has taken place to look at such fears amongst LGBTQ populations. This is surprising, as it has been widely reported that LGBTQ people suffer intolerance, harassment, human rights violations and social exclusion in diverse social arenas (e.g. Duggan 2014; OHCHR and UN Free & Equal 2009).

Social identity can significantly influence people’s mobilities and accessibility opportunities (e.g. Adkins et al. 2017) and their experienced levels of social inclusion (Adkins et al. 2017; Kenyon, Lyons, and Rafferty 2002; Lubitow et al. 2017; Lucas 2012). Transport-related social exclusion has previously been identified along the lines of gender (e.g. Cresswell and Uteng 2008), race/ethnicity (e.g. Raje 2004), disability (e.g. Goggin 2016), income (e.g. Lucas et al. 2018) and age (e.g. Murray 2015), and, importantly for this paper, but much less explored, sexual and gender identity (e.g. Lubitow et al. 2017; Mai and King 2009; Nash and Gorman-Murray 2014).

The United Nations (UN) has called countries to diminish discriminatory conditions of LGBTQ people (OHCHR and UN Free & Equal 2015) and to entitle basic human rights, equal security, freedom and enjoyable lives, regardless of sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or any perceived ‘otherness’ (OHCHR and UN Free & Equal 2009; Subhrajit 2014). Being safe, physically and psychologically, is an undisputable citizenship right. Lack of LGBTQ safety indicates exclusion and, according to some scholars (e.g. Hartal 2017; Moran 2018), an incompetence of the state.

Feminist epistemological and methodological approaches (e.g. Reinharz 1992), especially in mobility studies on women’s harassment (e.g. Osmond and Woodcock 2015), provide useful references for studying sexual and gender minority groups (e.g. Browne, Bakshi, and Lim 2011). This body of scholarship provides a compelling comparator for queer mobilities. According to Gorman-Murray (2009), these revolve around ‘embodied sexuality’, or the ‘identities, feelings, desires and intimate relationships’ and, consequently, ‘the role of embodied emotions and intimacies in sculpting [such] queer mobilities.’ (ibid.) Our aim here is to explore how LGBTQ sexuality and gender – along identity, visibility, and awareness of the possibility of being in danger – affect mobility opportunities, including self-regulation and perceptions of safety while travelling (e.g. Corteen 2002; Mason 2001).

LGBTQ and mobilities research: negotiating spaces of fear and safety

Increasing attention to experiences of sexual and gender minorities has become reflected in mobilities research across the geo-humanities and social sciences (e.g. Lubitow et al. 2017; Mai and King 2009; Nash and Gorman-Murray 2014). Of particular interest to our study are the inclusion vs. exclusion experiences of LGBTQ people in their everyday uses of public transport.

Following simultaneous mobility and emotional turns (see special issue edited by Mai and King [2009] in this journal), our study establishes a niche by attending to LGBTQ people’s everyday experiences of harassment and violence whilst they are literally ‘on the move’ in public transport contexts. It identifies that LGBTQ people often encounter aggressive behaviours motivated by antagonism towards non-heterosexual relationships or gender identities other than those assigned at birth (i.e. non-cisgender). Violence here is seen as acts of homo, bi- or trans*-phobia and can take forms of everyday verbal, physical and discriminatory abuses, as well as systemic discrimination. This might result in fear, mental anguish and isolation, especially from spaces deemed ‘non-safe’ (Corteen 2002; Mason 2001; Subhrajit 2014).

People who ‘violate’ social norms or exhibit relatively higher levels of gender or sexual ‘dissonance’ may, consequently, experience higher levels of gender- and sex(uality)-based violence and discrimination (Doan and Higgins 2009). The latter is especially the case amongst trans* people (Garnets, Herek, and Levy 1992; Perry and Dyck 2014). Reported crimes against LGBTQ people are usually (but not always) enacted near venues dedicated to, or frequented by, LGBTQ people (Herek, Cogan, and Gillis 2002). Studies on gay-bashing have indicated how in everyday public space, including spaces of transport (e.g. Dodds, Keogh, and Hickson 2005), gay people are reportedly bashed for looking gay, or being assumed as gay, as they would deviate from ‘masculinity’ and ‘femininity’ norms (Corteen 2002; Harry 1992; Herek 1992; Mason 2001; Valentine 1996).

There is a hierarchical discrepancy within LGBTQ populations that can be understood along a complex intersection of gender, ethnicity, class, and age (Battle and Barnes 2006; Browne, Bakshi, and Lim 2011). Notably, Berrill (1992) reported how gay men are more usually physically attacked than lesbian women, who reported to encounter verbal violence more often. Moreover, studies have indicated how lesbian and bisexual women and trans* women suffer from trans-misogyny (Mason-Bish 2014), economic disadvantage (Meyer 2008) and employability discrimination (Mason 2001; Moran and Sharpe 2004). Gender non-binary and people with self-disclosed feminine identities reported significant levels of harassment (Lubitow et al. 2017). LGBTQ people of colour especially suffer from discrimination and violence at the intersection of sexuality/‘queerness’, race and ethnicity (Fogg-Davis 2006; Meyer 2012).

