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We have always told ourselves stories of security. They are grand narratives of walls, armies, and treaties, of sovereign lines drawn firmly on maps, defending "us" from "them." These tales can be comfortin to some, suggesting that safety was a matter of containment and control. But today, a different, more chilling story is unfolding, one written in drought-scorched earth and tempest-tossed seas. This new narrative reveals that the walls we built to protect ourselves are tragically useless against a threat that respects no border: a dying natural world.<a data-mce-href="https://www.weforum.org/stories/2023/10/climate-change-national-security-defence/" href="https://www.weforum.org/stories/2023/10/climate-change-national-security-defence/">As Andrew Zolli wisely observes</a>, national security and natural security are quite enmeshed. We are finally realizing, with a collective, sickening lurch, that our entire human society, our ability to feed ourselves, to keep our people housed, to maintain a semblance of peace, is merely a subset of the larger planet. When nature falters, everything falters.&nbsp;&nbsp;<h3>The Cracks in the Global Order: A Security Built on Domination &nbsp;</h3>For centuries, our dominant global culture, driven by patriarchy, colonialism, and capitalism, has operated on a deadly premise: that nature is an object to be conquered, exploited, and controlled, and that certain people are more disposable than others, while a very small percentage (yes, I am talking about billionnaires) is worthy of everything. This same rigid, hierarchical mindset that justifies extractivism is the one that enforces narrow, oppressive social binaries: man over woman, straight over queer, cis over transgender, and human over nature.This is where the wisdom of Queer Ecofeminism breaks through the noise. It doesn't just see the environmental crisis; it sees the root sickness: the logic of domination. It tells us that the systems that allow a corporation to poison a river for profit are the very same systems that deny a transgender refugee safety or sideline a woman in local governance. The domination of Earth and the oppression of marginalized people are two sides of the same tarnished coin.When a massive climate shock hits, like the devastating floods and heatwaves of South Asia in 2023 and 2024 that displaced millions, who pays the highest price? It's not the corporate entities who contributed most to the emissions. It's the rice farmer whose land is now salty and barren, the impoverished coastal family whose home vanished, and crucially, the queer or trans person who is most likely excluded from traditional, heteronormative support networks and faces heightened violence in the chaos of a refugee camp. Their vulnerability is not a geographic accident; it is a political wound inflicted by a world that values power over care.<h3>The Domino Effect: Connected Shocks and Geopolitical Strain &nbsp;</h3>The illusion of contained disaster has shattered. Zolli captured this dynamic perfectly: a crisis in the food system quickly begets a "crisis" of migration, which then explodes into a security crisis. It's a chain reaction of human misery that directly strains geopolitical stability.Think of the devastating <a data-mce-href="https://www.undrr.org/resource/horn-africa-floods-and-drought-2020-2023-forensic-analysis" href="https://www.undrr.org/resource/horn-africa-floods-and-drought-2020-2023-forensic-analysis">multi-year drought across the Horn of Africa</a>. The failure of the rains, a direct consequence of a warming planet, didn't only kill livestock but also dried up the very possibility of peace. It intensified long-standing, low-level conflicts between farming and nomadic communities forced to compete fiercely over the last, shrinking pools of water. These resource conflicts are the new front lines of insecurity, showing us that when people are hungry and desperate, they become "restless" and "disgruntled," destabilizing entire regions and providing fertile ground for armed groups and radicalization.The security threat isn't just "over there," either. The record-shattering wildfires and heat domes across North America and Europe in 2023 and 2024 weren't just spectacular disasters; they were attacks on domestic resilience. They shut down critical infrastructure, crippled supply chains, and forced governments to divert military and civilian resources away from traditional defense to continuous, exhausting domestic disaster response. A solvable problem yesterday becomes a major global crisis tomorrow because our vast, growing populations amplify every single shock. The economic losses, running into the hundreds of billions, destabilize financial markets and threaten political cohesion within the most powerful nations.&nbsp;<h3>Security through solidarity and ecological policy &nbsp;</h3>To escape this "filmstrip of doom," we need more than better technology; we need a radical, emotional shift in how we define security. You can't shoot a missile at climate change, and you can't invade a storm, but you can nourish the bonds that hold humanity and nature together.The tools of transparency, like the satellites monitoring every act of deforestation and every shift in crop growth, are essential. They allow the world to watch, and when people know they are being watched, their behavior changes. But this accountability must go deeper, used not just to track carbon, but to track and protect the most vulnerable in the wake of disaster, to ensure aid reaches the marginalized and to prevent the systemic abuses that thrive in chaos.The final, essential step is to embrace the ecological interdependence that is our true security. Queer ecofeminism shows us the way forward: to build solidarity between people and the ecosystems they tend. Our goal is not just to survive shocks, but to prosper by prioritizing the health of the entire web of life. When we invest in ecosystem restoration, we are investing in peace. When we craft climate policies that center the needs of those historically marginalized, the Indigenous, the poor, the queer and trans people, we are building a system that is fundamentally more just, resilient, and safe for everyone.This is the challenging, hopeful story we must tell now: true, lasting global security is not achieved through isolation and domination, but through collective care and shared flourishing. It is a security found in the radical act of believing that our fates, and the fate of the planet, are one.

