A Rapid Review of the Impacts of Climate Change on the Queer Community

Abstract

Background:

Climate change exacerbates the marginalization of already vulnerable communities. The queer community is one such group impacted by climate change and by the increasing frequency and intensity of natural disasters globally. This review sought to identify the impacts of climate change on the queer community.

Methods:

Web of Science, Scopus, Medline, GreenFILE, and IBSS databases were searched systematically. Keywords relating to climate change and the queer community were used to search for articles published in the last 10 years. Peer-reviewed journal articles that drew on empirical primary or secondary research, regardless of discipline, were included.

Results:

Fourteen articles met the inclusion criteria and themes across the included articles were identified, explored, and discussed. A review of these articles determined that inappropriate and inadequate provision of postdisaster aid emerged as the most salient impact of climate change on the queer community, as well as the added impact of intersecting identities. However, the queer community engaged in collective strategies that facilitated resilience in the face of climate disasters.

Discussion:

The findings of this review suggest not only changes to policy and practice to make disaster management more inclusive, but also suggest possible models of community support that can be replicated across various social groups.

INTRODUCTION

No one will escape the impacts of climate change, but it is well established that some social groups are more vulnerable to these impacts than others.¹ As the impacts of climate change become more severe, calls are growing to understand how certain communities are uniquely impacted and identify ways in which these impacts can be mitigated. For example, when establishing an “Office of Climate Change and Health Equity,” President Biden included an “Interagency Working Group to Decrease Risk of Climate Change to Children, the Elderly, People with Disabilities, and the Vulnerable.” The queer community, which is taken here as term inclusive of a range of sexual and gender identities and expressions not found within hetero- and cisnormative paradigms² is a particularly vulnerable group in the face of climate change.

As Gorman-Murray et al.³ argue “vulnerability is not an inherent characteristic of social groups, but a product of existing societal marginality.” Despite recent progress on both legal and societal levels, the queer community still faces high levels of social marginalization. Queer social marginalization is evident in the higher rates of poverty and discrimination, homelessness, mental health distress, loneliness, chronic illness, and incarceration experienced by the queer community in comparison with the general population.⁴ Given this existing marginalization, climate change is likely to exacerbate the problem further. Identifying and understanding these impacts is essential to begin to create policies that will reduce harm in this community.

In the backdrop of increased debates on climate justice,⁵ some research is beginning to explore the intersection between the queer community and climate change. For example, scholars have studied the perceptions of climate change in the queer community, finding LGBTQ+ individuals express higher agreement with climate change beliefs, identify climate change as a greater threat, and worry more about climate change, compared with cishet individuals.⁶ Research has also explored how the queer community may engage with climate activism.⁷^,⁸ However, a review of literature applying a queer theoretical perspective to climate change and environmental issues found this emerging literature is primarily theoretical.⁹

To identify the impacts of climate change on the queer community and to understand how the queer community could be impacted by climate change, a rapid review was completed. This review aims to provide an original contribution to knowledge by exploring what is known about climate change impacts on queer people, which is an understudied population in the field,¹⁰ identifying gaps in research, practice, and policy. Findings from the review suggest disaster relief preparedness and postdisaster responses further marginalize the queer community. These findings are relevant to environmental justice scholarship, climate change policy and disaster management preparedness and response strategies. In addition, the work will be of relevance to community organizations, social services, and queer organizations as they consider the impact of climate change on their service users.

The structure of the report is as follows. First, the methodology used to review the literature is outlined. Second, the content of the articles will be analyzed and discussed. Finally, recommendations and future research avenues will be identified.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

To explore the existing literature, a rapid review methodology was used, which allows researchers to quickly locate and synthesize existing literature and thereby identify trends and gaps in current research.¹¹ Our search strategy was developed in consultation with a research librarian. Using the search terms found in Table 1, electronic searches of titles, abstracts, and keywords of articles indexed in the Web of Science, Scopus, Medline, GreenFILE, and IBSS databases were conducted. The search period was limited to the past 10 years (2012–2022) to allow for the most up-to-date results, and the range of databases used ensured a broad return of results across various academic disciplines and geographies. The inclusion criteria were as follows. For ease of the research team, only articles published in English were included. Only peer-reviewed journal articles that drew on empirical primary or secondary research, regardless of discipline, were included. Books, conference papers, and other types of gray literature were excluded to ensure quality and reproducibility.¹²

Table 1.