LGBTQ people, especially trans* people (Moran and Sharpe 2004), may fear institutional biases and/or ‘outing’, i.e. forcefully publicising one’s ‘othered’ gender or sexual identity, when facing authorities in contexts of LGBTQ violence and law enforcement (TfL 2008). Importantly, hate crimes against LGBTQ people are under-reported, resulting in the underestimation, misrepresentation, or sheer absence of this phenomenon, both in public perception and policy (Berrill 1992; Duggan 2014; Gekoski et al. 2015; Herek 1992; TfL 2016; Woods and Herman 2018).

Steering the focus towards LGBTQ people’s safety and impacts on their travel-related choices, it is not only important to consider the act of movement itself (Adkins et al. 2017). Namely, the latter is entangled with the experience of movement, providing the traveller with symbolic profit, social capital, and embodied meanings of (not) being able to move or being moved (see Kwan and Schwanen 2016). A wide range of factors contribute to a person’s experienced fear of violence and crime in public transport usage, including structural constraints, such as the time of day, mode of transport, levels of security provisions, and past personal experiences and attitudes (see Newton 2014).

Mobility-related fear of violence/crime is profoundly influenced by gender, especially along dominant male-female dichotomies (see Smith and Torstennson 1997). Cresswell and Uteng (2008) argued that if an individual’s gender is not male, they are mobility-poor. However, gender is not a binary form but a set of performed activities (Butler 1990). As such, the relationship between masculinity, femininity and mobility should be construed along fluid boundaries. Nevertheless, masculinity remains associated with unbounded spatial mobility (Cattan 2008; Sheller 2008; Moran and Sharpe 2004), and this works its way through in LGBTQ communities (Lubitow et al. 2017).

Hence, issues around gender, safety, and violence are not static in mobility contexts, too. Fear of crime evidently varies from person to person, along intersections of gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, age, religion, etc., as much as it depends on social and cultural contexts. What specifically matters is prior experience of attack, exposure to high-crime levels locally, or hearing about crime in the media (Valentine 1989; Wynne 2008). At the same time, it is important to distinguish between perceived safety and reported violence and to acknowledge that not all violent incidents are reported to authorities and made known to the public (see Browne, Bakshi, and Lim 2011; Mason 2001).

Park and Mykhyalyshyn (2016) found that people from ‘other(ed)’ ethnic, sexual, religious, and dis/ability backgrounds, are more likely subject to hate crime. Such negative experience might influence everyday decisions and behaviours to avoid ‘unsafe’ spaces (Jackson and Gray 2010). A 2005 Australian Institute of Criminology survey reported that 30% of the study participants thought that their ‘other’, or queer, visibility was the main reason for attacks (Tomsen and Markwell 2009).

Moreover, Transport for London found that LGBTQ passengers were three times more likely to encounter unsolicited sexual behaviour on public transport in London compared to heterosexual people (TfL 2012; see also Future Thinking 2017). Both LGBTQ and non-LGBTQ respondents perceived the bus as the least safe option, largely because bus drivers would reportedly often not intervene in cases of LGBTQ harassment or violence (TfL 2012). The picture was gendered, too: young women, regardless of one’s sexuality, reported similar levels of unwanted behaviour on public transport (ibid.).

This London study, furthermore, indicated how fear might lead LGBTQ people towards self-policing behaviours and avoiding travel at peak or after-school hours in the London area (ibid.). It also underlined LGBTQ people’s desire for awareness-raising – among transport services and members of the public – about their challenges around inequalities and exclusions. This might equip transport operators and staff with greater knowledge and skills to address verbal and physical abuse against LGBTQ people on their services (see Lough Dennell, Anderson, and McDonnell 2018; TfL 2012, 2017).

Methodology

Our methodology combines a new mobilities approach (e.g. Sheller 2014) with feminist and queer epistemologies and methodologies (e.g. Marinucci 2010; Zebracki 2020). That is, we evaluate LGBTQ people’s mobilities according to their everyday personal experiences and grounded reflections of their mobility perceptions and behaviours before, during, and after travelling (e.g. Hodgson 2012).

Drawing on the reviewed literatures, Figure 1 visualises the main interrelated aspects of LGBTQ people’s use of public transport. These aspects guided the questions posed to the study participants and the analysis of the ensuing data (as explained below). In line with feminist and queer thinking, we want to acknowledge that our data do not fit into neat, coherent and representative categories and that, in consideration of the sample sizes, we avoid making generalisations. Rather, they are interrelated in the ‘messiness’ of space, place, movement, and lived experience (see Massey 2005), where we refrain from drawing any causal relationships.

Figure 1. LGBTQ people’s interrelated mobility aspects based on reviewed literatures.

