Wild & Queer Ecologies

by Russ McSpadden / from the 30th Anniversary Edition of the Earth First! Journal, Vol. I, 2010

Wilderness, the biodiversity of life that exists where sexual creativity and adventure flourish, is pan-sexual, poly-gendered, orgiastic and playful. The sun engages the soil with titillating light, radiation, chemical explosion and the magnetism of its flaring body in a queer ecology that spreads across the Earth.

Flora cast their seed through the embracing bodies of wind and water. Bees enter their petals. Male hummingbirds, moist from floral nectar, thrust frantically to forest canopies to copulate together — not for reproduction, but joy. Groups of female bottle nose dolphins use tails and fins to massage each others genitals, entering the folds of their sexual openings. Female hedgehogs perform cunnilingus. Male African elephants, female grizzly bears, white-tailed deer and flamingos form homosexual bonding trios. Canadian gees and black swans form bisexual trios. West Indian manatees cavort in polyamorous bisexual orgies. Lesbian bird pairs, which engage with males for reproduction only, often exhibit larger nests with more eggs than heterosexual pairings. Transgendered animals thrive. Bighorn sheep, which live in sex-segregated herds for most of the year, nevertheless exhibit male-sexed individuals that adopt female-sexed behavior patterns and remain year-round in the female-sexed herds. Numerous species of fish and bear undergo the their sexual and reproductive system to other sexualities. Testes transition to ovaries. Ovaries transition to include testes. Gender playfulness and genderlessness teem.

To date, scientists have recorded the queer lives of gray wolves, red fox, elk, bison, kestrels, barn owls, ravens, monarch butterflies, walrus, bats, giraffes, lions, penguins, hyenas, dragonflies, humans and so on, to a total of 1,500 species and counting.

Deep Green Transphobia

A statement from the Earth First! Journal Collective

On several occasions the Earth First! Journal editorial collective has run pieces both online and in print either written by or about the Deep Green Resistance Movement. As a collective, we’ve considered DGR to have some value to Earth First! discussions around feminism, organizing principles, ecological analysis and critiques of civilization. In 2010 we published a piece by Lierre Kieth and Derrick Jensen, and in 2012 we inserted a section from the book Deep Green Resistance on militant approaches to the ecological crisis, which was written by Aric McBay.

The Earth First! Journal collective is dedicated to providing our readers with views from diverse groups, from Earth First!ers on the frontlines to conservative farmers’ struggling against the Keystone XL Pipeline or fracking; from the Move 9 and all political prisoners to Zapatistas, liberal climate change media stars, pacifist Quakers against mountaintop removal and bomb throwing anarchists in Mexico and Greece. It is our goal to print stories and analysis that spark relevant discussion, new alliances, necessary schisms and resistance.

However, in light of DGR’s continued assault on trans people, with language and analysis that denies the struggles of trans-people and even goes so far as to deny the value, worth and power of their existence in radical movements, labeling trans people as somehow “not real,” or as Post-Modern manifestations of individualism, the Earth First! Journal collective will no longer print or in any way promote DGR material. While we don’t need to agree with an individual or organization to find their words or actions relevant for discussion we will not continue to include those whose core expression of values continues to promote exclusion and oppression.