The Climate Geopolitics: Why ecological collapse is the ultimate threat to global security

<h3>Introduction: The unsettled air of the in-between </h3>No, you are not the only one who is feeling this way. The contemporary global condition, marked by accelerating ecological collapse, despicable systemic inequality, and existential uncertainty, is not one of crisis, but one of <a data-mce-href="https://medium.com/@rossstringer/liminality-why-change-feels-so-uncomfortable-b7224abb23ea" href="https://medium.com/@rossstringer/liminality-why-change-feels-so-uncomfortable-b7224abb23ea">liminality.</a> Drawing from <a data-mce-href="https://monoskop.org/images/9/90/Turner_Victor_The_Ritual_Process_Structure_and_Anti-Structure.pdf" href="https://monoskop.org/images/9/90/Turner_Victor_The_Ritual_Process_Structure_and_Anti-Structure.pdf">Victor Turner’s (1969) anthropological tradition</a>, liminality describes the 'betwixt and between' phase of a rite of passage, a state characterized by the suspension of structured social order and an intense ambiguity. According to Truner, <blockquote>"Liminal entities are neither here nor there, they are betwixt and between the positions assigned and arrayed by law, custom, convention, and ceremonial."</blockquote><a data-mce-href="https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/anthropocene/" href="https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/anthropocene/">The Anthropocene</a>&nbsp;constitutes an involuntary structural liminality. It is the prolonged, uncomfortable gap between a collapsing industrial paradigm and a necessary, yet unrealized, sustainable one.<a data-mce-href="https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/earths-systems/" href="https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/earths-systems/">The Earth Systems</a> are hemorrhaging;<a data-mce-href="https://www.thegef.org/news/goodbye-forever-friendly-holocene" href="https://www.thegef.org/news/goodbye-forever-friendly-holocene"> the stability of the Holocene is gone</a>. This is the Separation phase of the planetary rite, a violent detachment from the certainty of the<a data-mce-href="https://amstudugm.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/social-construction-of-reality.pdf" href="https://amstudugm.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/social-construction-of-reality.pdf"> "home-world" (Schutz, 1967)</a>. We are now in the Transition, where the logic that created the crisis has lost its epistemic authority, yet the successor logic remains fiercely contested.This is where the promise of <a data-mce-href="https://niche-canada.org/2020/06/23/queering-ecofeminism-towards-an-anti-far-right-environmentalism/" href="https://niche-canada.org/2020/06/23/queering-ecofeminism-towards-an-anti-far-right-environmentalism/">Queer Intersectional Ecofeminism</a> enters the frame. As a philosophy that posits several links between the domination of nature and the oppression of women*/marginalized peoples, Ecofeminism provides the essential critical lens for navigating this global threshold. It acts as the necessary anti-structure (Turner, 1969), capable of deconstructing the hierarchical logics that led us to this liminal state. The task of the academic and the activist is to recognize this liminality not as an end, but as a fertile void that is continuously demanding&nbsp;an ethical re-authoring of the human-Earth relationship.<h3>Historical liminality and the recurrent patterns of domination </h3>To understand our present liminal moment, we should probably track the historical pattern of human societies entering and exiting transitional phases. History is replete with moments of structural liminality: the collapse of the Roman Empire, the Black Death, the Reformation, and the Enlightenment, you name it! Each moment suspended the prevailing order and opened a phase of anti-structure that ultimately led to a reaggregation, aka a new structure (Turner, 1969). Let's look back into human history, a while back...In 1517, the hammer that struck the <a data-mce-href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Ninety-five-Theses" href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Ninety-five-Theses">95 Theses in Wittenberg </a>signaled Western civilization’s abrupt entry into a global structural liminality. The Separation (pre-liminal) was immediate: the Roman Catholic Church’s unified spiritual and political monopoly, the bedrock of the medieval "home-world", <a data-mce-href="https://www.economist.com/essay/2017/11/04/the-stand" href="https://www.economist.com/essay/2017/11/04/the-stand">cracked,</a> and consequently forced millions into an ontological void where truth became uncertain.Europe then plunged into a century-long Transition (liminal phase) marked by anti-structure (Turner, 1969). Authority collapsed into endless theological disputes, which fueled peasant wars and the terrifying communitas of religious conflict. The collective uncertainty forced people to find solace not in external ritual, but in the internal conscience. This paved the way for the radical individualism that would later on define modernity.Yet, when the Reaggregation (post-liminal) arrived with <a data-mce-href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Peace-of-Westphalia" href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Peace-of-Westphalia">the