Case study methods and analysis

Using two deep-dive case studies, we have explored how LGBTQ sexuality and gender along identity, visibility, and awareness of the possibility of being in danger affect mobility opportunities, including self-regulation and perceptions of safety while travelling (see Corteen 2002; Mason 2001). The UK case study, conducted in 2017, targeted young LGBTQ people (aged 18–26 years) who have grown up in relatively liberal urban contexts where ‘being different’ is not classed so negatively (Spalek 2008). The case study on Israel, undertaken in 2018, involved Tel Aviv-based LGBTQ people (chiefly aged 18–40 years), in particular participants from trans* and gender non-conforming communities.

Both case studies employed a mixed-method approach: extensive online questionnaires/surveys (including closed and open questions) were combined with follow-up in-depth, semi-structured interviews with a sub-sample that involved survey respondents (see Table 1 and Table 2). The supplementary interviews (around 30–45 min and transcribed verbatim) contributed some more grounded, i.e. less ‘objectifying’, dimensions to research on LGBTQ subjects (see Gamson 2000).

Table 1. UK sample composition of questionnaire and interview participants. Identity categories self-identified by participants

	N	Lesbian woman	Gay man	Bisexual	Trans*	Queer
Questionnaires	210	28 13%	108 51%	35 ^1 17%	23 11%	16 ^2 8%
Interviews	10	3 30%	3 30%	2 ^3 20%	2 ^4 20%

¹Including men and women; ² Including gender-fluid, non-binary, pansexual, and asexual; ³ A female and a male bisexual; ⁴ A straight trans* woman and a bisexual trans* woman.

Table 2. Tel Aviv sample composition of questionnaire and interview participants. Identity categories self-identified by participants

	N	Lesbian woman	Gay man	Bisexual	Trans*	Queer
Questionnaires	118	28 24%	26 22%	33 ^1 28%	(52) ^2	31 ^3 26%
Interviews	3				1 ^4 33%	2 ^5 67%

¹Including men and women; ² 52 respondents (44%) across the total sample labelled themselves as trans*; ³ Including pansexual, other–questioning, asexual, and queer–straight; ⁴ Bisexual trans* woman; ⁵ A genderqueer lesbian and a queer trans man.

The survey participants were recruited with the aid of LGBTQ social networking platforms and snowball sampling techniques (see Bryman 2012). UK survey respondents were located in cities including Cardiff, Glasgow, London, Belfast, and Leeds. The UK interviewees were living in Leeds at the time of study, and relayed experiences from other UK urban contexts, too. The Israel-based questionnaires and interviews involved LGBTQ people living or travelling in or to/from Tel Aviv.

Data analysis

Drawing from interrelated mobility aspects (Figure 1), the online questionnaires assisted in the identification of trends of LGBTQ people’s lived experiences of using public transport networks whilst they were navigating their ‘queerness’ (i.e. LGBTQ identity and visibility), perceptions of fear and safety, and mobility attitudes. The surveys have provided first-hand insights into how public transport networks and their immediate social environments have impacted upon their behavioural and (multi-)modal mobility strategies for mitigating fear and harassment and overcoming inaccessible public transport alternatives.

The purpose of the interviews was to complement some roundedness to the surface patterns in the online survey data (see Mason 2017). Key conversational topics included relations between personal identity, violence and fear in contexts of travel via public transport. As such, the interview data helped to recognise main topics and add deeper personal and locational nuance and context.

The data analysis involved the use of a plain coding system, which surfaced different common or contrasting key themes and experiences, including issues of comfort and self-perception, personal safety vs. crime levels, transport accessibility, and costs of travel. The themed analysis of surveys and interviews provided a triangulated view on processes of LGBTQ exclusion in spaces of public transport, including participants’ ideas on reducing LGBTQ exclusionist practices (see Lubitow et al. 2017; Reinharz 1992).

Ethics and positionality

Ethical considerations played a vital role in constructing and conducting the surveys and interviews, as they dealt with personal and sensitive issues that uncovered some vulnerabilities and precarities (see Resnik 2015). LGBTQ research, amongst others, involves a careful use of labels, umbrella terms, and pronouns. As feminist/queer methodological principle, identity categories were not imposed on the study participants. Rather, gender-neutral, non-binary pronouns were used where appropriate, and participants could choose to self-identify/label in an open-ended fashion (see Compton, Meadow, and Schilt 2018). Also, the self-identified identity categories in Table 1 and Table 2 should be rendered with caution, precisely considering the variety of sexual and gender representations, fluidities, and definitions (Zebracki and Milani 2017).

The researchers were part of the LGBTQ community themselves and disclosed that personal information to the study participants to establish rapport. This primordial role for interviewees to self-express authorised them to look back at what they have done in certain situations that are of personal importance to them. This mitigated researcher–participant power relations where the interviewer acted as engaging and receptive agent (Mason 2017).

The approach used open-ended questions where participants were encouraged to use real-life examples and, where appropriate, address any thoughts the survey might have raised. We have adopted pseudonyms for the participants in the analysis to ensure confidentiality.

