FRAME BRIDGING AND QUEER AND TRANS CLIMATE CONNECTIONS

Social movement scholars offer insights into how climate justice movements “frame,” or interpret, the problems that their movements tackle and what solutions they propose (Snow and Benford Reference Snow and Benford1988). Climate justice movements frame the cause of the climate crisis as rooted in a global capitalist system that depends on extracting fossil fuels and disproportionately harming people of color and those in the Global South (della Porta and Parks Reference della Porta, Parks, Dietz and Garrelts2014). Although studies primarily focus on how race, class, and gender inform climate justice framing, more recent research analyzes bridging or linking similar frames from distinct movements (Benford and Snow Reference Benford and Snow2000). For example, the “Just Transition” frame (Buzogány and Scherhaufer Reference Buzogány and Scherhaufer2022) connects the climate and labor movements by suggesting that transitioning away from the fossil-fuel economy also must be “just,” for example, by bringing better and cleaner jobs. However, social scientific studies of queer climate justice—focusing specifically on how LGBTQ+ and climate movements discursively come together—are relatively underdeveloped.

Frames, especially bridging frames, bring together movements with different constituencies by naming new partners’ unique stakes. There is no shortage of stakes for queer and trans people. According to an emerging literature, queer and trans people have distinct climate change vulnerabilities (Kilpatrick et al. Reference Kilpatrick, Higgins, Atkin and Dahl2023; Simmonds et al. Reference Simmonds, Jenkins, White, Nicholas and Bell2022). Natural disasters that climate change makes worse exemplify how LGBTQ+ people are left behind, figuratively and physically. First, disasters destroy their neighborhoods (Gorman-Murray, McKinnon, and Dominey-Howes Reference Gorman-Murray, McKinnon and Dominey-Howes2014); and second, “recovery” itself is fraught because emergency services are queer- and trans-phobic and discriminatory toward non-heterosexual family units (Dominey-Howes, Gorman-Murray, and McKinnon Reference Dominey-Howes, Gorman-Murray and McKinnon2014; Gorman-Murray et al. Reference Gorman-Murray, McKinnon, Dominey-Howes, Nash and Bolton2018). These impacts are rooted in policy neglect and marginalization—in healthcare, housing, and employment—that make LGBTQ+ communities more vulnerable to climate disasters. In other words, outcomes of preexisting social marginalization among LGBTQ+ people—including higher rates of medical conditions (e.g., asthma) relative to non-LGBTQ+ people (Goldsmith, Raditz, and Méndez Reference Goldsmith, Raditz and Méndez2022; Mann, McKay, and Gonzales Reference Mann, McKay and Gonzales2024)—create further susceptibility to climate impacts. For example, Goldsmith, Raditz, and Méndez (Reference Goldsmith, Raditz and Méndez2022, 955–57) point to how excluding sexual orientation and gender identity in Section 308 of the Robert T. Stafford Emergency Management and Disaster Assistance Act—a nondiscrimination clause in federally supported disaster responses—leaves it to the discretion of state or local disaster programs to deny support to LGBTQ+ communities. Because governments increasingly rely on faith-based organizations or non-government organizations to provide disaster relief, legacies of homophobia and transphobia in religion drive queer and trans people away (King Reference King2022; Parkinson et al. Reference Parkinson, Duncan, Leonard and Archer2022).

Importantly, queer and trans communities are not homogeneous, and those “caught in the crosshairs” of multiple oppressions have qualitatively distinct experiences of climate danger (Goldsmith and Bell Reference Goldsmith and Bell2022; Goldsmith, Raditz, and Méndez Reference Goldsmith, Raditz and Méndez2022; Kilpatrick et al. Reference Kilpatrick, Higgins, Atkin and Dahl2023). For instance, Hurricane Katrina disproportionately impacted Black transgender women sex workers who faced both over-policing/criminalization and the weaponization of crime-against-nature policy (McTighe and Haywood Reference McTighe and Haywood2017), the latter of which frequently is analyzed within queer ecologies literature as primarily a white queer issue (Hogan Reference Hogan, Mortimer-Sandilands and Erickson2010).

