ACCESS
LGBTQ+ Urbanism
RECLAIMING SPACE
For years, ‘queer activists’ have been advocating for more inclusive societies and cities. With its expansion, the movement has started reclaiming public spaces and transport systems within the modern cis-heteronormative world to make them safer and more sustainable, as well as more representative of society as a whole. Alessia Giorgiutti explores how a queer lens can support a new approach for the future of urban design
Inclusive traffic lights in Vienna, Austria © Viviana Couto Sayalero, Unsplash
Creating sustainable and safe mobility systems which cater for all, requires a complete transformation in the ways we think about urban space. This is a shift long advocated by “queer theory” – so how can it help cities, regions and our mobility sector make the changes needed to achieve a truly inclusive city?
‘Queer’ is an umbrella term for people who are not heterosexual or are not cisgender. While once a derogatory term used against the LGBTQ+ community, the term ‘queer’ is now being reclaimed as a celebration of difference and diversity. The queer community is disparate, including gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, non-binary and others LGBTQ+ identities. Critically, not everyone from these groups may self-identify as queer. ‘Queer’ is not just an axis of identity but a means of rethinking how we design space, power, and citizenship. Urban design institutions across the globe are adopting a queer lens to reconsider how public spaces could be designed for all bodies, genders and sexualities to create safe, sustainable and inclusive environments – something that can create a long-term, strategic and often radical vision, like in the case of Monash University’s XYX Lab and their project HyperSext City, which uses stories, statistics and data on urban life and mobility to amplify the experiences of underrepresented communities in urban space and planning. Queer urbanism offers a lens to look at how we cannot just adapt but transform the city for all citizens. A queer critique calls for a complete reworking of accepted cis-heteronormative urban orders, by shifting the ways citizenship and politics are conceived and practiced. The term has been integrated into environmental discourses, international relations and more, to provide a model of non-normative relational ethics between humanity and the natural environment.
Carving a place in the urban space
At its origins, the queer urban space – not simply a place used or appropriated by non-heterosexual people, but a performative strategy to challenge the behaviours, rules, expectations and situations framed by the built environment – was a place of both escape and belonging – or, as historian Aaron Betsky describes it in his book Queer Space: Architecture and Same-Sex Desire, “[…] a useless, amoral and sensual space that lives only in and for experience, […] not built, only implied, and usually invisible.” Betsky is echoed by Gabrielle Esperdy, Associate Professor of Architecture at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, who describes the definition of interior, concealed and ephemeral queer urban spaces over the course of the 20th century as a desperate necessity – to hide and create an underground safe community, and as a brilliant opportunity – to occupy marginal, interstitial and derelict space, to patronise late-night commercial activities, and to revitalise local neighbourhoods.
For decades, clubs, ballrooms, and bathhouses, but also cafeterias, bookshops, dark city alleys and sections of parks were queered, then raided and suppressed, and then queered again, in a loop caught between tolerance and, more often, persecution. It was only from the 1950s that queer people began to revitalise urban spaces more publicly by gathering, living and thriving in distinctly queer enclaves – the so-called gaybourhoods, which were initially characterised by low rents, good transport links and queer-friendly bars.
Even in what have been ostensibly queer-friendly neighbourhoods, these soon started to show their flaws. For example, landscaping and property flipping led to increases in rent, favouring relatively wealthy gay white males over their other queer and less-privileged counterparts. And now, contrarily to the positive trend of becoming central areas for culture, arts and social activism where locals and tourists frequent , police statistics and news (e.g., on Liverpool’s hate crimes here and here; on Birmingham’s here and here; on Berlin’s here; on Madrid’s here) have shown how these supposedly safe havens have been increasingly marked by rising levels of homophobic crime.
A sign near the entrance to Manchester’s gaybourhood, the Gay Village © Mikey via Flickr
This shows that, while we may be eager to celebrate and experience these spaces, this must be done in tandem with understanding the concerns, fears, and aspirations of the queer communities themselves. Indeed, one cannot celebrate queer culture without supporting their safety and wellbeing. This demands addressing how urban spaces and mobility networks marginalise queer groups, putting in place tangible actions to combat this.