Results and discussion

The key findings of the study revolved around the relationship between fear and mobility, perceptions of crime, and lived experiences of violence. These findings respectively structure this section of the paper. In so doing, we articulate the main contributions of bringing mobilities studies’ concerns with embodied meaning in critical dialogue with dominant public transport planning paradigms. As we have outlined above, this planning discourse has tended to overlook the feelings and vulnerabilities of LGBTQ people whilst using public transport.

Foremost, the results for high victimisation rates that we found in both cases have foregrounded the urgency of anti-LGBTQ violence in contexts of public transport. The study has shown that self-identified LGBTQ people regularly face extensive harassment while travelling, on every mode or stage of a trip, and that fear is a substantial obstacle for queer mobility (Figure 1). Fear also affects travel attitudes, and together they substantially influence queer mobilities.

Relationship between fear and mobility

In the UK study, there were clear differences between how gay men and lesbian women prefer to travel to mitigate fear. For gay men, approximately 31% (n = 34) of respondents had no preferences for whether they travelled alone or in a group. This is a considerably higher proportion than for lesbian women, of whom only 7% (n = 2) found no difference. This difference suggests that the latter participants are more comfortable travelling in groups than alone and prefer to do so. A difference can be made between travelling during nighttime or daytime, as Naomi, a 19-year lesbian woman, imparted:

At night, it’s much safer to be with someone else but in the daytime it’s not as bad, I guess. It’s not always practical to travel with someone else, especially if you’re just travelling to work.

The findings for bisexual people are similar to that of lesbian women. The results show that all survey respondents who identified as trans* prefer travelling in a group without exceptions. Possibly related, they especially experienced a great level of exposure, as Katie, a 22-year trans* bisexual woman, conveyed in an interview:

I don’t use buses often, I feel vulnerable waiting for them, you never know if one will turn up.

Katie talked about the role vulnerability played not just on the journey but whilst waiting for services. Moreover, the Department for Transport (2012) found that long waits at stations can be a cause of concern for LGBTQ peoples’ personal safety.

UK-based interviewees overall alluded to the importance of actor-networks, in this case the co-presence of security cameras, lighting, and transport company staff. This also resonated with Katie’s experience:

When I get on a train, I make a conscious effort to sit near the guard compartment and I look where CCTV is pointing.

Another trans* participant explained they choose to only travel near the driver on the lower deck of the bus, as that made them feel safer, or they coordinate travel, as Jessica, a 24-year trans* straight woman explained:

I rarely, if ever, make trips by myself . . . I always make sure I travel with my friend or housemate. I personally just feel less of a target if I am in a group and more comfortable being myself.

In the Tel Aviv study, those who feared most were more mobility-excluded. That is to say, negative transport attitudes were associated with changing, adjusting or avoiding modes, routes, and/or time of travel. Transport attitudes and fear had the highest correlation with travel adjustments among LGBTQ people; those who feared more showed higher negative transport attitudes.

Fear when travelling depends on changing circumstances. This can be engraved fear as traumas or negative incidents are daily, so the fear is there, as Lana, a 27-year trans* bisexual woman from Israel illustrated:

[Using the] bus is the same as using public realms, getting comments according to my body figure, which changes non-linearly.

The Tel Aviv survey integrated hearing of crime and ‘crime experienced to me’ as Likert scales to gauge the frequency of witnessing or experiencing violence at first hand in relation to the Likert scales that explored fear and mobility attitudes. A significant gender difference was observed in the fear, attitudes, queer mobility and ‘to me’ scales with higher means for women compared to men.

Moreover, there was a significantly higher mean for genderqueers than men in the sample. Looking at sexual orientation, lesbians had significant higher means than gays in the fear, attitudes, queer mobility, and ‘to me’ scales. Comparing bisexuals and gays, the same result was drawn. And when comparing queers/pansexuals to gays, a significant result similar to the genderqueers-men comparison was found.

In all scales, the average was found higher for trans* people. Interestingly, trans* people reported to be visibly queer, feel unsafe and have negative transport attitudes, and yet they apparently did not let these influence their travel behaviour at all times, as for them the queer mobility scale had the lowest mean among the four scales.

That said, trans* participants were subjected to confrontations and micro-aggressions on the street, which, as a case in point, took the form of ‘staring’ and ‘honking’, as Lana said:

I delay traffic! At pedestrian crossings when I wait for the green light, the first row of drivers stares at me, and they just don’t drive until the following cars honk at them.

This comes along with a general state of alertness in such unwelcoming, hostile environments, as Lana continued:

A stranger wanted to ask me something on the bus, and immediately all my defence mechanisms alerted. There is a place in me knowing that something is approaching, waiting for it to happen, which implies a constant level of stress.

