Climate change is one of the greatest threats faced by people and nature worldwide, but marginalized communities feel its impacts more severely than others. Although these communities have lower carbon footprints, they are at greater risk from climate change-related disasters and because of limited access to resources, face barriers in recovering afterwards. The queer community is no exception. Queer people face higher rates of poverty, incarceration, lack of access to healthcare, and mental health struggles. The workshop will start with a series of lighthearted activities to explain how nature is inherently queer, a story that has not been told by our science books in grade school. It is important to reframe queerness as not an aberration, but a piece of all life on our planet as a baseline for our sustainability work. This workshop will also provide the foundational connections between climate justice and the queer identity. The LGBTQIA+ community has unique characteristics that make it vulnerable to climate change in certain ways; discrimination based on gender expression from relief efforts, unequal protection in recovery policies, and a lack of recognition of the extended “queer family.” Finally, this workshop will provide space for a discussion on how we can take into account our LGBTQIA+ community in Western New York as we prepare for our changing climate. How can we embed the concerns of queer climate justice into our climate action plans? How do we make sure that our queer communities feel safe and protected when a natural disaster hits? How can we envision a queer future free of climate change and inequality?