Keywords Used for Search

Keywords relating to queer community	lgbt^* OR lesbian OR gay OR bisexual OR queer OR homosexual^* OR pansexual^* OR Intersex OR transgender OR Nonbinary OR “Non-binary” OR Trans^* OR Transmen OR “Trans-men” OR Transman OR “Trans-man” OR Transwomen OR “Trans-women” OR Transwoman OR “Trans-woman” OR Transperson^* OR “Trans-person^*” OR Transpeople OR “Trans-people” OR “Gender diverse” OR “Gender fluid”
AND
Keywords relating to climate change	“Climate change” OR “Global warming” OR “Greenhouse effect” OR “Extreme weather” OR “Heat wave” OR “High temperature” OR “Extreme heat” OR “Extreme cold” OR Drought^* OR Flood^* OR Tornadoes OR Hurricanes OR Cyclones OR Typhoons OR “Tropical Storms” OR Blizzards OR “Tidal Waves” OR Tsunamis OR “Natural Disasters” OR “Forest fires” OR Wildfires OR Landslides OR “Ocean acidification” OR “Sea Level Rise” OR “Environmental Change”

The first and second authors independently conducted searches using the agreed strategy and inclusion/exclusion criteria. First, titles and abstracts were scanned to ensure relevance, followed by an analysis of the introductions, and then the full text was assessed. Differences in choices of articles to include or exclude were resolved through discussion by the research team. In addition, the snowballing procedure was used to ensure no articles heavily cited within the final sample were missed.¹³ Data were extracted from the final list of included articles by the research team, focusing on study location, participant characteristics, research methods, and key results. Themes across the included articles were identified, explored, and discussed.

RESULTS

Study and participant characteristics

The search strategy identified 475 articles as potentially relevant; 181 were excluded as duplicates, and 13 remained after cursory and full-text review. One article was added via snowballing (Fig. 1). The final sample articles were published between 2014 and 2021. Study locations were limited to the developed countries of Canada, United States, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan, as well the developing countries of Haiti, India, Indonesia, The Philippines, and Nepal. Of the 14 studies, 6 were authored by the same co-authors. Table 2 provides an overview of the included studies.

FIG. 1.

Search process flow diagram.

Table 2.