Peace of Westphalia (1648),</a> the system simply traded one master for another. The spiritual hierarchy of the Church was replaced by the secular hierarchy of the nation-state and nascent capitalism (Weber, 1905). This new structure formalized the very logic of domination that Ecofeminism critiques: the individual (male, rational) was exalted, while the natural world and the "reproductive", relational work of life were externalized, devalued, and exploited as resources (Merchant, 1980).The Reformation's liminal moment was a betrayal of potential. It broke the old structure but failed to embrace an ethics of reciprocity. Today, as our own capitalist structure collapses, Ecofeminism warns us: the risk of a similar "premature reaggregation", like a green techno-fix that saves the hierarchy, is the central danger of our modern threshold.Another example would be <a data-mce-href="https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-hccc-worldhistory2/chapter/the-scientific-revolution/" href="https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-hccc-worldhistory2/chapter/the-scientific-revolution/">The Scientific Revolution</a> (16th–18th Centuries): This era was liminal for the European mind, transitioning from the teleological worldview to mechanical philosophy. The resultant reaggregation, however, formalized the subordination of nature. Francis Bacon famously argued that nature must be "hunted out of her wanderings" and "bound into service," a discourse laden with gendered, violent metaphors (Merchant, 1980). The male mind (Culture/Reason) was formally codified as separate from and superior to the female body (Nature/Emotion). We are now facing the liminal collapse of this very industrial-capitalist reaggregation. The danger is that, blinded by the crisis, humanity will once again opt for a swift, seemingly pragmatic "green" reaggregation (geoengineering, carbon markets) that leaves the conceptual framework of domination, the dualism of human/non-human and the devaluation of Care, utterly intact. This would be the ultimate failure of the liminal period.&nbsp;<h3>The controversy: Essentialism, care, and the necessity of the subordinate space </h3>The convergence of liminality and Ecofeminism is simultaneously potent and contentious. The persistent critique of Ecofeminism is its alleged reliance on essentialism: the idea that women are inherently, often biologically, closer to nature. This risks affirming the very binary that justifies oppression (Gaard, 2017).Contemporary material and socialist Ecofeminist thought, drawing on scholars like Karen Warren (1990) and Val Plumwood (1993), and <a data-mce-href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/queer-ecofeminism-9781793640222/" href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/queer-ecofeminism-9781793640222/">Ourkiya (2023)</a> bypasses this trap. It focuses not on essential ties, but on the material, subordinate, and political location that women, the poor, Indigenous communities, and nature have been forced to occupy within the patriarchal conceptual framework. This shared, subordinate space (this political liminality) provides a non-dominant vantage point from which to critique and dismantle the collapsing structure.The shared experience of planetary crisis creates a forced, destabilizing communitas (Turner, 1969). However, this communitas is false if it does not first acknowledge the radically unequal burdens of the transition (Wong, 2023). Ecofeminism forces us to ground the uncertainty of the global liminal phase in a rigorous intersectional analysis of power and material dispossession. It shifts the focus from the abstract universal human (which historically meant the propertied male) to the concrete, interconnected experiences of those historically excluded.The Invitation: The Ethics of Care on the Threshold: The essential anti-structure that must emerge from this liminality is the Ethics of Care. This philosophical shift from an ethics of domination and instrumental value to one prioritizing relationality and interdependence is the core antidote to the prevailing logic. It is a necessary balm, a soothing alternative to the panicked, purely technological fixes that threaten a disastrous premature reaggregation.<h3>Stepping into the new Earth </h3>The global liminality is a terrifying gift. It has de-familiarized our world, tearing away the illusion of stability and exposing the brittle foundation of patriarchal-capitalist systems. Ecofeminism is the map through the terra incognita. It is a radical call, yet simultaneously a soothing reassurance that the solution is not more control, but more connection, more humility, and more care.The current moment of uncertainty is not a flaw in the system; it is the system, suspended and laid bare. The responsibility of the present generation is to ensure that the eventual reaggregation, the structure that follows this threshold, does not once again subordinate the vital, life-sustaining work of the Earth and the bodies that sustain it.Now is the time not only to image but to co-create new planetary culture where the values of care, embodiment, and interspecies relationality form the bedrock of the post-liminal state.