Furthermore, self-identified queers who walk and fear more ended up altering their trip or queer visibility in order to stay safe and achieve mobility. Trans* people significantly walked more to leisure destinations as compared to non-trans*. As walking was reported as the second-most dangerous travel mode, these findings suggest that trans* people feel relatively more transport-excluded. Similarly, research participants indicated the fear of using public transport because of hearing-of or experiencing anti-LGBTQ violence. As echoed by survey and interview respondents, negative transport attitudes are deemed a result of poor-quality public transport service in the case of Israel particularly (see Barkat 2018).

Perceptions of crime

Our findings have added new empirically informed knowledge of how LGBTQ people experience burdens specific to their perceptions of crime and, accordingly, adopt particular strategies and behaviours to mitigate harassment by, for example, compromising one’s identity, and avoiding certain travel modes or routes. Hence, this study pushes beyond solely victimised perspectives by paying closer attention to critical social interactions that take place in everyday spaces of queer mobilities.

The UK study has shown that perceptions of crime vary among the LGBTQ research community. There is some evidence to cautiously suggest that these differences might be more strongly related to gender than sexuality. Gay men felt proportionally more unsafe on public transport than lesbian women. UK respondents generally pursued travelling in a group as coping strategy, whilst some also accentuated socialising aspects, as Dean, a 22-year gay man, said:

To be fair, I guess I prefer travelling in a group of people, but more for social reasons rather than safety.

In the UK survey, 34% of gay men (n = 37) viewed buses as unsafe at night compared with 25% of lesbian women (n = 7). Avoiding bus travel was frequently mentioned in interviews – ‘I would avoid that bus route now,’ said John, a 19-year gay man. Deena, a 21-year lesbian woman, reverberated this sentiment:

I feel uncomfortable getting the bus at night, mainly because I don’t like waiting around at the stop in the dark.

Fifty-seven percent of trans* respondents (n = 13) viewed bus travel at night as unsafe or very unsafe. For gay men, the train was felt to be safer both during the day and during the night.

For trans* people in the UK survey, greater differences were revealed between day and night-time travel, with all transport being rated ‘very unsafe’ at night. Only a few trans* people felt ‘very safe’ on public transport, both in the day and at night. All participants identified as trans* (n = 23) selected ‘unsafe’ or ‘very unsafe’ when describing walking at night. In contrast, 79% (n = 22) of lesbian women and 46% (n = 50) of gay men felt ‘unsafe’ or ‘very unsafe’ walking at night.

For the Tel Aviv case study, the bus and train were both observed as having a strong impact on fear and travel attitudes, with a reported substantial amount of negative looks that participants encountered on these travel modes. Bus and walking were the most common modes of travel, but they were also perceived as the least safe modes, also in this case and especially among trans* people. Lesbian and bisexual women expressed more fear using public transport than gay men (whilst this matter might be more strongly associated with gender identity than sexuality).

A key point raised by interviewees in both cases was the notion of ‘double victimisation’, especially around an allegedly ‘feminine’ visibility as particularly experienced among queer women and non-binary people. Some interviewees used ‘passing’¹ as self-determined phrase/qualifier, alluding to a protection mechanism some participants employed during travel. This involved hiding certain, or performing different, identity characteristics to pass as member of a particular (more normative) identity group (see Wagner 2013).

Respondents expressed they got used to daily harassment by reportedly passing as woman or femme. They rather felt safer to defend themselves when passing as man or butch. George, a 30-year trans* man, described the mobility impact of ‘passing’:

Having a beard, my voice has deepened and being older, I do pass better. My body language is manlier, which makes me pass and makes me feel safer and more confident. I wasn’t very much harassed previously. But those looks that women get all the time on the street, I just don’t get them anymore. I’m transparent, I’m not harassed and I’m not a target.

For queer women it is, though, often hard to tell if street harassment is motivated by homophobia or sexism (or any intersectional complexity of discrimination). For Fogg-Davis (2006) it is clear that ‘it is the banality of street harassment that makes it so effective in maintaining a larger system of sexual terrorism’ (ibid., 63) – including patriarchal domination and its relation with direct and indirect forms of violence against women (Valentine 1989).

The interviewees’ narratives across both cases signified that feeling confident or self‐confident can have psychological impacts on perceptions of safety. Stories about past events were discussed; common themes included feeling more cautious or aware after witnessing a crime or comments deemed nasty – and avoiding particular travel routes and modes accordingly.

Isobel, a 20-year lesbian woman in the UK study, stressed the relevance of media attention (see Valentine 1989; Wynne 2008) with reference to the sexual assault series in Leeds in 2015 (see Whitaker 2015):

I probably attract attention because of what I wear but I expect that … I feel I was more conscious when I was walking at night following those attacks on women a few years ago.

Some interviewees in the Tel Aviv case recognised how, for example, suggestions for free travel passes to trans* people were steps in a more inclusive policy view of LGBTQ people from transport companies. As another example from Lana in the Tel Aviv study:

It was nice to see […] advertisements about queer stuff, or businesses’ inclusive campaigns on public transport. It made me feel I count.

