The making of a truly ‘Intersectional Environmentalist’

Bradley Stevens’ essay received an Honourable Mention in the 2024 Queer Futures Prize for the undergraduate course, Introduction to Queer Studies.  This prize seeks to acknowledge and celebrate thoughtful and innovative work in queer studies inspired by classroom discussions and learning.

When I started the course ‘Introduction to Queer Studies’ last semester, I was taken aback by the critique queer literature could provide; it has a unique flexibility to find spaces other critical theories have yet to fill. I have long been inclined to decolonial, feminist and poststructuralist work, but Queer Studies gave me critical insight to incorporate into these theories and go further. I naively thought that the course would revolve around identity alone, but it instead taught me the foundational tool of ‘queering’, which critiques the normalising function which theories can participate in, as well as extending conversations around heteronormativity to all things non-human, whether that be planetary, or technology. So, when answering the essay question “What might a more animal-attentive queer studies offer both queer studies and animals?”, I knew where queer studies could be used in its intended way: to unpack the anthropocentric bedrock of environmental justice. 

Considering this question, I was reminded of the activist-inducing work of Leah Thomas, an educator in California who wrote the book, and coined the title, The Intersectional Environmentalist. Her work, as seen above, rather aptly depicting a single rainbow and based in decolonial environmental critique, explores the need to conceptualize climate justice as only possible when we understand how systems of oppression among societies have led to climate change’s disproportionate impacts, specifically affecting the Global South and minority communities including women, indigenous and LGBTQ+ people. Drawing on Kimberlé Crenshaw’s intersectional theory, Thomas provides a blueprint of environmentalism which encompasses all humans, recognizing the unique experiences people face regarding the climate crisis based on intersecting identities. While this is fundamental to sustainable environmental justice, there is one overwhelmingly significant group left out of Thomas’ proposal: the non-human. Animal and natural cultures alike are often rendered a homogenous entity in the human-animal binary, even in fields dedicated to their survival, like mainstream environmentalism. Recognising exploitation and discrimination against communities because of unrelenting capitalist growth, must also identify the relegation of the natural world as inactive when only discussing oppression between humans. 

This is where queer theory is pertinent. Complementing Thomas’ work to create a substantive Intersectional Environmentalist means conceptualising the ‘othering’ which the animal world faces. Firstly, nature is often deployed, if not haphazardly, to police queerness, with heteronormativity held as the moral, fertile pinnacle of nature. Simultaneously however, nature and queer people are also grouped together as chaotic, irrational and beastly. Queer and animal experiences of discrimination are therefore aligned, in which the heterosexual and the queer, and the animal versus the human, are dualisms act in tandem with one another when enrolled by anthropocentric and homophobic discourse/s. Furthermore, anthropocentric understandings of nature have led us to misunderstand how the natural world operates, assigning heteronormative, individualistic identities to animals. Queer ecological research however can be used to undo some of the anthropocentric hypotheses of nature, by studying the countless examples of sexually fluid behaviours in animal species, in which the natural world can be seen as active, collective and living beyond purely reproductive means. When establishing the queer reality of nature, we can only then acknowledge our relation to the ‘natural world’, not as individuals alienated and superior to the planet, but rather as embedded and vulnerable within it. 

When discursive practices around environmental justice and research present non-humans as beings with agency, we can then respect the importance of preserving their habitats and ecosystems, rather than only seeing the planetary as existent for human consumption. Thomas reiterates throughout the Intersectional Environmentalist that we must listen to those most unheard. This therefore should include those currently with no voice at the discussion, meaning animals, nature and the Earth. Queer theory assists us in this endeavour, as it provides an unseen viewpoint of lived experiences in which queer and animal beings alike have faced the heteronormative, anthropocentric pressures to assimilate into capitalism’s endless need for growth, and reproductive progress. True intersectionality appreciates that queer liberation works with animal liberation and other forms of struggles which Thomas begins to find answers to. Most of all, when bringing together these discussions in queer discourse and queer ecological research to create an animal-attentive queer studies, both areas refine and expand one anothers’ conceptualisations of the animal and human experience, contributing to field’s notable self-reflexivity. It is only then, when we recognise the naturally dependent, and queer relationship we have with all things planetary, we can embark upon finding an environmental justice which liberates all groups from the global climate crisis. 

Finally, a thank you to Dr Merlyn Seller, and tutor Kai Lim, as well as the growing wealth of queer theoretical and ecological research going on out there, in making this essay possible. Our future relies on being truly intersectional environmentalists.

Author bio:

Bradley Stevens is a 3rd year Undergraduate student at the University of Edinburgh, undertaking Politics. The original essay mentioned was completed for the interdisciplinary module of “Introduction to Queer Studies”. This body of work ties into Bradley’s other interests regarding substantive representation, gender and queer studies. Any questions, thoughts, or requests to see the original essay can be forwarded to his LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradley-stevens-272701200/, or email: b.stevens-1@sms.ed.ac.uk.