In addition to the material reasons for connecting the fights for queer and trans liberation and climate justice, there is reason to believe that environmental and climate justice movements are politically predisposed to work with LGBTQ+ movements. First, scholars understand environmental justice as an amalgamation of other movements (Cole and Foster Reference Cole and Foster2001). This aligns with social movement studies demonstrating that environmental movements share overlapping activists with LGBTQ+ movements (Carroll and Ratner Reference Carroll and Ratner1996).

Second, studies of public opinion and political behavior reveal that LGBTQ+ people appear to be more likely to have pro-environment values or interests than cisgender and/or heterosexual people (Whitley and Bowers Reference Whitley and Bowers2023) that are associated with increased participation in environmental protests (Swank Reference Swank2018).

Third, queer ecologies scholars have identified the conceptual linkages between threats to nature and to LGBTQ+ people (Mortimer-Sandilands and Erickson Reference Mortimer-Sandilands and Erickson2010)—pointing out how views of nature and the “natural” are embedded in discriminatory policies (Hogan Reference Hogan, Mortimer-Sandilands and Erickson2010). These studies indirectly, as a matter of interpretation, present how fights for environmental justice also are fights for sexual justice (Berila Reference Berila and Stein2004). Despite these reasons why we might expect the two movements to have a preexisting history, environmental justice, queer ecologies, and social movement scholars give little attention to studying cases in which queer and trans people in climate movements successfully and directly connect them.

That said, some research that studies queer and trans climate or environmental activists provides clues about how LGBTQ+ people organize across movements (Gaard Reference Gaard, Bhavnani, Foran, Kurian and Munshi2019, Reference Gaard, Pulé and Hultman2021; Grosse Reference Grosse and Reger2019; Pellow Reference Pellow2014; Seymour Reference Seymour2018a, Reference Seymour and MacGregor2018b; TallBear Reference TallBear, Estes and Dhillon2019; Whitworth Reference Whitworth2019). For example, Gaard (Reference Gaard, Bhavnani, Foran, Kurian and Munshi2019, 97) wrote about several cases of queer climate justice organizing and described how the 2014 Fossil Fuel Divestment Convergence emphasized solidarity with allied movements and called for the increased visibility of queer and trans leaders within climate movements. Similarly, Grosse (Reference Grosse and Reger2019, 191) pointed out that organizers with the climate group 350.org underscored intersectionality in their solidarity letter following the 2016 Pulse Nightclub shootings. Although these studies provide core insights about queer climate justice—pinpointing intersectionality and queer performativity (Gaard Reference Gaard, Pulé and Hultman2021, 530)—they focus on only a few examples and sometimes subsume their analysis under larger discussions of feminist climate justice.

Thus, we lack cross-case analyses of how queer and trans activists actively frame climate justice. My approach is to use social-movement studies framing analysis to systematically compare how different individuals, organizations, and protests in the United States align in queering climate justice.

METHODOLOGY

I used a grounded theory and frame analysis approach to guide the selection of data sources and their analysis. Because framing involves social-movement actors calibrating their framing according to distinct audiences (Johnston Reference Johnston, Johnston and Klandermans1995, 223–24)—whether internally or to reach new adherents—I gathered a range of data sources that varied by the audience that activists were targeting. This led to the need for semi-structured interviews (Blee and Taylor Reference Blee, Taylor, Klandermans and Staggenborg2002) and content analysis. I selected protests because they are sites of “issue bricolage” or “the process whereby movement issues become linked” (Jung, King, and Soule Reference Jung, King and Soule2014, 188), where frame bridging—or merging narratives among movements (Snow et al. Reference Snow, Rochford, Worden and Benford1986)—is a key activity and relevant for this study’s research question.

I received Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval for the entire study.Footnote ¹ I obtained informed, written consent from respondents before the interviews. Respondents had the option to use a pseudonym, but all consented to the use of their real names—a practice approved by my university IRB. Although the general assumption within political science is to deidentify respondents—with the rationale of protecting vulnerable populations—commitments to social change, collaboration with interviewees, and power dynamics between the interviewee and interviewer challenge that logic (Guenther Reference Guenther2009). Respondents were willing to identify themselves because I am a scholar–activist dedicated to challenging power within and outside of the academy, and I view my and their choice as one way to amplify marginalized communities’ voices. Heeding qualitative scholars’ suggestions to treat consent as an iterative process beyond the initial signature (Lahman et al. Reference Lahman, Rodriguez, Moses, Griffin, Mendoza and Yacoub2015)—especially when using real names—I confirmed with respondents that they still consented through my “member-check” procedures (described later in this section).