Ryan, a 19-year bisexual man in the UK case study, hinted that such policies should be integrated into a wider public pedagogy that encourages inclusive behaviour and decisive action on the part of all:

Encouraging minorities to use public transport isn’t the solution. Teaching people that harassment is unacceptable is – too often drivers and passengers ignore hate crimes on public transport.

Lived experiences of violence

Our study further contributes under-represented insights into scholarship on LGBTQ people’s lived experiences of violence and how these influence public transport usage. Improved understandings of the nature and intensity of violent occurrences in transit environments may increase awareness of the sometimes visible and sometime invisible acts of brutality and related processes of exclusion. The case studies have exposed LGBTQ people’s existence in transport realms and how they juggle journey time/timing and material and immaterial (including invisible psychological) costs. Strikingly, although substantial numbers of participants across the cases imparted to be victim of anti-LGBTQ violence at least once, their overall mobility has, reportedly, not been drastically influenced. They basically refused to be excluded from public transport spaces.

Of the UK survey respondents, 83% (n = 174) witnessed hate crime on public transport and 31% (n = 65) experienced hate crime targeted at themselves: 84% (n = 176) experienced someone making comments against someone else and 42% (n = 88) had comments made at them by other persons. Almost all interviewees (9 out of 10) explained that they (over)heard people making comments against someone else on public transport.

Four interviewees experienced hate crime or comments against their sexuality or gender, as Dean, 22-year gay man, testified:

It was a horrible experience and I feel more insecure about myself now.

Such anti-LGBTQ behaviour could also assume non-verbal or tacit dimensions, as Katie, trans* bisexual woman, conveyed:

When I first transitioned, I felt like everyone was judging me.

Particularly negative encounters can take root, as Deena, a lesbian woman, indicated:

Even though you hope the majority of people are nice and accepting, you remember the nasty people.

Popular considerations of travel mode in the UK survey were, respectively, cost 82% (n = 172), journey time 71% (n = 149), time of day 52% (n = 109), accessibility 50% (n = 105), personal safety 41% (n = 86), and comfort 39% (n = 82). UK interviewees raised personal safety (and potential violence) as major area of concern. A user on the RailUK Forums reflects this sentiment and highlights vulnerability by being confined and surrounded by strangers:

‘Public transport is frightening: a) because you can’t get away and b) because people are sitting [and] looking around them so you’re more likely to be noticed’ (‘Cassie’ 2009).

Somewhat similar for the Tel Aviv survey, 83% (n = 98) of the study participants heard of, or witnessed, at least one violent incident directed at LGBTQ people. However, when it comes to direct violence, the relative number for Tel Aviv is higher; 76% (n = 90) experienced this at least once. Walking and travelling by bus were found to be the least safe travel modes and waiting at a stop was experienced as the following least safe stage of a trip. Kylie, a 34-year lesbian woman, intimated this as follows:

The concept of public transport provides fertile ground for sexual harassments, especially in crowded bus lines like in Tel Aviv. It’s worse than the street where fleeing is much easier.

Half of those who personally experienced violence in the Tel Aviv survey were alone when this happened, and most violent incidents appeared to occur during daytime, not necessarily near LGBTQ night-time venues (which contradicts the observation of Herek, Cogan, and Gillis 2002). Verbal rather than physical violence on buses or on the street were encountered more frequently in contexts of major LGBTQ events, such as the Tel Aviv Pride.

Moreover, no significant difference was found between sexual orientation groups either in hearing of or experiencing violence in the Tel Aviv case. Nevertheless, there was a gendered difference, as women in the study group experienced more violent incidents while travelling than men and non-binary people. Non-binary respondents yet tended to experience more violence than those identified as men, and trans* people related to higher levels of hearing of violence as compared with non-trans* people.

Furthermore, we would like to flag the reported relevance of ‘passing’ to one’s safety. Lana put this in context by contending that travelling in a group of queers, rather than alone, may simultaneously facilitate or compromise safety:

The visibility of a group of queers is much different. On the one hand, [this is] safer because you’re with your friends, but, on the other hand, it attracts more attention. Alone, you can blend in a bit.

In the Tel Aviv survey, furthermore, a list of multiple answers was given for factors that respondents considered for a trip. Convenience was mentioned by 83% (n = 98) of the respondents. This prominent factor was followed by trip duration and cost. Twenty-eight percent (n = 33) of all respondents considered fear of harassment, where only two self-identified gay men (2% of sample) disclosed that they took this factor into consideration for their travel.

Saliently, both case studies revealed that respondents often withheld their perceived ‘queerness’, refrained from initiating conversations (for example, with taxi drivers), and changed routes (including walking and cycling paths) to longer ones to avoid ‘passing’ through ‘unsafe places’ and, thereby, ‘not invite’ incidents.