Glossary of terms - Read more here
Queer Gen Z’s at the Capital Pride Walk and Rally © Miki Jourdan via Flickr
Understanding marginalisation in mobility
It appears that despite the fact queer culture is becoming more prominent, people continue to be discriminated across urban space. Indeed, an increasing number of younger generations (Gen Z’s and Millennials) identify themselves as part of the LGBTQ+ community, yet we still see that a lesbian couple gets brutally beaten on a bus on their way home, a man crosses train tracks to physically assault two men holding hands and kissing, and a transgender woman gets stabbed with a screwdriver at a subway station. Exposure is clearly not equality. Despite the lack and specificity of local and international data showing how queer people are abused, discriminated, or harassed on public transport, reports reveal, queer women, transgender women, transgender men, and gender non-conforming people are being overwhelmingly targeted. In particular, compared to transgender men and cis-gender queer women, transgender women, trans-feminine, and visibly gender non-conforming passengers report a higher incidence of violence overall, with transgender Black and Brown, and disabled individuals being especially vulnerable to harassment from other transit users and, occasionally, from public transport staff – see this study on transmobilities focused on Portland.
However, open harassment and hate crimes are just the tip of the iceberg. Indeed, the fear of discrimination, violence and lack of safety on public transport alone is already dangerous: just as for women’s fear of urban transport networks, the fear experienced by queer people often forces them to restrict their mobility options and choices and to take identity and visibility compromises, proving that even though they might not necessarily be physically excluded from mobility opportunities or explicitly attacked on public transport at all times, queer people still pay hidden costs to travel safely. As mentioned in “Queer Mobilities: Critical LGBTQ Perspectives of Public Transport Spaces”, queer people also tend to choose more expensive travel alternatives, such as taxis and ride-hailing or take less direct routes to overcome their experiences of unsafe and inaccessible public transport alternatives – a slippery-slope of money- and time-spending that, in normal circumstances, could be redirected to something more positive for queer individuals and their communities. If we are to truly make urban mobility inclusive – this needs to be confronted.
Fighting the Fear with planning and educating
Combatting this requires change at planning – prioritising queer safety and inclusiveness, and education – such as about (straight, but also wealthy, white, and gay male) privilege, and the increased risk of harassment and violence queer citizens and riders face. Indeed, change is already afoot! When it comes to open public spaces, for example, queer people need more privacy, because common activities that most people take for granted – like kissing or holding hands with a partner, can draw negative attention. Warmer lighting to encourage footfall and semi-enclosed areas in parks and streets that are visible but still offer a reasonable level of privacy could be a solution to make these spaces safer and more comfortable on an individual level.
In public transport, providing training for transit operators and other staff to educate them about appropriate and inappropriate language related to transgender and gender-nonconforming identities can already go a long way in creating a more inclusive environment. Implementing nondiscrimination policies supported by signage indicating the prohibition of harassment and discrimination while on transit or in transit facilities could also facilitate staff interventions like the removal of individuals who harass or physically attack queer vulnerable users while travelling.
Queer and here to lead
Beyond making spaces visibly inclusive with signage, rainbow crossings and artistic lighting and fostering a more inclusive relation between transport users and providers, city planners have the vital job to cater to the specific needs of all queer people – to foster, in a way, a queer urbanist agenda. Needless to say, diversity within these organisations is critical, too – with queer urban planners, especially Black, Brown, transgender, and gender non-conforming ones, leading the way for those who are new to the topic or may not have the situated knowledge required. When it comes to urbanism, amplifying queer voices – and especially marginalised ones – is, in brief, essential: not only because queer people experience urban space differently from others, for they have developed an understanding of the heteronormative world and carved a place for themselves in it, but because many of their basic needs and values are crucial for the future of urban planning and design, too. For many local authorities, addressing this issue may appear complex. However, as foretold by Aaron Greiner, CultureHouse Founder and Director, if we do not look at queer urbanism through the lenses of these identities, we are setting up structures that are no better than the ones we are inheriting from the social and physical cis-heteronormative world.
This is where our approach comes into play – questioning a world based on a built environment that “makes assumptions about the relationships people are supposed to have and the lives people are supposed to lead”, as Dan Reed, an urban planner in Silver Spring, Maryland, said. Inclusion, equity, gender safety, accessibility, comfort, and sustainability have been – and continue to be – critical themes of the queer urban experience. These experiences of operating outside traditional structures and politics therefore offers a valuable perspective for sustainable urban mobility, opening dialogues, providing different perspectives, and changing the way we view the city. By queering public space, we just might make cities better places to live and prosper for everyone.
Inclusive traffic lights in Vienna, Austria © Viviana Couto Sayalero, Unsplash
Alessia Giorgiutti is Project and Communications Officer at POLIS Network.
You can contact her at: agiorgiutti@polisnetwork.eu