The threshold of crisis: Liminality as a lens for Ecofeminist praxis

Why a just energy transition demands Queer Intersectional Ecofeminism

We live in an era of cascading crises. From the scorching heat of unprecedented wildfires and the devastation of record floods to the quiet violence of ecological collapse and the relentless march of mass extinctions, the world as we know it is fundamentally destabilized. For researchers, these aren't just headlines; they're the raw data points of our work. For activists, they are the urgent, existential threats that define our struggle. And for both, there is a growing, unsettling question: are our dominant paradigms, the very frameworks we've been taught to rely on, equipped to meet this moment?The short, painful answer is no.Our established ways of knowing, usually rooted in a scientific method that seeks to dissect and compartmentalize, or an activism that fights single battles in isolation, are failing to grasp the interconnected nature of our predicament. We continue to see the climate crisis as a separate, environmental problem. We talk about social justice as distinct from ecological health. We draw lines between the "natural" world and the "human" world, as if we are not one. But the polycrisis—the convergence of climate, social, and economic collapse—has shown us that these divisions are false and dangerous. The same systems that perpetuate ecological violence are the ones that uphold gendered, racialized, and colonial hierarchies. To heal the Earth, we must heal our communities, and to heal our communities, we must dismantle the very idea that they can be separated.This is the central insight of Queer Ecofeminism, a discipline that refuses to compartmentalize. It's a radical lens for a radical moment. It's not just a new theory to be debated in academic journals; it's a call to action for anyone who feels that our current tools are insufficient. It is a new way of seeing, and more importantly, a new way of doing. This is why I have created the online course, "<a data-mce-href="https://theecofeministinstitute.com/enroll-now--online-course--queer-ecofeminism-and-the-pluriverse--critical-frameworks-for-an-age-of-climate-crisis" href="https://theecofeministinstitute.com/enroll-now--online-course--queer-ecofeminism-and-the-pluriverse--critical-frameworks-for-an-age-of-climate-crisis">Queer Ecofeminism and the Climate Polycrisis: Introduction and Critical Frameworks</a>," a space for researchers and activists to collectively explore these ideas and, together, build a more robust, compassionate, and effective way forward.&nbsp;<h3>The Cracks in Our Foundation: Why Our Current Thinking Isn't Enough &nbsp;</h3>For generations, both scientific inquiry and political action have been structured around a set of foundational binaries. We've been taught to see the world as a series of dualisms: human vs. non-human, male vs. female, natural vs. cultural, mind vs. body, subject vs. object. While these dichotomies have enabled certain forms of progress, they have also served as the bedrock of systems of domination. The very idea that "nature" is something separate from us allows us to treat it as a resource to be extracted, exploited, and discarded. The belief that some humans (think of cis-hetero, white, able bodied, males from wealthier nations) are a distinct and superior category has justified the oppression of women*, Indigenous communities, racialized people, and LGBTQIA2S+ people who are often dehumanized or cast as being "unnatural".The question is, who defines the "natural"?As researchers, we've seen how this plays out in our work. We may study the dynamics of a forest ecosystem, but feel disconnected from the activist fighting to protect it. We might analyze data on global temperature rise, but struggle to articulate how that data connects to the lived experiences of marginalized communities facing environmental racism. Our research, though vital, can become siloed and disembodied. We publish, we present, and we debate, but the frameworks we use often reinforce the very divisions that contribute to the problem.For activists, the challenge is similar. We may fight valiantly to protect a specific watershed, to protest a new pipeline, or to advocate for a specific climate policy. But what if the very language we use—the fight for "the environment"—reinforces the idea that it's a separate entity from the people who live in it? What if the struggle for gender and racial equality is not just a parallel fight, but fundamentally the same fight as the struggle for ecological survival? When we fail to see these connections, we allow the systems of power that exploit one to continue exploiting the other. We are left feeling overwhelmed and fragmented, fighting a thousand separate battles when what we truly need is a unified, holistic vision.This is not a criticism of the work we have done, but an invitation to push our thinking further. This course is built on the premise that to solve a problem as entangled as the polycrisis, we need a discipline that is just as entangled.