Public transport policy is an LGBTQ+ policy: the symbiotic relationships between mobility and queer identity

Cities are often imagined as places with concentrated LGBTQ+ social, cultural and erotic infrastructure where queer people have found shelter from often heteronormative family environments usually associated with smaller settlements in rural areas. Although the ‘queer city’ – ‘straight rurality’ binary has been questioned by geographers and other social scientists under the umbrella term ‘metronormativity’, cities are still places with major gay and lesbian bars, gender-reassignment clinics, queer activist NGOs, places where LGBTQ+ people feel safe to go on dates, find work...

For several reasons, including often unaffordable accommodation in bigger cities, many European LGBTQ+ people live outside of big metropolitan ‘queer’ centres. Although queer spaces emerge everywhere, also in rural areas, and are not exclusively conditioned to formally designated LGBTQ+ infrastructural provisioning, the overwhelming majority of gender and sexual minorities are still at least to some degree dependent on the cities in a form of visiting friends, going there for queer night outs to feel a sense of community, accessing queer-specific medical services... It could be said that the LGBTQ+ populations living in more rural areas are more dependent on cities for their well-being than their ‘straight counterparts’.

This urban-rural dynamic and reliance on cities make queer subjects particularly sensitive to mobility - the ability to drive a car, take a train, or fly means the ability to access new queer communities and self-realise the identity. Providing a reliable, accessible, and frequent transport infrastructure is symbiotically enabling their queer identity-making in non-metropolitan areas.

The provision of transport infrastructure becomes particularly complex in post-socialist countries in Europe. Most post-socialist countries in the EU are, in terms of transportation, highly dependent on cars, which have come to represent a personal freedom and autonomy that was previously restricted in the former regimes. In the 90s and early 2000s, post-socialist European countries experienced dramatic increases in motorisation rates, heavy investment in roads, and underinvestment in public transport infrastructure, such as railways.

These historical transportation processes have also had effects on LGBTQ+ individuals. Some of my research participants have expressed the relationship between owning a car and personal freedom as a way to experience their sexual identity more autonomously. For instance, I interviewed Tim, a queer man in his mid-twenties who lives in a small village with his parents but frequently visits the capital city to hang out with friends. For him, driving a car is also intimately used as a strategy for coming out to his family:

For him, the ability to drive a car represents spatial autonomy and a sense of freedom in his coming-out process. He anticipates a negative response from his father, and the vehicle for him means safety to ‘escape’ the family environment and take ownership over his sexuality. The ability to drive a car is, in his case, a privilege. Throughout my ethnographic fieldwork in several European countries where I explored, among other things, the mobility practices of LGBTQ+ individuals in rural areas, I encountered several individuals who do not have a driving license. Although studies do not suggest lower car ownership rates among LGBTQ+ populations quantitatively, the stories I heard are worth pointing out.

I discussed with a lesbian girl who is unable to visit her girlfriend living in another town frequently because she did not finish her driving license. She felt intimidated by a car instructor in her local driving school. She says that he was ‘macho’ and made her feel uncomfortable with subtle comments about her looks. The process of obtaining a driving license requires intense sharing of private space with a driving instructor. This intimate sharing of space can be intimidating to queer bodies, who sometimes do not fit into the norms. Moreover, the general fear of queerphobia, violence and harassment prevents some of my participants from being confident in front of the driving instructors.

Not only because of the problem with driving schools identified by some, LGTBQ+ individuals are often economically more vulnerable than the heteronormative population, which limits their access to car ownership, making them dependent on public transportation, cycling and walking:

This safety issue has been, in my own research and elsewhere (e.g. Weintrob et al, 2021), identified as emotional cost of mobility that many queer people carry when using public transport – spaces where we wait for trains, buses, and other forms of public transport, and also inside spaces of moving vehicles are often hostile and unsafe for LGBTQ+ people, especially those most vulnerable within the community. There are many accounts of the LGBTQ+ community reporting (and underreporting) cases of verbal (and physical) attacks by co-passengers and personnel.

Moreover, train and bus services to rural areas in post-socialist countries are often minimal and do not operate in late evenings. Simultaneously, the nightlife in cities is often the safest time to explore sexuality for LGBTQ+ minorities, as it provides a sense of ‘being hidden’ from the majority. This poses a problem for the LGBTQ+ population relying on public transport - they have to wait during the night hours to catch the train, for example, after a night out. This is not to say that such transport problems apply only to LGBTQ+ people, but often, they might experience them more acutely and intensively.

I suggest four focus areas that would symbiotically approach (mainly rural) LGBTQ+ and transport policy in post-socialist EU states. Considering the under provisioning of public transport infrastructure in these countries and over-reliance on cars, access to driving license and the car itself should not be restricted. Driving schools should be provided with LGBTQ+ sensitivity trainings on how to create inclusive driving lessons. Ministries responsible for transport could start issuing LGBTQ+ friendly driving school certificates. Moreover, to alleviate financial constraints, bottom-up LGBTQ+ car-sharing apps could be a valuable contribution. In terms of public transport LGBTQ+ safety, a more thorough supervision of transit spaces by transport personnel should be provided. Again, transport workers like train conductors should undergo LGBTQ+ sensibility training. Public transport companies could think outside the box by establishing an LGBTQ+ safety hotline and rethinking the design of their transport vehicles. Moreover, the frequency of services must be increased – also at nighttime – to cater to the various transport needs and different temporal dimensions experienced by LGBTQ+ individuals. Lastly, decentralisation of LGBTQ+ infrastructure is essential. It is often other, not officially queer dedicated NGOs and cultural institutions that occasionally provide queer spaces in rural areas and by doing so, get the status of informal queer friendly spaces. Such informal LGBTQ+ spaces should be ‘mapped’ and included in national LGBTQ+ strategies. Overall, transport policy is symbiotically also a queer policy, and it should be approached as such by both LGBTQ+ NGOs and other institutions. The ease of movement around space-time means the ease of finding queer communities and services needed for an empowered exploration of one’s identity.

______________

This material is part of the PERSPECTIVES 2 project – a new label for independent, constructive, and multiperspective journalism. The project is funded by the European Union. The opinions and positions expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). The European Union and EACEA assume no responsibility for them. Learn more about PERSPECTIVES.