Not only fear distanced many LGBTQ respondents from actively using public transport, but also the infrastructure to access LGBTQ-safe spaces. For instance, all interviewees in the Tel Aviv case indicated that if Israel’s public transport was better, they would not own or use a car – even though the latter would grant some sense of power, or ‘motility’: the potential to move (Flamn and Kauffman 2006). To close with the voice of Kylie, living in the south of Israel:

Even for the local LGBTQ events it’s hard to get there since public transport ends early. So they don’t have a lot of alternatives for queer people in this area and the queer services here are neglected. Young queers who were kicked out of their home must go to Tel Aviv, where surviving is even harder because it’s more expensive. It’s not that in Tel Aviv it’s perfect, but it’s easier. On a main street in Tel Aviv, if someone says something, I will not fear for my life.

Research participants across both case studies largely uncovered a complex set of considerations for staying safe. LGBTQ people’s travel behaviour includes unique components; when LGBTQ people travel, they would often need to rigorously consider the quality (or: inclusivity) of transport services and the relative safety they will have to compromise. This would, thus, require developing bespoke policies for mobility approaches that draw in LGBTQ communities for a safer and more inclusive travel experience.

In this light, both visible and invisible travel expenses should be taken into account in fathoming LGBTQ people’s perspectives of public transport. When they travel in a heteronormative world, they take with them oppression and prior experiences with exclusion. This might not affect how they travel, but the way they feel about travelling. A lack of LGBTQ visibility results in LGBTQ people seeing less of their ‘kind’, thus reinforcing feelings of being outsiders and not being welcomed (as ‘others’ at least).

Conclusions and research directions

There has been a lack of attention in mobilities literature to the role of sexuality in the usage of public transport spaces (e.g. Lubitow et al. 2017). Our focus has been on queer mobilities (Gorman-Murray 2009): the ‘embodied sexuality’ of LGBTQ people as subjects ‘on the move’. We have advocated mobility as another important dimension of LGBTQ discrimination and exclusion that can take multifaceted forms not always apparent to actors beyond LGBTQ communities. Our study has provided new empirical insights into LGBTQ people’s experiences and safety strategies in urban public transport contexts of the UK and Israel/Tel Aviv. Our analysis has provided examples of how invisible expenses, such as risk-taking, constant alertness and pressure to resist, have taken a toll on LGBTQ people’s (in)accessibility to everyday spaces of public transport and their own wellbeing.

In the following, we provide conclusions along with study contributions and some directions for further research under three key areas: (i) fear and violence; (ii) transport exclusions and mobility barriers; and (iii) inclusive mobility and policy. The discussion might be of help to both scholars and professional actors, including governments and public transport operators, to consider measures and practices inclusive of diverse and mobile LGBTQ subjects (see Lubitow et al. 2017).

(i) Fear and violence

Although there has been a strong focus on women’s fear and safety in transport contexts within the mobilities literatures (e.g. Carter 2004; Mason-Bish 2014; Dunckel Graglia 2016; Loukaitou-Sideris 2014; Osmond and Woodcock 2015), we posit that queer mobilities should be seen beyond gender, and in particular, women alone.

LGBTQ people do not have to look queer or be ‘out’ to fear or victimised; it is enough to be perceived as queer. This can be an added burden to closeted LGBTQ people on top of any inner struggle. Discriminated LGBTQ people can also endure significant mobility disadvantages (Garnets, Herek, and Levy 1992). Our study affirms and builds on previous research that shows that trans* women and gender non-conforming queers suffer most from acts of violence (Lubitow et al. 2017; Woods and Herman 2018). Self-identified queer women appeared to be the most harassed group versus gay men who faced relatively less violence and mobility disadvantage.

The intersection of mobility and wellbeing of LGBTQ communities concerns an area for deeper interdisciplinary inquiry. Although Tel Aviv holds the highest presence and visibility of self-identified LGBTQ people in Israel, this is the urban location with the highest reported anti-LGBTQ violence in this state (see The Aguda 2016; Tomsen and Markwell 2009). Another significant insight from our research is that living in a ‘gay city’ does not guarantee LGBTQ safety (see Gross 2015; Hartal 2018).

Our case studies have shown how LGBTQ people, despite their frequent unfavourable or unsafe circumstances, operate and move in/through the city. By expressing the ‘true-self’ when travelling, one declares its existence and right to move. A show of affection in the street or on the bus can be construed as a brave spatial act that fractures the assumed ‘straightness’ of that space, although this is precarious (see Bell and Valentine 1995). We encourage further grounded, and updated, understandings of how, by coming out literally, LGBTQ people may challenge self-regulatory practices and reclaim restricting and LGBTQ-hostile environments. Such practices might defy heteronormative and patriarchal (infra-)structures and forms of violence that govern the everyday lives of many LGBTQ people (Bell and Valentine 1995; Meyer 2008; Valentine 1996)

As previous research has shown, harassment and low-level violence are the most common, undermined and least reported attacks amongst LGBTQ communities (Moran 2018; Corteen 2002). Hence, it is in the interest of authorities and transport operators to collect data and act on it to reduce anti-LGBTQ violence in spaces of public transport (Durso et al. 2017).