<h3>A new map for a shifting landscape: What is Queer Ecofeminism? </h3>Queer Ecofeminism is not simply an "add-on" to ecofeminism; it is a radical, inclusive, intersectional reimagining. It takes the foundational critiques of patriarchy and environmental exploitation and amplifies them with the insights of queer theory, which challenges the very nature of norms, categories, essentialisms, and binaries. It argues that the oppression of racial, gender, and sexual minorities, the exploitation of women, the subjugation of Indigenous peoples, and the domination of the Earth are all manifestations of the same logic: a logic of power, control, and categorization.At its heart, this course will help you understand that a "queer" approach to the climate crisis is not just about including LGBTQIA2S+ voices (though that is essential!). It's about approaching the crisis itself in a way that is non-normative, fluid, and relational. We will ask:<ul><li>How can we see the Earth not as a machine to be managed, but as a dynamic, intimate network of kinship and care?</li><li>What happens when we think of human and non-human beings not as separate categories, but as participants in a shared, fluid ecology?</li><li>How do non-normative identities and relationalities offer us new tools to think through climate disasters, displacement, and ecosystem collapse? The course will guide you through this process with foundational concepts and cutting-edge scholarship. We will explore how non-normative ways of being, from queer social structures to trans-ecological relations, provide radical alternatives to the dominating frameworks of colonial-capitalist ecologies. This isn't about replacing one set of dogmas with another; it's about developing a practice of constant inquiry and compassionate imagination. It's about moving from a mindset of domination and destruction to one of kinship and care.</li></ul><h3>From theory to praxis: The power of collaborative action </h3>This course is designed for people who don't just want to think differently, but want to do differently. It is built around the idea that knowledge is not something to be passively received, but something to be collaboratively created. We'll blend theoretical readings with hands-on, practice-based methodologies that are designed to help you transform your work.You'll participate in creative exercises, mapping, and speculative writing that will challenge you to "queer" your own research or activism. What would your research on hydrology look like if you centered the voices and knowledge of local, Indigenous communities? What would your climate campaign look like if it was guided by a principle of relational care rather than just political leverage? We'll provide a supportive space for peer-to-peer feedback, allowing you to prototype new ideas and receive constructive criticism from a close-knit community of like-minded people.By the end of the course, you will not just have a new set of theories; you will have tangible, practical outcomes to carry forward. You will draft a project brief, create a short presentation, and write a critical reflection essay that integrates your work with feminist, queer, and ecological literature (with the option to publish it as part of a special blog series of The Ecofeminist Institute. <h3>Why This Course, and Why Now? &nbsp;</h3><figure id="figure-8dwhufs307me7akto7"><img id="8dwhufs307me7akto7" src="https://cdn.durable.co/blocks/26I3PWQsVr7KKEL5iEFNaY61susnuLlw2rBWSJXqbbjSqmtI0mg6vNnflQHOKeZW.png" alt="" title="" class="object-cover bg-gray-100 rounded-lg md:rounded-xl lg:rounded-2xl" style="aspect-ratio: 1/1; object-position: undefined% 5%;" data-corners="medium" data-aspect="1:1" data-caption="" data-positionX="undefined%" data-positionY="5%" data-fullWidth="false"/></figure>The moment of crisis is also the moment of possibility. The old ways are failing, and the urgency of our predicament demands a new kind of thinking and a new kind of action. This course, led by Dr. Asmae Ourkiya, is an answer to that call. It's a chance to step back from the daily grind and re-center your work within a holistic, compassionate, and powerful framework.With a limit of just 15 participants, this course offers an intimate and collaborative environment that is rare in today’s fragmented world. It’s an invitation to connect with fellow researchers, academics, and activists who are all grappling with the same questions, and to forge the kinds of relationships that can sustain us through the difficult work ahead.The climate crisis is a polycrisis, and to solve it, we need a pluriversal approach. This course is your first step toward that future.&nbsp; Enrollment Details:Course Fee: €300 Dates: Sundays, January 11, 18, and 25, 2026 from 14:00 to 17:00 CET Format: Live on Zoom (recordings provided) Application Deadline: October 31, 2025, or as soon as all spots are filled. To reserve your spot and become part of this vital community, please complete the enrollment <a data-mce-href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScVtGbTePYSXHtUury1o-LdR-Elj8tsS2aNTOPRHZfKo5oqbg/viewform" href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScVtGbTePYSXHtUury1o-LdR-Elj8tsS2aNTOPRHZfKo5oqbg/viewform">form</a>. We look forward to welcoming you to the course.