I conducted 22 semi-structured interviews with queer-identified climate activists who fell into three categories, divided by geographic scope—Washington, DC, versus New York City, versus across the United States.Footnote ² The first category consisted of activists who organized a queer dance party for climate justice leading to Ivanka Trump’s houseFootnote ³ or the shutdown of Capital Pride blockading the police, Lockheed Martin, and Wells Fargo,Footnote ⁴ both in Washington, DC, in 2017 (N=8). The second category consisted of activists who were a part of or involved with the Queer Bloc—composed of two groups called Queers for the Climate and Queer Planet—of the 2014 People’s Climate March in New York City, as well as March leaders and criticsFootnote ⁵ (N=9). The third category consisted of queer and trans climate activists organizing across the United States on several issues, such as the Green New Deal and abolitionist campaigns (N=5). I also completed a content analysis of hundreds of emails among activist members, social media posts (i.e., Tweets and Facebook event pages), blog posts, and external coverage of queer climate activism (e.g., from Vice) about the protests in the other two categories. See the Appendix for more information about the interviews and content analysis.

To select and interview respondents, I used “snowball sampling/respondent-driven sampling” (Gile and Handcock Reference Gile and Handcock2010). Beginning in early 2021, I sent emails to activists whose names were publicly available as leaders of protests at the nexus of climate justice and LGBTQ+ movements to request interviews. Interviewees were younger people, typically in their mid- or late-20s to late-30s. Due to those who were leaders in organizing the protests under inquiry, I interviewed predominantly people of color and/or women, femmes, non-binary, and trans people for the DC actions; white gay men in the queer contingent for the 2014 People’s Climate March; and queer people of color for the third category of interviewees. Table 1 lists the date of each interview and the interviewee’s organizational affiliation.

Table 1 Activist Interviews

Grounded-theory methodologies rely on a researcher working concurrently with data collection and analysis and letting data “ground” additional theory development (Charmaz Reference Charmaz2006)—as opposed to predetermined hypotheses driving the inquiry. Therefore, I used initial data and analysis as the impetus for collecting further data, such as analyzing, for example, social media posts and emails from the groups that organized the protests described previously. I obtained the emails in two ways: (1) asking interviewees to send relevant correspondence that they had among themselves, and (2) accessing a publicly available Google Group email listserv that the Queer Bloc of the 2014 People’s Climate March used to organize, build their base, and make decisions. Because the first set of emails involved private correspondence, I asked interviewees for their verbal consent to publish the content and then allowed them to withdraw their consent later in my member-check procedures. For the second set of emails, I received written consent from one of the leaders of the Queer Bloc to use the content of the listserv for my study.

Following common grounded-theory procedures, I began with initial coding and concurrently wrote analytic memos before recoding using focused coding strategies (Charmaz Reference Charmaz2006; Saldaña Reference Saldaña2009). I focused on three analytics relevant to social movement frame analysis: (1) the key issues, (2) the diagnostic (problem definition) and prognostic (solution), and (3) the symbols and historical reference points (Benford and Snow Reference Benford and Snow2000). The analysis of diagnostic framing and key issues co-occurred across data sources and aligned under the element of what I describe as “Vulnerability to the Climate Crisis.” This included a diagnostic that preexisting social inequalities (e.g., increased rates of poverty) leave queer and trans people open to climate vulnerabilities. Similarly, in my analysis, I found alignment between prognostic framing and historical reference points and symbols. This included the belief that queer strategies of messaging and combatting government silence derived from movement “ancestors” such as ACT UP can help to solve the climate crisis. These analyses yielded the two elements I describe in the findings as “survival and resilience” and “play.”

