This May and June, SGCR looks at the concept of queer, as a lead up towards this year’s Pink Dot in June. Eve Sedgwick reminds us that among the many meanings of “queerness”, it can denote “the open mesh of possibilities, gaps, overlaps, dissonances and resonances, lapses and excesses of meaning when the constituent elements of anyone’s gender, of anyone’s sexuality aren’t made (or can’t be made) to signify monolithically.” Thus, we break down the typical heterosexual view of nature to uncover what other ways of relating to the environment it leaves out.

In a time when trans, non-gender conforming, gay and women’s identities and bodies continue to be highly contested both globally and in Singapore, SGCR takes this time to reflect on meaningful interconnections between climate activism and the struggle against heteronormative patriarchal society. At the same time, as climate activists, we take on the provocation to queer our practices of climate activism. What are some of the assumptions, exclusions, silences that are implicit within the common striving for more collective, equitable futures?

After all, queerness is all around us: dolphins and penguins have been observed to have same sex relations; clownfish, bearded dragons and frogs can change their gender after birth; nudibranchs, slugs and snails are hermaphrodites — just a few examples illustrated here.

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