Newsletter

Queer Ecology

By Ava Garcia

April 23, 2026

Gender and Sexuality Union's (GSU) Pride Month and EJAG’s Earth Month programming kicked off on April 6th in the ALCC basement with a thought-provoking event on queer ecology, exploring how environmental ideas have historically shaped understandings of sexuality and identity. The presentation challenged nineteenth-century evolutionary frameworks that cast queerness as “unnatural,” highlighting how these ideas reinforced rigid binaries and broader systems of oppression. It ultimately emphasized queerness as a challenge to fixed categories, opening up more expansive ways of thinking about identity, nature, and belonging.

A central focus of the discussion was the legacy of nineteenth-century evolutionary theory, particularly the influence of Charles Darwin. Early evolutionary thinking linked sexuality to reproductive fitness, framing “healthy” environments as those that supported heterosexual reproduction. Within this framework, queerness was often cast as deviant or even as evidence of environmental decline, tied to anxieties about urbanization and industrialization. These ideas helped establish a powerful narrative in which queerness was understood as both biologically flawed and socially undesirable. 

The presentation also traced how these assumptions were reinforced through the rise of Western colonialism, capitalism, and Christian moral frameworks, which together institutionalized rigid distinctions between what was considered “natural” and “unnatural.” Queerness became associated with whichever side of this binary was deemed inferior, at times linked to the “uncivilized” and later reframed as a product of modern, urban life. This shifting logic revealed how ideas about nature were never neutral, but embedded in systems of power and control.

The discussion then turned to Cartesian dualistic structures, including the separation of nature and society, body and mind, and human and nonhuman, as a foundational logic underlying these classifications. As President of EJAG Xander Pitts ‘28 explained, “Queer ecology as a field engages critically with the mainstream environmental movement and opens it up to thinking about relationships between systems of oppression and begins to ask about designation of space by and for queer people in ways that can reinforce/provide escape from systems of harm. The newer field of trans ecology continues to expand these ideas to gender and lack thereof, pushing the critique further.”

Speakers further explored how the nature versus society divide intersects with other hierarchical systems, particularly patriarchy. Just as queerness was positioned outside the bounds of the “natural,” gender roles were constructed to support social and economic domination. The discussion highlighted how these binaries fail to capture the fluidity of lived experience, especially for transgender and non-binary individuals, whose identities challenge the notion of fixed, biologically determined categories.

Ultimately, the event emphasized that queerness is not simply about sexuality, but about questioning and destabilizing the boundaries that define what is considered normal, natural, or acceptable. By rethinking these categories, queer ecology opens up more expansive ways of understanding identity, environment, and the interconnected systems that shape both.