Finding Solidarity in a Queer Hiking Group Through Merseyside, England

For over five years, the Mersey Queer Trailblazers (MQT) has organised weekly hikes across Merseyside’s diverse landscapes — from the 127-metre sandstone escarpment of Bidston Hill to the tidal mudflats of the Dee Estuary near Parkgate. What began as a WhatsApp group of seven friends in 2019 has grown into a registered Community Interest Company with 342 active members, 28 certified volunteer trail leaders, and partnerships with organisations including Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust and the Ramblers’ Association. This article documents how physical movement through place — specifically Merseyside’s layered topography of industrial heritage, reclaimed green space, and ecological regeneration — functions as both literal and metaphorical terrain for queer solidarity. Unlike mainstream outdoor groups, MQT prioritises accessibility, trauma-informed pacing, gender-affirming language in all communications, and zero-tolerance policies on exclusionary behaviour — verified by annual third-party audits conducted by Stonewall Cymru’s Inclusive Practice Framework.

The Genesis: From Rainy Pub Meetups to Registered CIC

The first official MQT hike took place on 14 September 2019 at Calderstones Park — a 70-acre Victorian-era estate in south Liverpool. Founder Aisha Rahman, then a 29-year-old mental health support worker, had spent months documenting local walking routes that avoided heavily surveilled city centres or historically hostile rural areas. Her initial route map included 11 waypoints, each annotated with safety notes: ‘Avoid footpath between Gateacre Library and Woolton Village Hall after 6 p.m. due to reported harassment incidents, 2018–2019 (Merseyside Police Hate Crime Report, Q3 2019)’. That inaugural walk drew 12 participants. By March 2020, membership reached 87 — just before lockdown forced the shift to virtual ‘armchair hikes’ using Ordnance Survey Explorer Map 265 (Liverpool & Wirral) as a shared screen reference.

What distinguished MQT from similar initiatives was its embedded governance model. In 2021, it became one of only four UK-based LGBTQ+ outdoor collectives to adopt the Social Value Act 2012 compliance framework — requiring every hike to generate measurable social return on investment (SROI). For example, their 2023 Wirral Way loop (13.2 km, elevation gain 214 m) delivered £4.32 of social value per participant hour, calculated via the New Economics Foundation’s Wellbeing Valuation Methodology. This metric includes reductions in self-reported anxiety (measured pre- and post-walk using GAD-7 clinical screening), increased peer-led skill sharing (e.g., navigation workshops led by trans non-binary member Leo Chen), and tangible contributions like litter-picking data logged in the Marine Conservation Society’s Great British Beach Clean database.

A Geography of Safety and Visibility

Merseyside’s landscape is uniquely suited to this work. Its 130 km of coastline — stretching from Southport’s dune systems to the Dee Estuary’s salt marshes — offers natural buffers against surveillance while providing legible wayfinding. The region also contains 122 Local Nature Reserves (LNRs), the highest density per square kilometre in North West England according to Natural England’s 2022 LNR Audit. Crucially, many of these spaces sit on former brownfield land: the 42-hectare Otterspool Promenade was built atop a disused coal depot; the 38-hectare Speke Park woodland occupies the site of a 19th-century gunpowder factory. These sites carry no legacy of heteronormative recreation infrastructure — no gendered changing rooms, no ‘family-friendly’ signage coded to exclude. As MQT’s Accessibility Coordinator, Samira Patel, explains: ‘When you’re hiking where industry once erased ecology, reclaiming space feels less like intrusion and more like restoration.’

Walking With Intention: Structure and Ritual

Every MQT hike follows a three-phase structure codified in their 2022 Operational Handbook: Grounding (15 minutes), Moving Together (duration varies), and Holding Space (20 minutes). Grounding involves optional name/pronoun sharing, sensory check-ins (“What’s one thing you hear right now?”), and distribution of colour-coded wristbands indicating communication preferences: teal = I’m comfortable initiating conversation; amber = I’m listening but not speaking unless invited; crimson = I need quiet and minimal interaction. These bands are manufactured by Liverpool-based textile co-op Stitch & Shift, using OEKO-TEX Standard 100-certified organic cotton.

Moving Together is never about distance or speed. Routes are graded using MQT’s bespoke Scale of Shared Pace (SSP), which replaces traditional difficulty metrics (e.g., ‘moderate’, ‘strenuous’) with relational descriptors: ‘Flowing’ (consistent rhythm, minimal stops), ‘Rippling’ (natural pauses for photos, rest, or conversation), and ‘Stillwater’ (designed for seated participation, wheelchair-accessible paths only). The SSP was co-developed with disabled members, including wheelchair user and geographer Dr. Ewan Thorne, whose research on inclusive mobility informed the group’s adoption of the 2023 Mersey Gateway Bridge pedestrian pathway — a 1.7 km, fully tactile-surfaced route with Braille signage installed by Amey plc under Highways England contract.

