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Overview

Queer ecology recognizes that people often regard nature in terms of dualistic notions like “natural and unnatural,” “alive or not alive” or “human or not human,” when in reality, nature exists in a continuous state. The idea of “natural” arises from human perspectives on nature, not “nature” itself.

Queer ecology rejects ideas of human exceptionalism and anthropocentrism that propose that humans are unique and more important than other non-human nature. Specifically, queer ecology challenges traditional ideas regarding which organisms, species, and individuals have value.

Queer ecology also identifies that heteronormative ideas saturate human understanding of “nature” and human society, and calls for the inclusion of queerness in environmental movements. It rejects the associations that exist between “natural” and “heterosexual,” and draws attention to how both nature and marginalized social groups have been historically exploited.

People apply queer ecology by letting go of ideas of what is “natural,” getting rid of generalizations of human and animal behavior, acknowledging the diversity of the natural world, and facilitating discourse centered around queerness. Through the lens of queer ecology, all living things are considered to be connected and interrelated.

Queer ecology also seeks to highlight the disjuncture between how humans frame the non-human world, and what actually happens in the non-human kingdom. It also queers dichotomies thought to be in ecological thought: nature/culture, natural/unnatural, human/non-human

Definition

"The term queer ecology refers to a loose, interdisciplinary constellation of practices that aim, in different ways, to disrupt prevailing heterosexist discursive and institutional articulations of sexuality and nature, and also to reimagine evolutionary processes, ecological interactions, and environmental politics in light of queer theory. Drawing from traditions as diverse as evolutionary biology, LGBTTIQQ2SA (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, intersex, queer, questioning, two-spirited, and allies) movements, and queer geography and history, feminist science studies, ecofeminism, and environmental justice, queer ecology currently highlights the complexity of contemporary biopolitics, draws important connections between the material and cultural dimensions of environmental issues, and insists on an articulatory practice in which sex and nature are understood in light of multiple trajectories of power and matter"

Heterosexism and the environment

Queer ecology recognizes that people often associate heterosexuality with the idea of “natural,” in contrast to homosexuality, which people associate with “unnatural.” These expectations of sexuality and nature often influence scientific studies of non-human wildlife. The natural world often defies the heteronormative notions held by scientists, helping humans to redefine our cultural understanding of what is “natural” and also how we “queer” environmental spaces. For example, in “The Feminist Plant: Changing Relations with the Water Lily”, Prudence Gibson and Monica Gagliano explain how the water lily defies heterosexist notions. They argue that because the water lily is so much more than its reputation as a “pure” or “feminine” plant, we need to reevaluate our understandings of plants and acknowledge the connection between plant biology and models for cultural practice through a feminist lens. In 1974 a group of lesbian seperatist in Oregan began to challenge the existing heterosexual the ecological-political culture with the goals of, including opening access to land and transforming relations of rural ownership, withdrawing land from patriarchal-capitalist production and reproduction, feminizing the landscape ideologically and physically, developing a gender-bending physical experience of nature, experiencing nature as an erotic partner, and politicizing rurality and rural lesbian identity.

Reimagining scientific perspectives

In disciplines of the natural sciences like evolutionary biology and ecology, queer ecology allows scholars to reimagine cultural binaries that exist between “natural and unnatural” and “living and non-living.”

Timothy Morton proposes that biology and ecology deconstruct notions of authenticity. Specifically, he proposes that life exists as a “mesh of interrelations” that blurs traditional scientific boundaries, like species, living and nonliving, human and nonhuman, and even between an organism and its environment. Queer ecology, according to Morton, emphasizes a perspective on life that transcends dualisms and distinctive boundaries, instead recognizing that unique relationships exist between life forms at different scales. Queer ecology nuances traditional evolutionary perspectives on sexuality, regarding heterosexuality as impractical at many scales and as a “late” evolutionary development.

Other scholars challenge the contrast that exists between “human” and “non-human” classifications, proposing that the idea of “fluidity” from queer theory should also extend to the relationship between humans and the environment.

Darwin's theory of sexual selection has received criticism when cross-examined with new data. Darwin’s idea that males compete for females in bird species has been disproven by data showing rare surplus of males causes aggressive male competition for females. Homophobic religious groups justify their anti-LGBTQ+ bias using Darwinian theories that homosexuality will lead to human extinction. Roughgarden argues that Darwin’s theory of sexual selection is false, claiming that “diversity reveals the evolutionary stability and biological importance of expressions of gender and sexuality that go far beyond the traditional male/female binary.”

LJ Shillington and Murnaghan's suggest: To queer nature requires disrupting the human/ non-human categories, the relations between the two and the relations each has with other categories, such as gender, and sex.

Arts and literature

Some have begun to apply the notion of queer ecology to their work in visual art, theater, and literature.

Theater is an important setting to explore ideas of queer ecology because theater provides an environment to consider a world independent of the constructed binaries and heteronormativity in the outside world. Thus, theater can construct temporary “queer ecologies” on the stage. Theater can portray a hypothetical society of radical coexistence by blurring the lines by challenging social binaries, “natural” hierarchies, and challenging the notion that the earth is a nonliving entity.

Recently, visual artists have also alluded to the ideas central to queer ecology. For example, the 1997 multimedia project Lesbian National Parks and Services, developed by the Canadian performance art duo of Shawna Dempsey and Lorri Millan, queers the idea of national parks and “[challenges’ the general public’s ideas of tourism, recreation, and the ‘natural’ environment." Additionally, the artist collective The Institute of Queer Ecology seeks to “nurture a new environmental paradigm based on the concepts of interconnectivity and inseparability.” They have participated in group shows, curated exhibitions, and edited “The Queer Issue” of the zine ECOCORE.

Fundamental notions of queer ecology are present in the writing of Henry David Thoreau, Herman Melville, Willa Cather, and Djuna Barnes. These writers complicate the common belief that environmental literature consists exclusively of heterosexual doctrine and each of their work sheds light on the ways that human sexuality is connected to environmental politics. Robert Azzarello, in addition, has identified common themes of queerness and environmental studies in American Romantic and post-Romantic literature that challenge conventional ideas of what is “natural.” Some other popular Queer Ecology modern theatre performances include these three plays: Wallace Shawn's Grasses of a Thousand Colors (2009), Mark Rigney's Bears (2012), and Eric Coble's My Barking Dog (2011).