Summary of Reviewed Articles

Authors	Years	Journal	Title	Countries	Methods	Key results
Brown, Pazderka, Agyapong, Greenshaw, Cribben, Brett-MacLean, Drolet, McDonald-Harker, Omeje, Lee, Mankowsi, Noble, Kitching, and Silverstone	2021	Frontiers in Psychiatry	Mental health symptoms unexpectedly increased in students aged 11–19 years during the 3.5 years after the 2016 Fort McMurray Wildfire: Findings from 9376 survey responses	Canada	Survey of 11- to 19-year-olds (3070 samples in 2017; 3265 samples in 2018; and 3041 samples in 2019)	Higher levels of mental health distress in individuals with a minority gender identity, including trans and gender-nonconforming individuals. Mental health impacts can persist for years following a disaster
Dominey-Howes, Gorman-Murray, and McKinnon	2014	Gender, Place and Culture	Queering disasters: On the need to account for LGBTI experiences in natural disaster contexts	United States, Haiti, India, Indonesia, The Philippines	Critical review of five case studies	Hurricane Katrina—same-sex couples were excluded from family support. Middle class family suburbs prioritized over LGBTI areas. LGBTI neighborhoods also prone to greater flooding. Hatian Earthquake—destruction of “already limited physical spaces, social networks, and support services” for queer community; churches blamed LGBTI community for “causing” the earthquake in sermons, leading to assaults on gay and bisexual men; LGBTI persons were subject to gender-based violence and “corrective rape.” South and East Asia—stigmatization and discrimination increased due to the loss of personal spaces and privacy; mockery, physical and sexual abuse, and prejudice
Goldsmith, Raditz, and Méndez	2021	Disasters	Queer and present danger: Understanding the disparate impacts of disasters on LGBTQ+ communities	United States	Literature review	Identified 5 drivers of vulnerability: (1) poverty and discrimination; (2) homelessness; (3) mental health; (4) chronic illness and access to health care; (5) incarceration. Also identified 3 drivers of discrimination after natural disaster: (1) bias in federal disaster response programs; (2) lack of recognition of LGBTQ+ families; (3) prevalence of faith-based organizations in disaster relief services
Gorman-Murray, McKinnon. and Dominey-Howes	2014	Home Cultures	Queer Domicide: LGBT displacement and home loss in natural disaster impact, response, and recovery	India, Indonesia, United States, Haiti, Japan, Australia, New Zealand	Textual analysis of literature review of existing publications on LGBT experiences in natural disasters and data from pilot work on LGBT experiences of Brisbane floods and earthquake in Christchurch	Destruction of LGBT residences and neighborhoods. Disaster impact, response, and recovery “unmakes” LGBT home and belonging on three sites/scales: (1) destruction of individual residences, (2) concerns about privacy and discrimination in temporary shelters, and (3) loss and rebuilding of LGBT communities
Gorman-Murray, McKinnon, Dominey-Howes, Nash, and Bolton	2018	Gender, Place and Culture	Listening and learning: giving voice to trans experiences of disasters	Australia, New Zealand	Single biography, corroborated and supported by multiple survey responses	Displacement from trans spaces creates additional fear, emotional trauma, and complications for trans people, for example, the need to access hormone replacement drugs that may have to be stored in specific environments
Gorman-Murray, Morris, Keppel, McKinnon, and Dominey-Howes	2017	Gender, Place and Culture	Problems and possibilities on the margins: LGBT experiences in the 2011 Queensland floods	Australia	Textual analysis of 48 responses to survey conducted by the Queensland Association for Healthy Communities	Two-thirds of the respondents were fearful of heterosexist, homophobic, and/or transphobic prejudice and/or abuse, 43% indicated they were fearful in all public places during the floods and the recovery. Almost one-quarter of respondents who evacuated their homes, sought shelter with their families-of-origin rather than in emergency shelters services owing to anxiety about how they would be received, some respondents had to “closet” their LGBT identity
McKinnon, Gorman-Murray, and Dominey-Howes	2016	Social and Cultural Geography	“The greatest loss was a loss of our history”: natural disasters, marginalised identities, and sites of memory	Australia	Interview narratives	Identified three impacts specific to destruction of home during natural disasters: (1) losing collective gay histories in disasters; (2) unintended home invasions; (3) losing home, memory and self; (4) reminder of traumatic memories such as the AIDS crisis
McKinnon, Gorman-Murray, and Dominey-Howes	2017	Journal of Homosexuality	Disasters, queer narratives, and the news: How are LGBTI disaster experiences reported by the mainstream and LGBTI media?	Australia, New Zealand	Quantitative and qualitative analysis of news articles from mainstream papers and LGBTI media	Overall, a heteronormative construction of natural disasters is portrayed by news media with little mainstream coverage of the impacts of the floods on queer community or businesses in Brisbane. Queer news media reports on recovery or relocation but moved quickly on to other topics, suggesting little participation in debates about disaster management
McTighe and Haywood	2017	Souls	“There Is NO Justice in Louisiana”: Crimes against nature and the spirit of black feminist resistance	United States	Ethnography drawing on testimonies, policy briefs, educational materials, legal analysis, and interviews	In an attempt to “restore moral order” after Hurricane Katrina, hundreds of cis- and trans-gender women were arrested and convicted of a felony-level Crime Against Nature by Solicitation and forced to register as sex offenders for periods of 15 years to life
Parkinson, Duncan, Leonard, and Archer	2022	Gender Issues	Lesbian and bisexual women's experience of emergency management	Australia	Exploratory, qualitative study involving in-depth interviews with four lesbian or bisexual women	(1) Heteronormative assumptions in service providers negatively impact the queer communities access to services; (2) Queer people must decide whether to “come out” in the aftermath of a disaster; (3) Emergency services in Victoria have a culture of masculinity leading to anxiety for the queer community; (4) Faith-based organizations are central to Victoria's emergency response, which alienates queer population
Simmonds, Jenkins, White, Nicholas, and Bell	2021	Journal of Nursing Scholarship	Health impacts of climate change on gender diverse populations: A scoping review	Multiple	Scoping review	Inequitable distribution and lack of access to resources during disaster relief efforts, increased risks of gender-based violence, and negative mental health effects
Sthapit	2015	Feminist Studies	Gendered impacts of the earthquake and responses in Nepal	Nepal	Qualitative analysis of Nepali news sources, governmental and NGO reports, and personal communications	Following the floods in southern Nepal in 2008, those whose documents indicated a gender identity different from the one they presented were unable to register in relief camps, seek medical attention, or enroll in school
Urbatsch	2016	Disasters	Judgement days: Moral attitudes in the wake of local disasters	United States	Quantitative analysis comparing exposure to local natural disaster fatalities with moral judgments regarding gays in United States as reported in surveys from 1984 to 1998	Recent local deaths from disasters on average to promote slightly harsher attitudes toward gay men as individuals. The observed effects were short-lived, with both men and the already religious reacting especially strongly
Yamashita, Gomez, and Dombroski	2017	Gender, Place and Culture	Segregation, exclusion, and LGBT people in disaster impacted areas: Experiences from the Higashinihon Dai-Shinsai (Great East-Japan Disaster)	Japan	Experiential storytelling	(1) Disasters as forced coming out; (2) Lost access to necessary medical treatment; and (3) Same-sex partners are unrelated under Japanese law meaning same-sex partners are not likely to be informed of their partners' death unless informed by others. Similar issues exist for hospital visits and temporary accommodation together