Frame-alignment analyses also guided my approach because I specifically used the memo writing to see how queer climate activists were bridging and extending—that is, orienting one framework to reach new adherents using their values (Snow et al. Reference Snow, Rochford, Worden and Benford1986)—climate justice narratives. In other words, I wrote memos and short analytic documents in which I compared how different activists took concepts from queer liberation and related them to climate justice to establish connections across the data and codes. I also used the memos as a validity check to compare how activists framed the connections among the movements in different venues, such as on Facebook versus in their emails.

Finally, I conducted member checks by asking respondents for feedback on the initial draft manuscript (Lincoln and Guba Reference Lincoln and Guba1985). Of 20 unique respondents, 10 responded within the requested time window. Respondents validated the results and supported the conclusions; some suggested minor edits to phrasing in quotes or errors in how I referred to them or their organization.

VULNERABILITY TO THE CLIMATE CRISIS

Extending a common climate justice diagnostic frame that social systems create disproportionate climate burdens on the already marginalized (della Porta and Parks Reference della Porta, Parks, Dietz and Garrelts2014), queer and trans climate activists claim that they—as sexual and gender minorities—also are disproportionately burdened by climate change. Whereas climate justice frames predominantly rely on analyses that racism, classism, capitalism, and colonialism are at the root of climate injustice, queer climate justice activists engage in frame extension (Snow et al. Reference Snow, Rochford, Worden and Benford1986). Specifically, they shift climate justice frames to fit with analyses of homophobia and transphobia to appeal to potential queer and trans movement adherents. More than potentially mobilizing queer and trans people, the frame-extension choice brings attention to other issues that affect people with more relative privilege.

For example, common vulnerabilities mentioned include the high rates of houselessness among queer youth, disproportionate policing, and less access to healthcare. In a blog post ahead of the 2014 People’s Climate March arguing that climate change is a queer issue, Patrick Robbins, organizer of the Queer Bloc, noted queer people’s disproportionate climate burden stemming from homophobia, transphobia, and structural inequality:

To reiterate, Robbins extended a core tenet of climate justice—that is, socially marginalized communities are disproportionately vulnerable to the climate crisis—with queer insights that queer and trans people also bear an unequal burden of climate disasters. Simultaneously, he and others expanded the fight for climate change beyond flood plains and spatially located it within shelters, for example. Similarly, in a statement provided to the site LGBTQ Nation, Director of GetEQUAL Angela Peoples, who was deeply involved in the shutdown of Capital Pride, stated the following about calling for LGBTQ+ organizations to divest from Wells Fargo:

Both of these quotes implicitly bolster the point that, by queering climate justice vulnerability and bringing attention to issues that unevenly impact queer and trans people, solutions to these issues also could benefit other marginalized people and relatively privileged people.

Even as queer climate activists sought to draw connections among homophobia, transphobia, and climate injustice, they maintained in their frame extensions that climate change is an intersectional issue. Specifically, their strategy of “centering the most marginalized”—whereby strategy flows from the needs of the most vulnerable within the community—is common among US-based queer liberation organizations (DeFilippis and Anderson-Nathe Reference DeFilippis, Anderson-Nathe, Brettschneider, Burgess and Keating2017). Echoing insights and reflecting the influence of intersectionality, numerous interviewees and other documents addressed how oppressions are linked and that the fight against homophobia and transphobia is incomplete without dismantling racism, sexism, and classism, among other oppressions. In a press release explaining why a group of queer activists was targeting Ivanka Trump—and, more broadly, the Trump administration—for their queer dance party for climate justice, organizers noted the following:

Queer climate activists therefore were careful about describing the unique ways that queer and trans people are impacted by the climate crisis. As shown in their amplification of how Native people specifically are impacted, activists maintained that climate vulnerabilities are not created equal. To build on a previous point: the queer politics presented herein, with intersectional analyses of vulnerabilities, are crucial for climate justice insofar as they spatially reorient climate justice to think about—as this quote highlights—mapping out and practicing solidarity with all marginalized people.

SURVIVAL AND RESILIENCE

Even as climate justice frames seek to propose solutions that address the root causes of the climate crisis (Chatterton, Featherstone, and Routledge Reference Chatterton, Featherstone and Routledge2013), they limit their potential without engaging dimensions of “crisis” and “survival” that queer climate activists emphasize, such as the interlocking experiences of crisis and the social and emotional dimensions of survival. These are the insights that queer and trans framings, based on survival of other crises, bring to the fight against climate change. Specifically, they model prefigurative intersectional climate justice, expand the time horizons of “crisis,” and denaturalize the concept of “crisis” itself.

