Pride Month: LGBTQIA+ experiences and expertise in the outdoors

The journal Parks Stewardship Forum recently published a special issue titled “LGBTQIA+ Experiences and Expertise in the Outdoors and in Conservation.” Guest editor Forrest King-Cortes, the Alliance’s director of community-centered conservation, worked on the issue with a team of writers, editors and other contributors to highlight LGBTQIA+ perspectives through photography, artwork, videos, first-hand essays and more. One case study follows the career of a transmasculine individual navigating the challenges of working in outdoor recreation jobs, which often involve a variety of unique living situations, arrangements and contexts — such as moving to rural or remote communities or living in shared housing — that can pose “distinctive challenges to individuals who have non-dominant identities,” wrote the authors.

King-Cortes shared his thoughts on the issue below:

This special issue highlights the deep and complex relationships that LGBTQIA+ communities hold with nature, the joy we find in building community outdoors, and the ways that our lived experiences and identities translate to unique and essential conservation expertise. The guest editorial team and our partners at the George Wright Society were intentional about crafting the call for content, knowing that we wanted the diversity of our communities to shine through. We explicitly invited submissions in many forms, and in any language. As submissions rolled in, we fundraised to compensate contributors for their expertise and to ensure that we could cover translating costs if needed.

Serving on an all-queer guest editorial team and working on a publication dedicated to uplifting LGBTQIA+ voices was a personal and emotional experience for me. In the early days of my conservation schooling and career, I struggled to find leaders with whom I had much in common, and I rarely saw myself in writing and research about the outdoors. This special issue is but a sampling of the perspective and knowledge that is often missing in the spaces where conservation decisions are made, the programs we design and in the places we protect and the stories we tell about those places. The issue is powerful because it shows that experts and expertise come in many forms. Our landscapes are healthier and more resilient when we tend to their diversity. So too does our conservation practice become richer and more resilient when we make space for experts and expertise in all their forms.

For more information and to read the issue, head here!