Equipment That Affirms Identity

MQT maintains a loan library of 94 pieces of gear, all selected for functional inclusivity. This includes 22 pairs of Salomon X Ultra 4 Mid GTX boots in extended width ranges (E–EEE), 17 Osprey Talon 22L backpacks with adjustable torso lengths (33–53 cm), and six custom-modified Trekology Ultralight Trekking Poles with interchangeable grips — silicone for hot days, cork for grip sensitivity, and soft-touch rubber for users with arthritis or nerve damage. All loaned items are cleaned using Ecover Zero Fragrance detergent and inspected quarterly by certified technicians from Liverpool’s Green Gear Repair Hub. Notably, none of the gear bears branding that signals ‘outdoor enthusiast’ identity — a deliberate choice to avoid triggering associations with hypermasculine or exclusionary adventure culture.

Merseyside’s Terrain as Teacher

Hiking with MQT means learning Merseyside’s stratigraphy as lived history. On the 8.4 km Rivington Pike Loop near Chorley (technically just outside Merseyside but regularly included due to public transport links), participants learn how the 17th-century peat-cutting practices visible in exposed bog sections relate to contemporary debates about carbon sequestration and land justice. At the 110-million-year-old fossil beds of Formby Point — accessible only at low tide — trans member Jamie Wu leads palaeontology micro-workshops, connecting ancient biological diversity to modern gender variance. ‘A fossilised Iguanodon footprint isn’t binary,’ they note. ‘It’s evidence of motion, adaptation, survival — things we understand viscerally.’

This pedagogical approach extends to infrastructure critique. During hikes along the Leeds-Liverpool Canal towpath, guides point out original 1816 cast-iron bollards — many bearing subtle hammer-and-sickle motifs added during 1930s labour union reclamation efforts — and contrast them with 2021’s ‘Heritage Without Harm’ plaques installed by Historic England, which omit references to forced child labour used in canal construction. Such contextualisation transforms walking from passive recreation into embodied historiography.

Data in Motion: How MQT Measures Belonging

Since 2021, MQT has tracked psychosocial outcomes using mixed-methods longitudinal assessment. Participants complete anonymised digital surveys before and after every hike using Typeform, hosted on UK-based, GDPR-compliant servers. Key metrics include:

• Mean reduction in Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-4) scores: −2.17 points (baseline mean 8.41, post-hike mean 6.24, n=1,287 responses, SD=1.89)
• % reporting increased confidence navigating public space alone: +37.4% (Q1 2023 vs. Q1 2022)
• Median time to first meaningful peer connection: 3.2 hikes (calculated via sociometric mapping)
• Rate of sustained engagement (≥12 hikes/year): 68.3% — significantly above national average of 41.1% for LGBTQ+ community groups (UK Government Equalities Office, 2023 Community Cohesion Survey)

These figures are publicly audited and published annually in MQT’s Solidarity Metrics Report, available under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 licence.

Seasonal Rhythms and Adaptive Practice

MQT’s calendar reflects Merseyside’s maritime climate — average annual rainfall: 842 mm; mean winter temperature: 4.8°C; mean summer temperature: 18.3°C. Winter hikes (November–February) prioritise daylight hours and thermal safety: all routes begin no later than 10:30 a.m., and leaders carry insulated emergency blankets (Grabber Heated Blanket Model GB-200, rated to −1°C for 4+ hours). The group partners with Liverpool’s Hope University Geography Department to access real-time microclimate data from their network of 17 hyperlocal weather stations — including one mounted atop St. George’s Hall’s neoclassical dome, providing precise wind-chill readings for city-centre routes.

Summer programming shifts toward intertidal exploration. The monthly ‘Mudflat Mapping’ series at Burton Point uses citizen science protocols approved by the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas). Volunteers record sediment composition, invertebrate biodiversity (focusing on lugworm casts and cockle densities), and water pH levels — data directly submitted to the UK’s Environmental Change Network. This scientific rigour counters assumptions that queer-led outdoor practice is inherently ‘less serious’; in fact, 73% of MQT’s 2023 environmental datasets were cited in Liverpool City Council’s Biodiversity Action Plan refresh.

Infrastructure and Institutional Recognition

MQT’s growth has prompted tangible institutional change. In 2022, Liverpool City Council allocated £87,500 from its Community Infrastructure Levy to fund tactile path upgrades at Croxteth Country Park — work carried out by inclusive contractor J. Murphy & Sons Ltd. under MQT’s co-design supervision. Similarly, Merseytravel integrated MQT’s route recommendations into its ‘Accessible Transit’ initiative, adding step-free access annotations and live bus occupancy data to the Merseytravel app for all 14 designated MQT trailheads.

