The Magazine of The Sierra Club
14 Inspiring Eco-Minded LGBTQ Folx to Follow on Instagram
Liven up your feed in honor of Pride Month and Outdoors Month
Photo by nito100/iStock
Our home planet is inhabited by a diverse array of life, sexuality, gender, kinship, care systems, and strategies for living, being, and reproducing. Earth’s varieties of fauna and flora are as expansive as the many facets of our own humanity. That’s especially true for the environmental movement and outdoors community.
In honor of Pride Month and “Great Outdoors Month”—which President Biden proclaimed in honor of the importance of the outdoors for mental and physical health, and to raise awareness about the climate and extinction crises—we’ve been celebrating. And because the year is 2021, we’ve also been scrolling. We’re psyched to recommend 14 social media feeds that lift up LGBTQ voices in the great outdoors and beyond.
View this post on Instagram
Pınar Yaku Sinopoulos-Lloyd, the self-proclaimed “trans-Indigenous mutant,” “multi-species futurist,” and “neurodivergent psychonaut” who cofounded the mind-expanding @QueerNature account, launched @queerquechua to celebrate their heritage as well as pachamama, or as she's known in Quechua, “world mother.” The Quechua peoples hail from the Peruvian Andes. Through this feed, Sinopoulos-Lloyd raises up Quechua traditional outdoor skill-building, as well as their relational model of coexisting with fellow animals and plant species. Their thoughtful and provocative posts lift up fluidity in all its forms (rather than “femme” or “masc,” Sinopoulos-Lloyd identifies as “riparian” and when asked, “Are you a boy or a girl?” responds, “I am a river”). They view gender-expansiveness as a form of Indigenous intelligence as well as an ecological formation of place. This hypnotizing account encourages followers to see nature not as a place to recreate or escape but rather to practice “intimate accountability.” It will also inspire activists to “hack the settler industrialization project” and work toward “multi-species co-liberation.”
View this post on Instagram
Growing up queer, Mexican American, vegan, and essentially zero waste (the latter because his family recycled for money and couldn’t afford to buy new things), Isaias Hernandez (the man behind @queerbrownvegan) wished he could’ve connected with other young people living similar lifestyles. “I felt so ashamed of my identity,” the environmental educator told Sierra. Hernandez found his community after launching @queerbrownvegan, through which he creates colorful graphics, illustrations, and videos for like-minded environmentalists to advance the discourse around the climate crisis, now with 90K+ followers. "We cannot liberate ourselves from the ecological crisis without our community,” Hernandez said. “Environmental education is essential in our fight against the ecological crisis." Visit his feed for surprising insights into individual climate-mitigating actions and provacative thoughts about the larger environmental justice movement.
View this post on Instagram
Join photographer, climber, writer, trans activist, and ambassador for Mountain Hardwear (among other brands) Nikki Smith (@nikkik_smith) as she documents her quest to create affinity spaces for marginalized folx in the great outdoors. Smith is candid about her own transition process and has been instrumental in the formation of queer-specific outdoor gear guidance, classes, and outings. “What I hope people in the outdoors gain from following me and others who don’t fit the 'outdoorsy' stereotype is that the idea that 'nature doesn’t care about your sexuality, gender, or race' is the wrong way to view the outdoors," Smith told Sierra. "We need to remember that our outdoor spaces are surrounded by and filled with people. While nature made us who we are, the people in and around it can make outdoor recreation dangerous or uncomfortable for those of us who are viewed as 'different.'”
View this post on Instagram
Adventurous teachers Bre and Laci of @theladiesvan met at a Los Angeles cafe in 2008. They started dating a year and a half later, dedicated their lives to traveling the world and making the outdoors more accessible, and in 2014 got married at a campsite in Malibu Creek State Park. Along the way they also became #vanlife mavens and now provide an inexpensive conversion option for the van-curious. Bre also launched another account, Sēkr (@sekr.official), through which she helps people find outdoor community, and partners with organizations like the Leave No Trace Center and Tread Lightly to educate followers on responsible stewardship in the outdoors. “Developing our passion for traveling in nature changed our lives significantly, and it is our main goal to help other people experience the same passion for lifestyle design by inspiring them to pursue their own dreams, whatever they may be,” Bre and Laci told Sierra. “We’re proud to say we’ve already helped hundreds of thousands of people get outside, with a big focus on underrepresented communities.”
View this post on Instagram
Derived from “camper” and the Vietnamese word for explore, “Khám Phá,” Khámper is the perfect word to represent explorer-campers Honnie and Niki. The Northern Californian blogging couple launched @happykhamper to inspire the LGBTQ community to explore safely—especially when traveling outside places such as their own “Bay Area bubble.” They also aim to help followers build community, develop outdoor leadership skills, and plan awesome adventures (Honnie and Niki provide plenty of insights into gear and trip-planning). “As queer Asian American women, we hope our content and stories will encourage others to spend more time in nature,” they told Sierra.
