Rethinking public transport through LGBTQIA+ lenses

In December 2024, I had the opportunity to speak on the Women Mobilize Women series podcast, in the episode “Gender, Mobility and 2SLGBTQIA+”. It was an important platform to reflect on how transport systems, in Bogotá and beyond, not only facilitate movement, but also expose the deep social and political fault lines that shape who gets to move freely and safely in our cities.

In Bogotá, recent data from the 2023 Mobility Survey (EM2023) reveals that while transgender and non-binary individuals account for only 0.06% and 0.05% of total trips respectively, their reliance on public transport is significantly higher than that of the general population. Nearly 70% of non-binary people and over 40% of transgender people report using it as their primary mode of travel, surpassing the 37% reported by women (Sensata, CAF, & Secretaría de Movilidad, 2024).

Yet, this reliance is marked by a troubling contradiction: those who need public transport the most are often the ones who feel the least safe in it. Across different modes and cities, LGBTQIA+ riders consistently report high levels of harassment, invisibility, and fear. In Bogotá, trans and non-binary people, lesbian and bisexual women, and queer youth all rank among those who feel least secure during their daily journeys (Sensata et al., 2024). This is not just a transportation issue, it is a human rights issue.

These findings are not unique to Bogotá. The LGBTQ Guide to Travel Safety (ManAboutWorld, 2020) notes that LGBTQ travelers everywhere face additional risks, even in countries where laws are progressive. Travel, whether local or international, can be deeply stressful for LGBTQIA+ individuals who must constantly navigate questions of disclosure, behavior, and safety. As the guide states, “Travelers carry an abundance of caution, some well-founded worries and concerns, and all too often, fear. Magnify that ten times for ‘T’ travelers” (ManAboutWorld, 2020, p. 75).

Public transportation should not require people to compromise their identities in order to access basic rights like mobility. This is why inclusive transportation planning cannot be reduced to simply offering a few diversity workshops or painting a rainbow mural at a station. As Veronica Davis argues in Inclusive Transportation, “When we say we want equity, we must also mean we are ready to listen, really listen, to the pain, the history, and the demands of those most excluded from the system” (Davis, 2023). Real inclusion requires shifting who is at the center of the conversation, and who gets to decide what counts as safety, comfort, or dignity in urban mobility.

In this context, symbolic gestures are not enough. Infrastructure must be understood not only as a set of physical structures, but as a system of relations, priorities, and values. If transit systems fail to recognize the needs of LGBTQIA+ riders, especially trans and non-binary people, they become complicit in perpetuating exclusion and harm.

International experiences show that transformation is possible. Cities like Bhubaneswar (India) and Peshawar (Pakistan) have implemented gender action plans, inclusive hiring, and targeted training that go beyond tokenism to systemic reform (ITDP, 2022, 2023). These examples remind us that inclusive mobility must be actively built, with deep commitment to equity and justice.

As we prepare to launch participatory research spaces like TransMiLab (in TransMilenio), our goal is to center the voices and experiences of LGBTQIA+ users, not as footnotes in policy documents, but as co-designers of the systems that shape their daily lives.

Because ultimately, visibility is not a trend, it’s a right. And equity in mobility is not only about reaching your destination. It’s about doing so safely, freely, and without having to hide who you are.

Calls to action: Building truly inclusive transport systems

To decision-makers, transit authorities, and urban planners: It is time to move beyond symbolic visibility campaigns and commit to deep structural change. Representation must be matched by concrete policies, accessible protocols, inclusive training, and meaningful investments in safety and dignity. This includes developing participatory mechanisms that actively involve LGBTQIA+ voices in the planning, design, and evaluation of transport infrastructure. Anti-discrimination protocols and incident reporting systems must be institutionalized, designed to be multilingual, inclusive, and respectful of diverse gender identities. In addition, all staff, from drivers to security personnel, should receive comprehensive training on gender diversity, inclusive communication, and human rights. Finally, transport agencies must collect and analyze disaggregated data on gender identity and sexual orientation to guide evidence-based interventions that leave no one behind.

To researchers, activists, and community leaders: We must continue to document and amplify the everyday mobilities of LGBTQIA+ individuals through ethnographic, embodied, and participatory research. These stories reveal hidden patterns of exclusion and help shape more just mobility systems. Advocacy efforts must push for truly intersectional transport justice, recognizing the compounding effects of race, class, gender, and disability on movement and access. It is equally important to support local queer mobility initiatives that are already creating safer spaces for cycling, walking, and transit. And above all, we must pressure institutions to shift their frameworks, from risk mitigation to care-centered design, prioritizing not the preservation of systems, but the protection and empowerment of people.