Beyond the Binary: Why Queer Ecofeminism is the Lens We Need for the Climate Polycrisis

<h3>On Gender and Environmental Policies</h3>The intersection of gender and environmental policies is a crucial area of study, and has been gaining more attention as we strive for global shifts towards sustainable development. This relationship reveals how gender roles and identities can influence environmental decision-making processes and outcomes. Understanding the gender dynamics when it comes to drafting all the way to implementing climate policies is therefore essential for creating inclusive and just environments that ensure accessibility for all (despite how utopian this sounds!)<figure id="figure-j6ewkgfkvgmbqfbwdb"><img id="j6ewkgfkvgmbqfbwdb" src="https://media.gettyimages.com/id/79328361/photo/mother-and-son-looking-at-lake.jpg?b=1&amp;s=2048x2048&amp;w=0&amp;k=20&amp;c=QCQzaaz2x80Rb6j-6X219Z4cTV_cisP3UCYetkfFdWk=" alt="gender environment" class="object-cover bg-gray-100" style="aspect-ratio: 16/9;" data-mce-src="https://media.gettyimages.com/id/79328361/photo/mother-and-son-looking-at-lake.jpg?b=1&amp;s=2048x2048&amp;w=0&amp;k=20&amp;c=QCQzaaz2x80Rb6j-6X219Z4cTV_cisP3UCYetkfFdWk=" data-mce-style="aspect-ratio: 16/9;"></figure><h3>The role of women in environmental advocacy</h3>Women have historically played significant roles in environmental movements, as they have historically been baring the intersecting consequences of patriarchal socio-climatic issues. Having birthed ecofeminism in postcolonial countries such as India (The Chipko Andolna movement for instance), all the way to leadership roles in academia and scholar-activism (Vandana Shiva), their involvement in academic research, grassroots activism, and policy advocacy has been instrumental in addressing issues such as deforestation, fossil extraction, pollution, and climate change. Women's involvement in climate research and activism has also opened the door for other women (trans*, women with disabilities, women from the global majority, etc.) to dare to hold the mic too and speak up through intersectional lenses. The domino effect also led to the exploration of the enmeshment of queer and climate justice, and how cis-hetero extractivist patriarchy dominates land, resources, and non cis-het-able-white-bodies.&nbsp;Yet despite global movements, extensive (yet not enough!) scholarship on such intersections, we (people from the global majority, queer people, people with disabilities) remain laregely underrepresented in decision-making positions related to environmental policies around the world. This lack of representation can lead to policies that do not fully account for the needs and insights of more than half of the world's population. Consequently, we are currently living in times where climate governance (from funding, distribution of resources, access to influential postitions, to policy changes) is elitist, ableist, heavily binary gendered, filled with white / nordic favouritism.&nbsp;<h3>Gender-specific impacts of environmental policies</h3>Environmental policies can have varying impacts on different genders due to existing and emerging social and economic inequalities. For example, racialised people in formerly/currently colonised lands are responsible for gathering and managing household resources like water and energy. Policies that fail to consider the colonial impact of societal and infrastructural development can inadvertently reinforce racialised gender inequalities, placing a heavier burden on women who remain entrapped in enforced traditional roles.<figure id="figure-xk3wmd3busmbqfbwdb"><img id="xk3wmd3busmbqfbwdb" src="https://media.gettyimages.com/id/2170390879/photo/woman-with-poncho-meditating-in-the-mountain.jpg?b=1&s=2048x2048&w=0&k=20&c=GEJZbXccNTAI9QIw6VhKd3POfoxW91Dq31uS1AjyM4E=" alt="Woman with poncho meditating in the mountain" title="Woman with poncho meditating in the mountain" class="object-cover bg-gray-100 rounded-2xl md:rounded-3xl lg:rounded-4xl" style="aspect-ratio: 16/9; object-position: center center;" data-corners="default" data-aspect="16:9" data-caption="" data-positionX="null" data-positionY="null" data-fullWidth="false"/></figure>On the other hand, Indigenous knowledge is not just valuable—it’s essential—for healing the deep wounds left by fossil-fuelled, extractive masculinities that continue to drill, dominate, and dispossess lands and peoples across the globe. These masculinities are not only environmentally violent, but also uphold colonial hierarchies that view nature as a resource