View this post on Instagram
A self-identified “white, queer, fat femme taking body liberation outdoors,” Jenny Bruso (@jennybruso) is the founder of @UnlikelyHikers, a meet-up group/social media tour de force that celebrates the diversity of shapes, sizes, backgrounds, and appearances. The explosive popularity of the group (check out Sierra’s 2018 Unlikely Hikers profile) signaled a departure from the historically homogenous optics of the outdoors industry. Bruso’s personal feed—through which she shares the work she’s doing to help brands develop gear that better serves a range of identities and body types—is somehow even more celebratory of queer liberation, as well as body liberation. A powerful writer, Bruso regularly posts reminders like, “The sneakiness of body trends is a reminder that we are seen as for-profit. Weaponized to sell products and surgeries. Distracting us from our power."
View this post on Instagram
The vibrant feed of queer wildlife educator @jaunting.jay is rife with fun wildlife facts, including provocative thoughts about veganism and various species’ relationships with pansexuality and other forms of queerness. Jay writes with candor about growing up queer and Black, and regularly celebrates those queer and Black folx advancing science. And he has some fascinating thoughts about how interspecies interactions can actually stimulate brains and aid in the evolution of progressive thoughts and actions.
View this post on Instagram
Deg Xit’an Dené/Sugpiaq (who also goes by Deenaalee) is an Indigenous, semi-nomadic, and queer-identifying fisherwoman. She’s the life force behind @go_barefoot and also a poet, writing, “As I walk this life path, I am looking forward to my introduction growing longer—mapping my lineage within the constellations of Deg Xit’an and Sugpiaq cosmologies.” It’s a powerful feed that inspires followers to develop more holistic relationships with the lands they love.
View this post on Instagram
You may remember Mikah Meyer (@mikahmey) as the first person to touch down on all 400+ NPS sites in a single journey (if not, check out Sierra’s 2017 story about the quest). The journey, which had him zooming across the country—including its less-than-gay-friendly regions—made him a queer pioneer, and a role model. “I realized that maybe, when some little queer kid would say, ‘I like to be outdoors, and I wonder if there are any gay people that do that’—I could be that person,” Meyer told Sierra. Afterward, he made a pact with himself to embark on an epic journey every five years. Follow along in real IG time as the funny and friendly native Nebraskan bikes across the state of Oregon.
View this post on Instagram
Seeking regular reminders of the connections inherent between environmentalism and social justice? @goldengreengirl knows her way around the nuances of intersectional environmentalism—the movement that advocates for the protection of both the planet and its inhabitants—and she uses her feed to identify the vast connectedness between injustices experienced by marginalized communities and those inflicted upon Mother Earth. She writes, “The are no problems for the future. All futures ripple from our present, and that means we cannot discount climate change and social justice."
View this post on Instagram
The sweeping @QueersforClimateJustice page offers another multifaceted celebration of the intersections between the LGBTQ and environmental movements. It also fêtes the many queer-identifying activists who help all environmentalists reimagine our relationships to the living world and to one another. Follow for information about affinity activist events, film screenings, and social gatherings, and for oodles of intersectional inspiration!
View this post on Instagram
In a similar vein, @intersectionalenvironmentalist is a massive platform that uplifts a range of identities, honoring their contributions to environmental and social justice progress. It’s not queer-specific but serves as a hub that’ll keep you in the know about the movers, shakers, and movement developments you’ll want to keep up on.
View this post on Instagram
The world taught Erin Eden that “adventurous and trans” wasn’t exactly a combo option. Already having ascended seven major mountain peaks, she took to the Instasphere to share her mountaineering adventures and transition process. Despite being a busy parent and pet steward, Eden labors to make the world an easier place for fellow trans adventurers to thrive (for instance, by petitioning NordicTrack to expand the binary gender options for at-home electronic exercise systems). Follow Eden as she attempts to summit Mt. Denali this month in honor of Pride. Fans will also enjoy her other, even more mountain-focused account, @transending7.
View this post on Instagram
This list wouldn’t be complete without a shout-out to the one and only @Pattiegonia. Pattie was born in 2018 when photographer Wyn Wiley started uploading photos and videos of himself backpacking in platform heels. An outdoors community hungry to transcend traditional bounds of gender and sexuality responded emphatically to Pattie’s singular, al fresco (and often hilarious) celebration of queerness and gender fluidity. Today, Pattie enjoys upwards of 336K followers. Wyn/Pattie's activism is only deepening over time. When Pattie’s not upcycling outdoor gear into fabulous costumes (fanny-pack bra, anyone?), and delivering tongue-in-cheek PSAs against littering, toxic masculinity, and fast fashion, Wyn is making cameos to share what it was like coming out in his (much-beloved) conservative home state of Nebraska and to educate followers about simple ways they can bank without supporting fossil fuel interests, and encouraging the practice of radical self-acceptance. Recently, Pattie’s created a job board for LGBTQIA+ job candidates seeking careers in outdoor and environmental spaces. And earlier this week, she launched a scholarship for young queer folx seeking immersive outdoor NOLS experiences. The trail is indeed Pattie’s runway.