(ii) Transport exclusions and mobility barriers

The assembled picture of quantitative and qualitative findings discloses how LGBTQ people in our research community were constantly on the lookout, aware of cues of potential violence, and assessing the dangers certain spaces pose. The costs they must pay are identity and visibility compromise, different travel mode choice (potentially involving higher fares), and often invisible risk-taking behaviours. Such costs may involve persistent fear and anguish, and daily tactics for overcoming barriers.

Most of the participants used the least perceptually safe travel modes whilst knowing that they are taking the highest risks, pinpointing LGBTQ people’s daily struggles against structural exclusionist practices. They have been developing skills to detect risks, sometimes affecting the way they move; a quite calculated endeavour that we think requires further attention in research and policy.

Our empirical study has identified safety coping strategies subsumed under the notion of ‘passing’, for example, as non-trans* or non-queer. This phrase was self-determined by the research participants and can be literally taken as hiding one’s identity – or performing a (more normative) identity – to ‘pass through’ spaces of public transport. By being able ‘to pass’, which sometimes requires alterations to one’s identity appearance, LGBTQ people might gain mobility (see Wagner 2013). A higher self-perceived feeling of ‘passing’ relates to lower feelings of fear. Passing, at least for the LGBTQ study participants, operated as a way for staying safe in the ‘ordinary’, heteronormative life. However, some participants also perceived passing as a cost, a normalising tool to get accepted into heteronormative life (see Bell and Valentine 1995; Mason 2001; Skeggs 1999).

Navigating constant fear, and past traumatic experience, while having to continue using unsafe travel modes, may take a serious toll on LGBTQ people’s physical and mental wellbeing (Garnets, Herek, and Levy 1992; Mason 2001; Mason-Bish 2014; Meyer 2008; Valentine 1996). Barriers to queer mobilities are another everyday dimension of oppression that LGBTQ people have grown accustomed to and learned to deal with and possibly overcome. Greater acknowledgement of such barriers and action strategies to mitigate them are called for in public transport policy and practice.

(iii) Inclusive mobility and policy

Lastly, we call for authorities and transport operators to exchange experiences with LGBTQ communities to identify more inclusive policies and practices in the planning and operation of public transport (see Duggan 2014). People who ‘do not fit’ traditional heterosexual family and kinship structures, or who basically cannot afford a private car, are typically excluded from fully inhabiting urban spaces (see Nusser and Anacker 2015).

Scholars, such as Frisch (2002, 2015) and Fenster (2005), conveyed that earlier planning discourse understated how (sub)urban zoning and commuting conserve car-oriented transport planning, which is all the more important as such understanding serves urban patriarchal structures and heteronormative lives, in particular nuclear families in the city. Being recognised as a group with distinctive identities requires undoing fixed heteronormative policy practices, thus freeing and legitimising ‘others’ and, in our case, sustaining travel spaces that are safe for, and accessible to, LGBTQ people (Doan 2015; Skeggs 1999).

Cost-benefit analyses typically ignore the cognitive and behavioural impacts of transport provision on different social groups or in their expansion of social exclusion (Lucas, Van Wee, and Maat 2016). Such knowledge is needed in order to better understand different travel values and prioritise the experience of transport for all, especially marginalised including LGBTQ communities (ibid.). The inclusion of in-depth and group-variant evidence would help scholars and practitioners to promote differentiated initiatives to ameliorate accessibility to public transport and reduce mobility gaps (Sheller 2014).

There is some rich potential to enhance accessible public transport that tackles the potential intolerance or harm that LGBTQ people experience on an everyday basis. Potential measures to increase LGBTQ-friendly/safe practices include the reduction of fares as appropriate, and improving or expanding journey opportunities and services around LGBTQ key events and venues (Future Thinking 2017; TfL 2008), flexible alighting from buses during night (Loukaitou-Sideris 2014), and escorting, carpooling or taxi services (Dunckel Graglia 2016; Hodgson 2012).

Accordingly, we advocate public transport systems that sustain an equal distribution of access and network capital, offering information and secure spaces for sexual and gender minorities (see Sheller 2011). Investing in the inclusion of LGBTQ people implies comprehensive interaction and representation to plan accessible and safe mobility opportunities for all (see Frisch 2002; Lubitow et al. 2017; Van Wee 2011) – as most people use and socialise in spaces they feel welcome and safe in (Corteen 2002; Mehta 2008).

Acknowledgement

We express our gratitude to the study participants and for the helpful anonymous feedback that we received on earlier manuscript versions. This work draws on data collected as part of separate master’s dissertation projects undertaken by Weintrob and Hansell at the University of Leeds. The development of the paper, including revisions, has been led by Zebracki and Lucas in collaboration with the other authors. Any errors are our own.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Although ‘passing’ is not necessarily our own way of describing gender and trans* non-conforming people, this language has been used by interviewees in particular contexts.