Against the backdrop of a sharp rise in "heteroactivism" (Nash & Browne, 2020) and transphobia in the UK, this paper explores how digital and spatial practices are mobilised as acts of trans and queer resistance. Recent statistics reveal an alarming 11% rise in hate crimes against trans people in a single year, and a 186% increase over five years (Stonewall, 2023), coinciding with a national shift towards more prejudiced attitudes (British Social Attitudes, 2023) and the UK’s declining international reputation for LGBTQ+ rights (ILGA Map, 2025). Within this hostile socio-political climate, the emergence of @SafeSpace, a grassroots initiative founded in Bristol and now widespread across the UK, provides a compelling case study for understanding how LGBTQ+ people navigate and reimagine public space. It also considers how digital technologies open up new possibilities for networked, participatory forms of queer activism that blur the boundaries between online and offline resistance. Drawing on digital ethnography, interviews with activists, and social media analysis, this paper situates @SafeSpace within a lineage of queer counter-cartographies — from early gay guides to contemporary digital mapping platforms. Through a performative lens (Valentine, 1992; Brown, 2008; Rosenberg, 2021), it examines how the act of mapping “safe” places both resists heteronormative spatial supremacy and raises questions about inclusion, exclusion, and the commodification of safety. The analysis highlights the hybrid activism of @SafeSpace — moving from online networks to embodied street practices — as an emancipatory form of resistance. Ultimately, this paper argues that digital mapping technologies not only represent but constitute urban space, revealing how queer practices of place-making reconfigure safety, visibility, and belonging in an increasingly hostile Britain.