to be conquered, not a relation to be respected. Indigenous ways of knowing offer radically different epistemologies—relational, reciprocal, and often grounded in care-based practices that centre interdependence over control.But here's the catch: if we want to meaningfully integrate and formalise these knowledge systems into so-called legitimate frameworks, we first need to start by acknowledging—and, crucially, decriminalising—the existence of gender diversity in Indigenous communities. That means recognising identities and roles beyond the colonial male/female binary, many of which were violently erased or suppressed by Eurocentric laws and Christian or Islamic moralities imposed through colonisation and imperialism.Take, for example, the Zapotec people in Oaxaca, Mexico, where muxe—a recognised third gender—have long existed as an integral part of the community. Or the Diné (Navajo), who traditionally recognise four gender roles, including nádleehi, people who embody both feminine and masculine traits. These roles weren’t just tolerated—they were often revered.Closer to my own context, the Imazighen (indigenous people of North Africa) had—and in some cases still have—gender roles and expressions that resisted binary constraints. Many pre-Islamic Amazigh traditions featured matrifocal or gender-flexible social structures, with priestesses, warriors, and spiritual leaders who didn't fit neatly into Western gender categories. Oral histories and symbol like the Tifinagh script or the goddess Tannit ( goddess of fertility and the moon, who was the patron goddess of Carthage and is related to Ishtar and Astarte) point to a time when gendered power was more fluid, embodied, and entangled with land-based practices. But centuries of Arabisation, colonial rule by the French and Spanish, and the ongoing policing of queerness through state and religious mechanisms have muted these legacies, turning queerness into something ‘foreign’ or ‘un-African,’ when in fact it was always there.So yes, Indigenous knowledge can guide us toward more sustainable futures but not if we continue to strip it of its queerness, its plurality, and its refusal to fit neatly into Western (or colonial) norms. Restoring land without restoring gendered and spiritual sovereignty is just another form of greenwashing, wrapped in performative allyship. Decriminalising Indigenous gender diversity isn't a side note, it’s a precondition for any genuine climate justice.<h3>Conclusion: what would a queer, decolonial climate policy even look like?</h3>It’s clear that current environmental governance, from the UNFCCC to the Paris Agreement, still operates within rigid state-centric, colonial, eurocentric, and binary gendered logics. These frameworks love to use buzzwords like “gender mainstreaming” and “inclusivity,” but rarely (if ever) address the roots of systemic exclusion: resource (human and non-human)-driven colonialism, cisheteropatriarchy, racial capitalism. The result? A climate policy space that keeps rewarding the same voices, reinforcing the same systems, and replicating the same harm.I know, the Gender Action Plan under the UNFCCC exists. But let’s not confuse presence with power. Most international climate negotiations still treat gender as a “side issue,” something to tack on after the big boys in suits finish talking about carbon markets and GDPs. And while some progress has been made (hello, observer status and tokenised panels), representation without redistribution is just window dressing.So what would it mean to actually queer climate governance? To stop measuring success through carbon-only metrics and instead centre interdependence, land rematriation, disability justice, and Indigenous queer resurgence? To craft climate policy that doesn’t just “accommodate” but is co-authored by people who’ve been historically silenced: queer Black and Indigenous women, trans* people, disabled people, and undocumented migrants.If we are serious about a just transition, then we need to move beyond merely adding colour and pronouns to the margins of existing systems. We need to dismantle the systems themselves. That means rethinking not just what gets protected, but who gets to define protection. It means not just “integrating gender,” but deconstructing the entire colonial gender order that underpins global environmental harm.In other words: no climate justice without gender justice. No sustainability without sovereignty. And definitely no green futures without queering the roots.

How does gender affect environmental policies?

