Why we need a queer environmental movement

It could help unlock the change we all so desperately need 🏳️‍🌈🌍

Feb 18, 2022

At first glance, you might wonder what on earth transgender rights or LGBTQ+ liberation have to do with tackling the climate and nature crisis. But look beneath the surface and it goes beyond allyship—we’re intimately connected by shared values and goals.

Creating a fairer and greener world for everyone needs to include everyone, including the LGBTQIA+ community. But more than that— a truly queer environmental movement

could help unlock the change we all so desperately need.

I can’t possibly hope to capture all the connections here, but I do hope I can inspire a bit of queer thinking this LGBTQ+ history month.

1. We look differently at the problems—and solutions

Growing up queer, I was forced to confront the reality—I was different. I wasn’t the same as my friends, and I wasn’t what my parents, my church and my society expected of me. For a long time, queer people like me have desperately tried to fit in and hide ourselves. It wasn’t until years after coming out that I embraced my queerness and truly started living.

The experience left its mark on my mental health, but growing up queer also helped me look at the world differently. I realised it wasn’t designed for people like me, so I learned to question the status quo and create a world of my own. Anyone who’s felt on the fringes might be more conditioned to critique what’s around them and ask: is this really serving me, my community… or anyone?

Queer thinking helps us challenge the parts of our culture that are responsible for harming the LGBTQ+ community. And that same critical thinking can also be helpful in challenging other forms of social and environmental injustice. If you’ve never really felt like an outsider and had to rebuild the world around you, you might take things for granted. You might not see the interconnected root causes or believe that change is possible. Queerness offers a much-needed fresh perspective on the problems and the solutions.

2. We break down harmful gender roles that destroy our planet

A recent study revealed that men are less likely to recycle because they’re worried people will think they’re gay. They also tend to have higher carbon footprints. Basically, looking after the planet is still seen as a ‘feminine’ thing to do. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Consider the values, beliefs and behaviours tied to ‘masculinity’ that are destroying our planet or blocking change. Competition, independence and assertiveness can give way to overexploitation of resources, corporate greed and unchecked political power—especially in men but in all of us, and in our societies shaped by them.

But what if our societies openly valued what’s seen as ‘feminine’: compassion, care, co-operation? And not just at home and not just at a surface level, but deeply embedded in public life, in politics, in business, in our work? What if we welcomed women, gay, trans and non-binary people in decision-making and embraced what we call the ‘feminine’ and ‘masculine’ in us all?

Queer people’s existence already disrupts the gender binary and the restrictive roles it imposes on us. Being a queer environmental movement means standing alongside feminism and any efforts to dismantle the patriarchy

or redefine these roles. Just imagine the doors that could unlock for us all.

3. We’re reimagining our relationship with nature

For years, queer people like me have been told we go “against nature”. If we can’t make babies, what’s the point? But this story reveals far more than just bigotry—it’s also a fundamental misunderstanding of nature.

The natural world is wildly diverse, defying labels and expectations. Countless animals have been observed in homosexual or homosocial behaviour, and many organisms do not fit neatly into our ideas of male and female.

'Queer ecology' is about seeing with new eyes, challenging the biases we bring to nature and redefining what we see as ‘natural’. It’s about allowing nature to reveal itself to us as it is, rather than how we want it to be.

It seeks kinship and an equal footing with other beings, instead of separating people from the rest of nature. Imagine a world where diversity is valued, and we didn’t seek to constantly categorise, control and exploit nature.

Alongside eco-feminist, Indigenous and many other perspectives, this queer future is being reimagined.

4. There’s no environmental justice without social justice

Today’s global issues, whether it’s climate change, poverty or racism, lie in the systems and stories created by the powerful. Governments, corporate and economic globalisation, Science, and technology—all shaped by the cultural norms of the white, affluent, western, male, cisgender

and heterosexual. Hidden within these stories is a deep-rooted tendency to see one group as superior and others as ‘objects’ that can be blamed, used, and cast aside.

It shows up in the way elites think about the working class, white people may think about people of colour, men may think about women, and straight people may think about LGBTQ+ people. And… the way people may think about nature.

Alternative voices have, at best, been side-lined, and at worst… women, people of colour, LGBTQ+ people and others have been oppressed, exploited and killed. The problem isn’t necessarily about being white, male or heterosexual—it’s about the destructive ideals of whiteness, nationality, masculinity and sexuality that live in us all. White, heterosexual, cisgender men may enjoy many privileges, but do most truly thrive in this status quo? One look at suicide rates among men might reveal a heartbreaking answer to that question. The forces responsible for destroying our planet can only be tackled by taking away their power and putting justice at the heart of the environmental movement.

As Audre Lorde famously wrote,

“The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.”

5. We know how to influence change

LGBTQ+ rights have been hard-won by relentless activism, protest and direct action.

Many queer people have forged strong connections with our own communities and networks. We have the experience of mobilising people as we fight for justice, standing in solidarity with others. Queer spaces are often alive with radical ideas, creativity and expression—from trans activism to lesbian ecofeminism to cabaret and drag. It’s not all roses of course; the same inequity that exists in wider society can bleed into queer spaces, making some of them feel unwelcoming. But at our best, we know how to organise and show up for each other.

A US study in 2018 found that lesbian, bisexual and gay people “were more than twice as likely as heterosexuals to join anti-war, environmental, and anti-corporate movements.” This could reflect being “more aware, and less accepting, of social inequalities than heterosexuals.”

Want more like this?

Queer is a reclaimed word that many, but not all, LGBTQ+ people use as an umbrella term for the community or to identify themselves. I use it because I love it, it covers sexuality & gender expression, and that feeling of being ‘different’. But some LGBTQ+ people still find it offensive. It’s generally a self-identifier or used in reference to specific perspectives or schools of thought (like queer theory, art or ecology). If you don’t identify as queer, it’s probably best to use LGBTQ+ when talking about the community or to be specific about the diverse range of identities within it.

A patriarchy is a culture or society where an elite class of men hold the majority of the power and influence, often at the expense of all others.

Cisgender means someone whose sense of personal identity and gender corresponds with their sex assigned at birth. Also known as non-transgender.