What happens to our identities when we travel?

This joint session between Transport for London's OUTbound network and the Royal Maritime Museum Queer History Club explores what happens to our identity when we travel. Drawing on urban planning and transport experiences in conjunction with lessons from maritime history, this session will explore how transport spaces like trains, stations, and ships, create "in-between" environments where people can experience themselves differently. Linking these ideas to queerness, the talk explores how spaces that blur boundaries—where you’re not quite “here” or “there”—can open up possibilities for identity, freedom, and self-expression. It also connects these experiences to maritime history, where life at sea created similar conditions of separation, transition, and change. For transport sector colleagues, this is a chance to reflect on how the spaces we design, operate, and experience every day can shape how safe, open, and included people feel.