Several interview participants articulated a theme of queer and trans survival developed from weathering prior crises that inform their contributions to the fight against climate change. Anthony Torres, an organizer with the queer dance party for climate justice, noted that queer climate activism is not merely about highlighting the impacts of climate change on the queer and trans community but also “actually centering the knowledge that LGBTQ+ people in our communities have to offer to this planet.”Footnote ⁶ These epistemic contributions are rooted in the history of survival and resilience that members of the LGTBQ+ community developed by fighting against preexisting injustices.

As described in the previous discussion, queer climate activists suggested that queer and trans people experience disproportionate climate burdens. Because many of these climate impacts exacerbate the injustices that queer and trans people have long experienced, queer and trans people have a record of surviving and being resilient without state investment. More accurately, several activists aligned with the view that state practices of “resilience” actively harm their recovery from disasters and will never provide “safety” for their communities (de Onís Reference de Onís2018). Indeed, rather than relying on the state to solve or address these impacts, some queer climate activists—mostly queer and trans activists of color—noted in their prognostic framing or articulation of solutions (Benford and Snow Reference Benford and Snow2000) that their communities knew best. Responding to the 2014 People’s Climate March and discussing queer climate justice, Ceci Pineda (Reference Pineda2015)—who at the time organized with the Audre Lorde Project that represents queer and trans people of color—wrote the following:

As this quote speaks to, queer and trans climate activists, especially queer and trans people of color, framed issues and fights—ostensibly unrelated to climate change—as creating both better worlds and practices that lend themselves to climate justice. This is an intersectional, prefigurative framing. Although the Safe OUTside the System Collective referenced previously emerged in response to disproportionate policing that targeted queer and trans people of color in New York City (The Audre Lorde Project, n.d.), the prognostic framing suggests that queer climate activists frame social systems developed elsewhere, from their intersectional positionalities, as an integral frame bridge for climate justice.

Similarly, in shutting down DC Capital Pride in 2017, the No Justice No Pride Coalition bridged a conventional climate issue in pipelines to queer and trans people of color survival. Led by trans women of color, the coalition centered on sex workers then and in the years since the blockade. Although the direct climate connection has faded for the coalition, a through line of survival connects the work: LGBTQ+ organizations threaten our survival just as much as harmful policies, policing, and pipelines.Footnote ⁷ For instance, in an interview with Office Magazine published in 2019, core organizer Emmelia Talarico explained about their agenda as follows:

This strategy of reframing, interpreting, and tying climate survival and resilience to previous and long-standing queer and trans political fights went beyond the contemporary era. Activists frequently referenced the US AIDS crisis of the 1980s and 1990s and the ensuing resistance. Such a framing choice expanded the time horizons of the climate crisis by essentially telling a narrative: “We’ve heard this story before.” They identified the strategies and policy outcomes resulting from the activities of resistance groups during the AIDS crisis as an example and model of how LGBTQ+ people could contribute to fighting against climate change. For example, noting parallels among the crises—government inaction, the global scale, and the life-or-death stakes—the Queers for the Climate group wrote a signatory letter ahead of the People’s Climate March in 2014 encouraging LGBTQ+ organizations, activists, and leaders to add their names to spur climate action among their community:

Finally, queer climate activists spoke about how LGBTQ+ people bring survival and resilience tools in the form of chosen families that bridge to the food and shelter emphasis within climate framing. They challenged seemingly fixed, or “naturalized,” conceptualizations of crisis or survival. Rachel Schragis, an organizer with the People’s Climate March of 2014 who worked with the Queer Bloc, asserted the following:

As this quote shows, queer climate activists work to bridge common keywords within climate justice, including “crisis” and “survival,” to LGBTQ+ movements while also expanding what they can mean.