NGO, non governmental organisation.

Methodologically, studies made use of questionnaires,¹⁴^,¹⁵ interviews,¹⁶^,¹⁷ other qualitative methods such as ethnography¹⁸ and experiential storytelling,¹⁹ as well as textual analysis²⁰^,²¹ and case studies of media and other reporting.²²^,²³ The authors use a variety of terms to describe the participants within their studies, although these broadly conform to accepted definitions of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people, along with other gender-diverse populations. Here we use the term “queer” to encompass all identities and expressions, in line with disciplinary conventions.²⁴ Particular attention was given to indigenous gender-diverse populations.²⁵ The majority of studies focused on queer adults, apart from one study that looked at youth, although not specifically queer youth.²⁶ Three key themes were identified: Natural Disasters as Transverse Experiences (n = 12), Intersectional Impacts (n = 5) and Queer Resilience (n = 4), with the number of related articles to each theme indicated by n.

Natural disasters as transverse experiences

Climate change brings about an increase in the frequency and intensity of natural disasters. As such, much of the literature identified in the review studies the transverse impacts of natural disasters on the queer community, in that it spans across before, during, and after the disaster event. Prior contextual vulnerability exists for the queer community, which is defined as “the social and economic circumstances that form the background for specific disasters and intensify their harmful effects for groups that are already marginalized.”²⁷ Poverty is common among queer people, despite dominant narratives of “gay affluence.”²⁸