<h3>Introduction: Gender Justice Isn't Justice for All</h3> Gender justice is often talked about in neat binaries: male vs. female, men vs. women, patriarchy vs. feminism. But what happens when the data, systems, and policies built on those binaries ignore people who exist outside of them? What happens when trans*, genderqueer, and non-binarypeople are rendered invisible by the very institutions meant to fight for gender equality?In this essay, I argue that gender justice that relies on binary data is not justice at all. It’s a system of partial recognition and selective liberation. When policies, research, and activism fail to account for the full diversity of gender experiences, they reproduce the very inequities they claim to dismantle. It’s time to confront the gaps and to ask ourselves hard questions about what we mean when we talk about fairness.<h3>A people made invisible: Who gets counted?</h3> Let’s start with the numbers. <a data-mce-href="https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/press/lgbtq-nonbinary-press-release/#:~:text=An%20estimated%2011%25%20of%20LGBTQ,29%2C%20urban%2C%20and%20white." href="https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/press/lgbtq-nonbinary-press-release/#:~:text=An%20estimated%2011%25%20of%20LGBTQ,29%2C%20urban%2C%20and%20white.">In the U.S. alone, the Williams Institute reported that 1.2 million adults identify as non-binary. </a>The Trevor Project found that over one in four LGBTQIA+ youth say the same. In countries with emerging data, like Australia or parts of Europe, figures vary, but one truth is consistent: a significant number of people don’t identify as either male or female.Yet most surveys, censuses, and assessments either offer two gender options or ignore gender identity altogether. That means decisions around healthcare, education, employment, and justice are being made without knowing how they affect millions of people.This is not a data issue. It’s a political choice to not look. And when we don’t count people, we tell them they don’t count.<h3>&nbsp; The binary bias: Why data still gets gender wrong</h3> Traditional data collection relies on what’s convenient, familiar, and statistically comfortable. Most institutions ask one question: "What is your gender?" with two checkboxes: male or female. Some progressive ones who have upgraded their HR policies sometimes offer the "diverse" option, which is too vague and remains open to interpretation. This erases lives that don’t fit and feeds into the illusion that they’re rare exceptions.Progressive institutions now increasingly use the two-step model: ask for sex assigned at birth, then ask for current gender identity. This simple shift, endorsed by major health and research bodies like the U.S. National Academies, yields more accurate, inclusive data.Yet global adoption remains inconsistent. India has made strides, including a third gender category in official documents. <a data-mce-href="https://apnews.com/article/brazil-court-gender-identity-neutral-0a66363fc6ecfaba3d391d2b0a776ce3" href="https://apnews.com/article/brazil-court-gender-identity-neutral-0a66363fc6ecfaba3d391d2b0a776ce3">A high court in Brazil has recently allowed people to identify as gender neutral on official documents.</a> In contrast, other countries criminalise gender variance, consequently weaponising data collection to surveil rather than support. It’s a reminder that inclusion isn’t just about options, it’s about trust, power, and safety.<h3>The cost of erasure: Policy gaps and real-world harm</h3> When trans*, genderqueer, and non-binary people are invisible in data, they're invisible in policy. Consider health: trans* people are less likely to receive appropriate reproductive care, often forced to choose between being misgendered or denied access. Non-binary folks on the other hand face similar hurdles, especially in mental health systems not trained to support their realities.Or look at employment. Without disaggregated data, we can’t quantify workplace discrimination, wage gaps, or hiring biases faced by gender-diverse people. Anti-discrimination laws in many places still don’t explicitly protect non-binary identities, partly because the data isn’t there to make the case.This isn't just a matter of fairness. It's a matter of survival.<h3>&nbsp; Intersectionality matters: Layers of oppression, gaps in understanding</h3> The harm is amplified when gender diversity intersects with race, class, disability, or migration. A Black non-binary person seeking asylum faces barriers that are wholly different from a white (white passing too) cis woman in the same system. But binary-focused data tools often flatten these differences, missing the nuanced realities that would make interventions effective.Without inclusive, intersectional data, policies become blunt instruments. They might serve some women, but leave trans*, enby, and intersex people out in the cold.<h3>&nbsp; Beyond inclusion:</h3> Counting is not enough. Ethical inclusion means:Community involvement: trans*, intersex, and enby people must help design the questions. Privacy and protection: particularly in countries where disclosure could mean violence. Legal recognition: without identity documents that reflect who you are, access to rights is always conditional. This is where data becomes radical: not just descriptive, but transformative. Participatory, inclusive research practices challenge power, redistribute voice, and build systems from the margins in.<h3>&nbsp; Final reflections: What do we really want from gender justice?</h3> If gender justice is truly about fairness, then we must ask: fairness for whom? Are we content with metrics that improve life for cis women while leaving trans* and enby folks behind? Can we claim victory in gender equality if our tools ignore millions of people?Justice must be collective, not conditional. It must be messy, uncomfortable, and fully human. That means abandoning the fantasy of neat categories and embracing the full spectrum of gender. It means recognising that the binary isn’t broken: it was never built to hold us all.Remember, data is not neutral. It reflects who we care about. It shapes who gets help and who gets left out. If we want real gender justice, we need real data justice: inclusive, ethical, community-informed systems that count everyone.Because when we fail to count people, we fail to protect them. And no justice worth its name should leave anyone behind.

Beyond the binary checkbox in gender justice: How binary data silences trans* and non-binary experiences

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How does gender affect environmental policies?

Beyond the binary checkbox in gender justice: How binary ...