References

Davis, V. (2023). Inclusive Transportation: A Manifesto for Repairing Divided Communities. Island Press.

Encuesta de Movilidad de Bogotá (EM2023). Secretaría Distrital de Movilidad.

ITDP. (2022). Case Study: Zu Peshawar BRT and Gender-Inclusive Design. Institute for Transportation and Development Policy.

ITDP. (2023). Sustainable Transport Award Nominees: Bhubaneswar and Mo E-Ride. Retrieved from https://www.itdp.org

Jordan, P. (2018). Handbook on the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer (LGBTQ) Travel Segment. European Travel Commission (ETC). https://etc-corporate.org/reports/handbook-on-the-lgbtq-travel-segment/

ManAboutWorld & AIG Travel. (2019). The LGBTQ Guide to Travel Safety. https://www.travelguard.com

Sensata, CAF, & Secretaría Distrital de Movilidad. (2024). Caracterización de los patrones de movilidad en Bogotá con enfoque de género e interseccional.

Zebracki, M., Weintrob, A., Hansell, L., Barnard, Y., & Lucas, K. (2021). Queer mobilities: Critical LGBTQ perspectives of public transport spaces. Mobilities, 16(5), 775–791. https://doi.org/10.1080/17450101.2021.1958249

Road violence becomes a gendered and systemic issue

In preparation for a recent meeting at Universidad de los Andes with the Agencia Nacional de Seguridad Vial - ANSV, I examined the report Siniestralidad vial de mujeres en Colombia. Un análisis con enfoque de género (ANSV, 2024), analyzing road traffic fatalities among women in Colombia. Although this topic isn’t at the core of my doctoral research, which focuses on gender, infrastructure, and care, the findings resonated deeply. They offered a timely reminder that road safety is not just a technical concern; it’s a matter of justice, care, and everyday survival for many, especially women caregivers.

Cover of the report Siniestralidad vial de mujeres en Colombia: Un análisis con enfoque de género (ANSV, 2024). Source: Agencia Nacional de Seguridad Vial – Observatorio Nacional de Seguridad Vial.

The report revealed a stark reality: between 2015 and 2022, road traffic incidents were the leading cause of violent death among women in Colombia, surpassing both homicides and suicides. Most of these women died not as drivers but as passengers or pedestrians, a pattern that reflects deeply entrenched gender roles and unequal access to safer, autonomous modes of mobility. And yet, this isn’t a conversation we’re having loudly enough. Why is the most common form of violent death among women still so invisible in public debate and policy?

Violent deaths of women in Colombia: comparison between homicides and road traffic incidents. Source: National Road Safety Agency (ANSV), 2024. Data from the National Institute of Legal Medicine and the National Road Safety Observatory. Graphic by ANSV Communications Unit.

However, this pattern is beginning to shift. A growing number of women are now riding motorcycles, both for work and for care-related travel. While this trend may signal increased autonomy and flexibility, it also reveals new layers of vulnerability. According to El País, a woman motorcyclist dies every 12 hours in Colombia. Between 2019 and 2023, female motorcycle deaths increased by 54%, outpacing the rise in male fatalities. Many of these women lacked proper training, licensing, or access to adequate safety gear. Others were drawn to motorcycles because of their affordability, efficiency, and even symbolic value, yet they ride in conditions of structural neglect. In the words of Ana María Puentes (El País, 2024), women are less skilled, but that they are riding the most dangerous vehicle in the country under the most precarious conditions.

 

What’s more, the 2024 Bogotá gender and mobility study, Caracterización de los patrones de movilidad en Bogotá con enfoque de género e interseccional (Sensata, 2024), revealed that many women perceive motorcycles not only as a practical option, but as a safer alternative to public transport. Women reported choosing motorcycles to reduce their exposure to sexual harassment, invasive stares, and physical proximity with aggressors, all common occurrences on buses, stations, and sidewalks. In this sense, the turn to motorcycles is not simply a matter of preference or independence. It is a strategy of risk management in a city where moving through public space means constantly weighing threats of gender-based violence.

