Journey were delighted to be invited to host a segment at the fantastic Rail Unites for Inclusion IMD event this afternoon at the Hitachi Offices in London. Forest and Joe shared their experiences of masculinity as members of the LGBTQ+ community and encouraged the audience both in the room and online to reflect about what masculinity means to them.
Forest spoke about the contrast between growing up as a girl with pressure to be less masculine, coming out as a lesbian at 13, and now being a man where he can fully embrace his masculinity. It was so insightful to hear his experiences from both perspectives and how society treats women and men differently, with positives and negatives relating to both. Forest recalls how being tactile with friends and showing emotion was the norm while living as a girl but a combination of societal pressure and hormonal changes from gender affirmation make this much harder now, and how he was gone from feeling vulnerable alone at night as a girl to being aware of how he could have a similar effect on lone women himself and the responsibility that comes with this.
Joe spoke about his experiences at an all boys school during Section 28 and the height of the AIDS epidemic where being gay and 'out' wasn't an option for fear of physical violence, and the masking and deflection techniques involving dialling up masculinity learned to not arouse suspicion. Joe was able to come out at sixth form, but found himself going back in the closet upon joining the rail industry in 1997 - to this day research shows that 25% of young LGBTQ+ people go back into the closet when starting their careers. After moving to a famously 'pink depot' with a lot of other gay drivers, Joe could come out again and reflected that while he hasn't looked back, he still risk assesses new social situations and will default to masking if there is a possibility of hostility.
There were lots of thoughts shared by the audience about what masculinity meant to them - words like 'strength' and 'protecting others' were common... Masculinity too often today has 'toxic' inserted before it and it is regarded as a negative, but positive masculinity is a thing to be celebrated and championed... Men can all be heroes to those around them!
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