PLAY

For queer climate justice organizers, play in activism is both instrumental and a solidary, world-making practice in motivational framing. Typical climate justice protests might be theatrical, where organizers have a prop resembling an oil pipeline and snake it through the streets. Through queer climate justice dance parties and drag-queen puppet props for the 2014 People’s Climate March, however, climate activism becomes more than another protest to evolve into a celebration of queer and trans existence. The framing of the actions described in this section and the actions themselves inspire disbelief—the frivolousness of dancing for climate justice. Yet, a seriousness belies the quotes in this section that connects to the previous section regarding survival and resilience. Playing is for motivating others to join the climate movement and, simultaneously, about moving from the wreckage of crises that afflict queer and trans communities. By playing, queer climate justice activists expand climate politics’ affective possibilities, turn colonial and heteronormative logic on its head, and honor the body at multiple scales.

There is evidence of this playful politics in advertising for the queer dance party for climate justice held in April 2017. Organizers targeted Ivanka Trump because they believed the media framed her as a moderating social and environmental force within the Trump administration. Through the dance protest, they amplified the narrative that climate justice and queer liberation were interlocking by naming how both movements had shared enemies in the Trump administration. Beyond simply connecting the movements, organizers had tongue-in-cheek messaging to motivate participation. The following is from the Facebook event page for the dance party:

In the vein of queer environmental performances that Seymour (Reference Seymour2018a) has written about, queer framings and action widen the scope of how people can engage in climate activism. Activists do not have to exclusively perform dread and despair in acting on climate. The idea of shaking your butt for climate justice is playful—we might react incredulously—and yet that is what the protestors did. This irreverence stands in stark contrast to conventional images of environmental activism, which conjure images of death and catastrophe falling on us all without climate action.

There is a wider significance to activists’ motivational framings: imbuing climate justice with a sense of play could appeal to people across divides. In an email describing why the Queer Bloc made 12-foot drag-queen elemental puppets—air, water, fire, and earth—among other props and costumes for their contingent in the 2014 People’s Climate March, organizer Bizzy Barefoot wrote:

“Lifting the spirits of all” also subtly challenges understandings of climate politics by playfully flipping long-standing, harmful cultural narratives on their head. To generate interest for the 2014 People’s Climate March, the Queer Bloc created a #SaveTheStraights contingent to march in New York City’s Pride parade that year. Their Facebook event page featured an image of a 1950s-style cartoon with a smiling white family—a man, a woman, and a young child—ostensibly conjuring the prototypical “nuclear family.” In the body of the event, they wrote:

Organizers did not intend for their imagery and text to be taken seriously. Seymour (Reference Seymour2018a) argued that this irreverence operates as a double critique—environmentalists can have fun and queers care deeply about the environment. To build on this point, the proliferation of nuclear energy in the United States in the 1950s depended on a cultural and colonial narrative of the “nuclear” family of a white, heterosexual mother and father (Voyles Reference Voyles2015). What was striking then is the content of their message and their framing of playfully rejecting the value of this environmentally harmful, nuclear family. Queer and trans climate activists said let us queer the nuclear family (Gaard Reference Gaard, Pulé and Hultman2021; Krupar Reference Krupar2012) and framed their critique in a way that could be mobilizing for all through its playful nature.

However, it also is worth mentioning that these playful methods were a response to the violence that queer and trans communities have faced. Queer climate justice activists framed their actions as playing for others—insofar as playfulness could motivate others to action—and themselves as a healing process. Explaining why they organized a queer dance party for climate justice, core organizer Firas Nasr told me:

This quote suggests a similar experience for queer and trans bodies and the body that is Mother EarthFootnote ¹¹—a bridging made possible through the concept of the “body”—and a need to heal and move from violence enacted on bodies to the honoring, preservation, and resilience of them. This body-politic framing—seeing the body as scarred—while also as a source of prefigurative politics is a radical vision of climate justice. It aligns with practices of “embodied ecological politics” (Di Chiro Reference Di Chiro, Mortimer-Sandilands and Erickson2010, 200), in which queer and trans activists can reclaim their bodies as something that is to be desired and a source of beautiful pleasure (Clare Reference Clare1999). Because we all have bodies and experience violence—albeit of different types—play, specifically dance, tells new stories about how we can move our bodies in climate justice activism and relationally orient them to Mother Earth.