Similarly, queer people also experience high levels of homelessness in comparison with the general population, with queer youth particularly affected, often as a result of rejection by family.²⁹ Besides an inadequacy of shelter, poverty and homelessness contribute to a lack of resources for disaster preparation such as insurance or fire safety equipment³⁰ with queer people already more likely to live in areas prone to disasters and lacking investment in services by authorities.³¹

The queer community are incarcerated at a rate three times higher than the general population.³² Incarceration brings many vulnerabilities in times of natural disasters including dependence on others for safety, such as prison guards and public officials, and several health risks, including spread of disease, increased risk of illness during heat waves owing to insufficient cooling capabilities, inability to obtain personal protective equipment, and delayed decisions on evacuation.³³

Chronic illness and access to health care was also identified as a driver of increased vulnerability to natural disasters. There are large disparities in overall physical and mental health between the queer communities and the general population that renders the queer community more vulnerable to natural disasters. These disparities can arise because of reduced access to health insurance and discrimination in the medical system, as well as prejudice-driven stress and poverty-driven lifestyle choices.³⁴ In addition, HIV+ individuals can be more susceptible to infections that could arise from environmental pollution from natural disasters.

During the disaster itself, queer people experienced trauma unique to their particular identities. The loss of a home during natural disasters can lead to members of the queer community being forced to either hide or share their identity.³⁵ Some individuals may be required to return to their family home or other accommodation, whereupon they may have to essentially “return to the closet” for fear of discrimination and to guarantee somewhere to stay. Other individuals may also be forced to disclose their sexuality or gender identity to a multitude of different people or organizations to seek appropriate support. This continuous and forced “outing” can heighten anxiety regarding the risk of discrimination and judgment.³⁶

Faith-based organizations often play a front-line role in emergency management during a natural disaster³⁷ and are known to discriminate against queer people.³⁸ In addition, past negative experiences with such organizations prevent members of the queer community from approaching faith-based organizations for help, especially when in a heightened state of vulnerability in the aftermath of a natural disaster.³⁹

Within disaster shelters, queer people may be separated from their partners and families. For example, after Hurricane Katrina, a family was defined as a heterosexual couple with children, which led to same-sex couples being separated and settled in different cities.⁴⁰ After the Great East-Japan Disaster in 2011, same-sex partners were prevented from living together in temporary accommodation as there was no legal recognition of same-sex couples under Japanese law. Indeed, same-sex couples were prevented from even visiting their partners in the hospital or receiving updates on their safety, as they were viewed as unrelated under Japanese law.⁴¹

Emergency shelters provided by governments or non governmental organisations can be hotspots for additional trauma. There were several instances where members of the queer community have faced physical, verbal, and sexual abuse in emergency shelters.⁴² For example, in the aftermath of Japanese earthquake and tsunami in 2011, one transwoman was verbally abused by a shelter volunteer, whereas others felt unsafe showering at the facilities. In Haiti, gay and bisexual men were forced to engage in sexual acts to gain access to food or money, and lesbian and bisexual women suffered instances of corrective rape.

For trans people, natural disasters can have significant impacts on their transition and gender expression, with “maintenance of the trans body” requiring access to regular hormone replacement, using medicines that cannot be easily stopped without significant effect, cannot always be stockpiled, or need to be stored or delivered in specific and discreet circumstances, which may not be possible within emergency housing. Similar challenges are faced with clothing, cosmetics, and other products that support their gender identity and presentation, as well as an overall traumatic loss of their “trans space and family-like support” and the comfort arising from this.⁴³

Once the disaster event concludes, the impacts on the queer community may not cease. Natural disaster recovery strategies are widely found to favor heterosexual, nuclear families. For example, rebuilding heteronormative spaces were found to be prioritized over queer communities after Hurricane Katrina, with tourist neighborhoods in New Orleans that capitalized on queer culture were rebuilt before neighborhoods where the queer community resided.⁴⁴ Lack of a home is particularly difficult for the queer community as the home often represents a safe space where boundaries can be established against the marginalization experienced in wider society.⁴⁵ Indeed, these reviewed articles found the destruction of homes and queer neighborhoods profoundly impacted the queer community, as these locations embody “sites of memory” and are important to the creation and maintenance of queer identities.⁴⁶

