What is Radical Queer Ecology?

The search for a definition

This blog has a fresh new name - Radical Queer Ecology - to make it easier to find and to give more of an idea of what it’s about. But it brings me to an important question which I get asked all the time… What is (Radical) Queer Ecology?

I’ve been working in this field for a while and I’m often asked for a simple definition of queer ecology, preferably something punchy, a few short sentences that might work well as a soundbite. Not only have I failed to deliver one, it seems that my definition, or non-definition, gets longer each time I try.

There are definitions of queer ecology out there in the wild, but most that I’ve read or heard seem to focus on only one or two aspects, presumably those that the definer finds most exciting or relevant to their work. In my opinion, there’s always more left out than included and calling that a ‘definition’ feels dangerous.

There are good reasons for this. What gets called queer ecology can quickly feel blurry and abstract, at least partly because this combination of words is still very much associated with academia and often written about in language that is profoundly inaccessible. Another reason is that so many distinct subjects get crammed into the box of queer ecology that it quickly loses coherence.

It doesn’t help that we use ‘ecology’ to mean two different things. There’s the biology discipline that ‘studies the interactions of organisms with each other and their environment’ but it’s also very often used as a synonym for environmentalism. They are related of course, but they are not the same.

For those on the front lines defending ecosystems (or surviving environmental disaster worsened by queer precarity), the idea of ‘queering ecology’ can feel far away. For queer theorists philosophising about ecology in urban universities in the Global North, the reality of defending our ecosystems from the destruction of capital and climate chaos might feel like something quite abstract.

I’ve also noticed that sometimes (with all respect to my dear academic friends), there is a tendency to want to ‘queer everything’ in a way that runs in one direction.

So queer ecology is often described as bringing a queer lens to ecology (by whichever definition) but rarely is it about bringing ecological priorities, interconnected analyses and environmental understandings to queerness. I think queer organisers (and probably theorists) in the Global North can learn an awful lot from our ecosystems. I certainly have.

I’ll come back to this point again and again: a living ecosystem, clean air and water and safety from disaster are fundamental queer rights and queer priorities and we ignore them at our peril. These subjects are political and require radical change (meaning change that comes from the roots). Endless theory or liberal solutions aren’t going to cut it.

Fortunately the queer movement itself has radical, anti-assimilation roots and we have a history of coming together to survive. We have a cultural memory of surviving disasters, plagues and hatred and we know how to build the things they can’t take away from us.

Finally, if we are to really learn from our ecosystems (and we must), we might need to move beyond simplistic stories of either ‘nature is a battlefield’ or ‘ecosystems are resilient’. Stories are always biassed and if we want to learn from the territory and not the map, we might need to look deeper and build some relationships - and that will take some effort. I’ve been busy with it since I was a child and I don’t plan on stopping any time soon.

Defining queer ecology is no simple task and, honestly, anything with ‘queer’ in the title was always going to be rebellious when it comes to definitions. Instead, of a tidy, objective-sounding summary, I offer you some of my journeys and stories in this blog and my upcoming nonfiction book on these subjects, full as they are of my own biases and radical priorities.

Some of us love bullet points though, so here are a few core ideas that might fall under the queer ecology umbrella which I personally find important. As I say, there are always more.

• Ecology and biology as western disciplines must be ‘queered’: examined and transformed. We need to trouble cultural stories, including those of science. We need to destabilise simplistic binaries, not only of sex, gender and sexuality but human/nature, natural/unnatural and more. Stories such as human exceptionalism, survival of the fittest, binary sex and what is and isn’t considered natural are culturally specific and based in oppressive power structures. Life is much more complex, rich and beautiful than all our colonialist categories.

• Much of queer and trans life - including what gets remembered as queer history - is urban but for all its complexity, rural queerness exists and is an important part of both rural life and queer life. Queer precarity means that queer folk have less access to land and its resources and we tend to centre our lives around cities for community and survival. In many places, back-to-the-land movements are dominated by the queerphobic and ecofascist politics of the far right. And yet rural queerness exists and that means that issues that affect rural people directly - such as environmental destruction and protection, food sovereignty, land access and landlessness - are also queer issues.

• The systems destroying our ecosystems are often the same as those that exploit and oppress queer and trans people. As our ecosystems collapse, marginalised people are more at risk than ever, more precarious than ever, more scapegoated than ever. The prison industrial complex is one of many threats where environmental destruction and the oppression of queer people intersect.

• While oppressions of various kinds share common roots, so too do our struggles for liberation. Queer/trans liberation and the defence of the environment are more tied to each other than we might realise. In the Global North especially, these struggles have been systematically disconnected leading to queer movements that are unconcerned with the environment and environmental movements that exclude queer people. However, in many parts of the world, grassroots mobilisations directly make these connections.

• Queer and trans communities are precarious and under constant threat. Respectfully learning from ecological processes, systems and non-human others can help us to make our community systems more resilient, autonomous and long-lasting.

• Ecology is the study of home. Many of us have been forcibly separated from more-than-human nature and our very senses and this includes, in specific ways, those of queer and trans experiences. For those of us who grew up in industrialised societies, distanced from land and our bodies, what might it mean to find home again in our ecosystems? Rediscovering or deepening connections is not only essential to sustain our movements but for many of us, it is an act of resistance itself. We only protect what we love.