Caracterización de los patrones de movilidad en Bogotá con enfoque de género e interseccional (Sensata, 2024)

This growing trend underscores the urgent need to question not only who dies on the road, but under what conditions people move, and who gets the training, infrastructure, and protection needed to survive. It also reveals the paradox of mobility for women in patriarchal cities: the more control women gain over how they move, the more they are held responsible for managing their own safety, often with few real options.

 

Yet the ANSV’s report stops short of deeper interrogation. It remains mostly descriptive, without engaging with the structural roots of risk or proposing transformative interventions. What’s missing is a conceptual leap, an understanding that road safety is not gender-neutral, and that the design of mobility systems has historically centered on male, able-bodied, productive users. We need more than statistics. We need questions: Why are women disproportionately killed as passengers? Why is caregiving travel invisible in safety strategies? And why are risk and speed still valorized in masculine driving cultures?

 

To expand the conversation, I turned to two additional sources: a report from Spain’s national traffic agency and a regional study from the Ibero-American Road Safety Observatory. Both documents emphasize the need to move away from androcentric transport planning. They call for a shift in paradigm, from car-centered systems to people-centered mobility. They also suggest reimagining safety itself: not just as the absence of crashes, but as the presence of dignity, inclusion, and freedom from fear.

 

These perspectives remind us that masculinity, as currently constructed, is often tied to risk-taking, control, and a disregard for vulnerability, traits that are embedded in traffic behavior, vehicle design, and even policy language. Meanwhile, the voices of women and caregivers are still largely missing from planning tables, where crucial decisions about infrastructure, enforcement, and investment are made.

 

To deepen this analysis, I find it useful to draw on the concept of petro-masculinity, proposed by political theorist Cara Daggett. Petro-masculinity refers to the entanglement of fossil fuel systems with patriarchal and authoritarian structures, particularly in how fossil fuels support identities of dominance, control, and violence. Daggett argues that fossil fuels are not just energy sources, they are symbols and instruments of a gendered order that privileges toughness, rigidity, and explosive power, often associated with masculine identity.

 

When translated into the domain of mobility, this framework helps us understand why speed, individualism, and engine-powered vehicles (especially motorcycles and cars) have been historically coded as masculine, while walking, caregiving mobility, or public transport are feminized or devalued. The exaltation of risk and speed is not accidental; it’s part of a social imaginary where dominating the road becomes a way of reaffirming masculine power, even at the cost of one’s own safety, or the safety of others.

 

Seen from this angle, road violence becomes a gendered and systemic issue, not just a problem of individual behavior. The motorized dominance that defines most cities is, in many ways, a material expression of petro-masculinity, one that punishes slower, more collective, and relational forms of movement. It is no coincidence that in a country like Colombia, women’s efforts to reclaim autonomy through motorcycles occur in a context where infrastructure, licensing systems, and enforcement regimes still privilege the dominant, petro-masculine subject.

 

In short, the conversation around road safety must be reframed. It’s not just about better signals, stricter laws, or smarter cars. It’s about asking: Who moves? How? And with what dignity?

 

When we center care, equity, and intersectionality, we not only imagine safer mobility, we challenge the very structures that normalize risk, invisibilize caregiving, and replicate gendered injustice on our streets. Feminist approaches remind us that transforming infrastructure is not only about technical innovation, but about redistributing power, recognizing labor, and protecting life.

 

References

 

1. Agencia Nacional de Seguridad Vial. (2024). Siniestralidad vial en mujeres en Colombia. Un análisis con enfoque de género. ANSV.

2. Col·lectiu Punt 6 & OISEVI. (2023). La seguridad vial desde la perspectiva de género: análisis y recomendaciones para políticas públicas. Observatorio Iberoamericano de Seguridad Vial. https://www.oisevi.org/

3. Daggett, C. (2018). Petro-masculinity: Fossil fuels and authoritarian desire. Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 47(1), 25–44. https://doi.org/10.1177/0305829818775817

4. Dirección General de Tráfico. (2022). La seguridad vial con perspectiva de género. Gobierno de España. https://www.dgt.es/

5. El País. (2024, noviembre 4). Las mujeres que se suben a la moto en Colombia corren más peligro: una fallecida cada 12 horas. https://elpais.com/america-colombia/2024-11-04/las-mujeres-que-se-suben-a-la-moto-en-colombia-corren-mas-peligro-una-fallecida-cada-12-horas.html

6. Sensata & Secretaría Distrital de Movilidad. (2024). Caracterización de los patrones de movilidad en Bogotá con enfoque de género e interseccional. Bogotá.