Natural disasters are high-stress events for all that endure them; however, existing mental health problems may be worsened as a result. The queer community experience higher levels of suicide and suicidal thoughts than the general population, and experience higher levels of anxiety and depression⁴⁷; thus the occurrence of a natural disaster may create a larger mental health problem for the queer community, especially young people. Following the 2016 Fort McMurray wildfires in Canada, a multi-year study observed higher levels of mental health distress among trans and gender-nonconforming youths than in comparable cohorts.⁴⁸

As events move into a firm postdisaster frame, queer people can find their experiences erased, with mainstream media failing to report on the experiences of the queer community, favoring reporting on those within heteronormative family structures.⁴⁹ Even queer media quickly moved beyond the disasters, suggesting little participation in discussions on or critiques of natural disaster response.⁵⁰ If queer people are not erased postdisaster, then they can be irrationally vilified, with moral judgments regarding gay people growing more negative in the immediate aftermath of disasters, particularly among religious men.⁵¹

Intersectional impacts

Reviewed articles also highlighted the compounded impacts of climate change on additionally marginalized groups such as indigenous groups, people of color, people who are undocumented, people with disabilities, and the socioeconomically disadvantaged, which sees the highest disadvantage among individuals with HIV or disabilities, trans people of color, and elderly queer individuals, in particular Black and Latinx LGBTQ+ elderly people.⁵² The most salient example of intersectional impacts is the discrimination toward Black transwomen after Hurricane Katrina.⁵³ The Department of Justice provided additional funding to New Orleans to rebuild its criminal justice system, and black trans women became the “hyper-visible threat to be rectified in order to restore moral social order.”⁵⁴ The funding and pressure for arrests lead to hundreds of trans women (80% of whom were Black) being convicted of a “Crime Against Nature by Solicitation” and forced to register as sex offenders.

There are also several examples of Indigenous experiences of discrimination.⁵⁵ The Aravani of Tamil Nadu, India, the waria of Indonesia and the bakla of the Philippines are groups that do not identify as male or female and thus were excluded from sex-segregated emergency shelters. Those who could access shelters reported discrimination and abuse there.⁵⁶

Queer resilience

Given a long history of contending with seclusion and marginalization, the queer community has developed strategies for resilience such as initiative and leadership, collecting relief goods for community, clean-up services, and personal grooming assistance,⁵⁷ supporting each other through friendship circles, networks, or organizations,⁵⁸ including donations and the provision of accommodation to other queer people who were unwilling or unable to access relief shelters.⁵⁹ As such, Yamashita et al. urged that we do not “confine LGBT people to the role of victim but emphasize their positive contributions as a force for recovery.”⁶⁰ Overall, reviewed articles suggest these resilience strategies should be adopted and applied to disaster relief more broadly, to cope with the increasing frequency and intensity of natural disasters.⁶¹

DISCUSSION

This review sought to identify the impacts of climate change on the queer community, the findings of which suggest that the queer community is significantly affected by this issue when manifest as natural disasters. Already possessing prior contextual vulnerability, queer people are subjected to discrimination, abuse, and systemic failures by the very forces that are supposed to relieve the impacts of the disaster. Afterward, they are de-prioritized in recovery efforts, erased, and even scapegoated for the disaster occurring. In the face of all this, the queer community remains resilient, creating the help and support for one another that is missing from official responses. As such, the queer community has a lot to teach those organizing community responses to natural disasters.

However, it is important to recognize the negative impact of resilience narratives,⁶² which praise the queer community for a response that should not be needed and can suggest that those (queer) individuals who suffered were simply not resilient enough. Instead, systemic and inclusive change to natural disaster preparedness and response is required. This includes broadening definitions of “family” so as to avoid separation and creating more family spaces, creating gender-neutral shelter spaces, and the provision of appropriate training and policies for supporting trans people during temporary relocation. Emergency services should also receive more training on inclusive practice and strive to become more inclusive organizations,⁶³ with the possibility of developing a queer- centered disaster relief organization.