The group’s influence extends beyond infrastructure. In May 2023, the Royal Geographical Society awarded MQT its Public Engagement Grant (£15,000) to develop ‘Queer Cartographies of Merseyside’ — a participatory mapping project using Maptionnaire software to document sites of significance: safe benches, welcoming cafes (e.g., The Pilgrim in Allerton, which displays MQT’s Rainbow Access Charter badge), and even ‘quiet corners’ in libraries like the newly refurbished Liverpool Central Library, where staff completed Stonewall’s ‘LGBTQ+ Inclusion in Public Services’ training in 2022.

Challenges and Ongoing Work

Despite progress, structural barriers persist. Only 22% of MQT members identify as working-class (defined by ONS Socioeconomic Classification Band 7–8), compared to Merseyside’s regional average of 41%. To address this, MQT launched the ‘Groundwork Bursary’ in 2024, covering transport costs (using Merseyrail’s ‘Go Anywhere’ day tickets, £8.50), equipment loans, and childcare stipends (£12/hour, administered via Liverpool Mutual Homes’ family support fund). Early data shows bursary recipients are 3.2× more likely to attend ≥6 hikes/year.

Another challenge is rural isolation. While urban routes achieve 92% accessibility compliance (per UK Accessibility Criteria v3.1), only 41% of designated countryside trails meet MQT’s standards — primarily due to lack of surfaced parking, inadequate toilet provision, and absence of clear wayfinding for neurodivergent users. MQT’s 2024 advocacy campaign, ‘Paths Not Pavements’, has secured commitments from the National Trust (for its 1,200-acre Caldy Island estate) and Forestry England (for Delamere Forest’s 2,400-acre site) to pilot MQT-designed accessibility overlays by Q4 2025.

What Solidarity Sounds Like on the Trail

Solidarity here is auditory as much as spatial. It’s the chorus of voices reciting the ‘Mersey Tide Chant’ — a spoken-word piece composed by poet and MQT member Kai Bennett — during low-tide walks at Meols: ‘We rise with the water / We settle in the silt / We hold the line where land forgets itself / And becomes something else.’ It’s the consistent use of ‘trail family’ instead of ‘group’, reflecting kinship structures outside biological ties. It’s the unspoken agreement that if someone says ‘I need air’, no one asks why — they simply adjust pace, open space, and wait.

This manifests in granular, repeatable acts: the rotation of ‘pace keeper’ duty ensures no one carries the emotional labour of monitoring others’ stamina; the ‘buddy bag’ system (where participants share essentials like sunscreen, antihistamines, or emergency glucose gels) operates on trust, not inventory logs; and the ‘no photo without consent’ rule is enforced not as restriction, but as affirmation — every image taken is first discussed, framed, and approved collectively.

One rainy Tuesday in November 2023, 38 members hiked the 7.1 km Sefton Coastal Path from Crosby to Blundellsands. At the midpoint — a windswept stretch where the 2007 Antony Gormley statues ‘Another Place’ emerge from the surf — facilitator Dev Patel invited silence for two minutes. When voices returned, they weren’t reporting fatigue or cold. They named gratitude: for the woman who’d lent her spare thermal layer, for the shared thermos of ginger-turmeric tea brewed by the Trans Kitchen Collective, for the way the mist softened the outlines of distant cranes at Seaforth Dock — industrial silhouettes made gentle by shared breath.

That afternoon’s SROI calculation registered £5.18 per participant hour — higher than average, attributed to ‘intensified relational density’ in adverse conditions. But numbers don’t capture the weight of a hand held steady on a slippery seawall, or the exact shade of violet in the sky when the clouds parted at 3:47 p.m., or how the word ‘home’ sounded different walking back — not as destination, but as practice, repeated step after step, across Merseyside’s uneven, insistent, generous ground.

The Mersey Queer Trailblazers do not seek to ‘make nature inclusive’. They operate from the premise that nature was never exclusive — it is human systems that impose gates, norms, and hierarchies. Their work reveals how geography, when approached with humility and precision, can become pedagogy: teaching us that solidarity isn’t found at the summit, but in the shared adjustment of stride on a rain-slicked path; that resilience isn’t endurance, but the collective decision to pause, breathe, and name what’s real; and that belonging isn’t location-dependent, but rhythm-dependent — the syncopated cadence of footsteps moving, together, across land that remembers every kind of life.

This is not recreation. It is reclamation — measured in kilometres, cortisol levels, tidal charts, and the quiet certainty of knowing your name is spoken correctly beside a salt-rimed fence post at low tide. It is Merseyside, walked differently. And it is, unequivocally, working.