August 2026 news

Hello Journey members, we hope that this finds you well and enjoying what feels like an endless summer? While there have been many highlights such as a record 150,000 people celebrating Trans joy and visibility at Trans Pride in London, continued anti-LGBTQ+ sentiments from many quarters were pulled into sharp and tragic focus in Berlin on that same weekend. This, and the tsunami of laughing emojis, misgendering, and repetition of age-old tropes about mental illness and perversion that follows any social media post about our community reminds us why pride events are still so important.

Since our last update there have been a whole host of fabulous events around the country accessible through our Events page, and the pride events keep on coming. This Saturday 8th August Hitachi Rail warmly invite us to join them at Doncaster Pride, we have spaces in the parade and a stall in the park so would love to see a great transport turnout. Please RSVP on the website if you want to join us.

Following Doncaster, South Western Railway’s Pride network kindly invite us to pride events in Basingstoke on 22nd August and Southampton on 29th August. They have a volunteer form if you would like to get involved, if you have any queries, please drop them an email at Pride@swrailway.com

Looking back, there have been so many events since the last update where the organisers generously extended the invitation to Journey members around the country courtesy of Archway, Arup, Aviation Pride UK, BSI, Hitachi, KPMG, Mace, Transport for London, Trainline and WSP. A couple of highlights have been ‘Pride in Nature’ on 18th June hosted by KPMG’s Breathe network, and the return of our annual LGBTQ+ transport workers summer picnic in London on July 29th for the fourth year with a fantastic turnout of 50 in a very arid-looking St James’s Park. An 'online' highlight was Journey's first hosting of one of the prestigious mygwork 'Work Pride' webinars, fittingly entitled 'Belonging in Logistics and Transport' on 11th June - huge thanks to panellists Heather McStay, Ife Akande, Julian Phatarfod, and Pip Armstrong for such an insightful discussion - you can watch a recording back here.

Anjali Goswami, Robbie Blackhall-Miles and Ellie Leech in conversation at 'Pride in Nature'

London-based transport workers assemble at a very arid St James's Park

In June we asked you to complete and share a survey to gather the views of LGBTQ+ people in the transport sector about the potentially devastating impact of the EHRC draft Code of Practice on trans and nonbinary colleagues and customers and had a fantastic response. Thank you so much for the sheer number and the depth of detail and passion of the replies: we are writing on behalf of UK LGBTQ+ transport workers to a group of political figures who we hope can have some influence, you can read the letter we are sending here.

Finally, we’re really pleased to reveal the latest in our series of very successful collaborations with KPMG, the DfT and TfL with an in-person event at KPMG’s Canary Wharf offices on Thursday 17th September where we will hear from Matthew Page. You may remember that Matthew joined us for Black History Month 2024 to share his story about discovering his heritage with a little help from DNA family Secrets. He’s returning for this event entitled: ‘Where Do I Belong? A Journey Through Queerness, Heritage & the Care System’. Please sign up using the Eventbrite link, one sign-up per person (RSVP-ing on the website does not get event access!).

That’s it for now, please stay cool and most importantly stay safe.

The Journey team