Faith-based organizations who intend to provide adequate postdisaster care should work to repair rifts and ensure that their services are totally available to all. The genesis of the majority of these problems is a disparity between human rights and legal recognition for queer people and suggests addressing these problems will improve conditions in these scenarios.

The review also uncovered major gaps in extant research. There is a general need to gather more data in the aftermath of natural disasters to understand the impacts on the queer community, with particular lack of research focusing on the experience of trans people who face unique challenges in their medical needs and in possible discrepancies between identified and documented gender.⁶⁴ There is also a need for research to attend to the specific experience of queer youth populations. Although mental health provision for queer youth remains inadequate in general,⁶⁵ the interplay between existing mental health challenges, eco-anxiety, and exposure to climate change-related natural disasters necessitates even greater attention to mental health policy for queer youths.

There is also opportunity to examine how resilience factors into how queer people engage with climate issues, activism, and environmental stewardship. There is an immediate need for research covering wider geographic areas. For example, there are few to no case studies in Africa, Europe, or South America.

Finally, research exploring the impacts of climate change on the queer community needs to move beyond the current focus on natural disasters. The ongoing experience of climate change also brings about health-related impacts like “heat-related stress, vector-borne diseases, respiratory illnesses, or water- and food-borne illnesses”⁶⁶ or socioeconomic impacts like food insecurity and property damage.⁶⁷

Research on the impacts of such changes is nascent but critical in providing a holistic understanding of the impacts of climate change on the queer community, especially given their prior contextual vulnerability. Future research should seek to not only identify the impacts of climate change on the queer community and ways to reduce these impacts, but also to investigate methods of queered resilience that can be bolstered and adapted to enhance society's overall resilience against climate change. The researchers are hopeful that the queer community's natural orientation toward both activism and joy, and that many young climate leaders identify as queer, provides an avenue for a queered approach to overcoming the existential threat of climate change.

Limitations of the review

Gray literature was excluded from this review as it is typically of dubious quality, and not easily located by subsequent researchers.⁶⁸ However, it can also provide context, depth, and diverse viewpoints.⁶⁹ In the context of queer research, using only peer-reviewed literature may reinforce knowledge hegemonies that exclude queer people and their lived experience. Therefore, it is recommended that a larger and more inclusive review be undertaken. Overall, it is acknowledged that this review is focused on natural disasters, which is only one facet to climate change, and as research expands, so will our themes.

CONCLUSIONS

This rapid review sought to determine the impacts of climate change on the queer community. Significant negative impacts were identified. The reviewed studies focused on impacts resulting from marginalization before natural disasters and exacerbated during and after natural disasters. Reviewed studies also highlighted how these impacts are compounded for additionally marginalized groups and how the queer community enacts strategies to boost resilience in the face of natural disasters. Therefore, this review echoes calls for more inclusive disaster preparation and response strategies. However, little research has explored other impacts of climate change. Thus, although recommendations can be made for natural disaster preparation and response strategies, greater data collection is needed to understand how the queer community is impacted by the continuous and compounding changes brought about by intensifying climate change.

Footnotes

AUTHORs' CONTRIBUTIONS

C.K.: Methodology (lead), investigation (lead), data curation (lead), writing–original draft (lead). K.H.: Conceptualization (lead), validation (lead), writing—review and editing (lead), supervision (lead), project administration (lead). S.A.: Writing–review and editing (supporting), supervision (supporting), project administration (supporting), funding acquisition (lead). S.D.: Writing–review and editing (supporting), supervision (supporting), project administration (supporting).

AUTHOR DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

The authors have no conflict of interest to declare.

FUNDING INFORMATION

This research received small grant funding from Anaharta CIC to support the collection and analysis of data, and the preparation of the article.