14 LGBTQ+ Sustainable Baddies & Orgs to Know This Pride Month
Happy Pride Month baddies! As your inbox fills with pride-themed promotions, let’s take a moment to remember that this month serves to celebrate the queer baddies who are working to create a more inclusive and accepting world for everyone, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity. The recent passing of anti-queer laws in the Southern U.S. makes this Pride Month and the celebration of queer sustainable baddies ever more crucial. This month, we urge sustainable baddies everywhere to affirm the resilience, strength, and contributions of LGBTQ+ individuals who are constantly redefining what it means to be inclusive in the worlds of sustainability, fashion, and environmental activism. From outspoken eco-activists to trailblazing nonprofits, we’re honoring the LGBTQ+ individuals and organizations innovating at the intersections of queerness and sustainability.
1. Willow Defebaugh (she/they)
Willow Defebaugh is a writer and the Co-Founder and Editor in Chief of Atmos Magazine. Her weekly newsletter, The Overview, provides a comprehensive perspective on life on Earth through the lens of deep ecology.
2. Viviana Matsuda (they/she)
Viviana is a Japanese-Mexican queer artist from San Francisco and the founder of the ceramics studio Mud Witch. Ceramics became a creative outlet that helped them work through their grief after their father, a ceramicist, passed away. “Some are chubby like me and have uneven curves. The colorful pieces are smooth or ruff, some have freckles, and are all so beautiful in their diversity.”
Out for Sustainability is a non-profit organization that provides a platform for LGBTQIA+ communities to mobilize for climate resilience and environmental justice.
4. Michael Laed (he/him)
Michael Laed is a New York-based queer upcycled, zero-waste clothing and lamp designer. Through his sustainable brand mlaed, he sources unwanted clothing and reimagines them as one-of-a-kind pieces.
5. Queer Brown Vegan (he/they)
Isaias Hernandez is an environmental educator and founder of Queer Brown Vegan. Growing up in a community that faced environmental injustice and witnessing how pollution affected his body and community, he realized his passion for the environment, social justice, and equity. Through Queer Brown Vegan, he fosters environmental education that prioritizes accessibility and intersectionality.
6. Jamie Margolin (she/her)
Jamie Margolin is a Colombian-American writer, director, community organizer, activist, public speaker, and founder of the Zero Hour international youth climate movement. As a Latina Jewish lesbian from the Pacific Northwest, she advocates for oppressed and marginalized communities and works to protect the environment from the impacts of climate change. She is also a plaintiff in Our Children's Trusts' Youth v. Gov, a Washington state lawsuit challenging the government's failure to uphold her generation's constitutional rights to a livable environment.
7. Jules Amanita (they/them)
Jules Amanita is a queer and non-binary self-taught mycologist, mushroom photographer, artist, and chef. Amanita works to counter mycophobia through education on the important ecological roles of fungi and encouraging better environmental care through the protection of macro and micro environments.
8. Pınar Ateş Sinopoulos- Lloyd (they/them)
Pınar Ateş Sinopoulos-Lloyd is an Indigenous and trans activist, poet, multi-species futurist, eco-philosopher, and co-founder of Queer Nature. “Their relationship with transness, hybridity, neurodivergence, Indigeneity and belonging guided their work in developing Queer Ecopsychology through a decolonial lens.”
Founded in 2017 by Lee Pivnik and co-directed by Nicolas Baird, The Institute of Queer Ecology (IQECO) is a collaborative organization dedicated to raising awareness about environmental degradation and superficial solutions to it. Grounded in Queer Ecology, IQECO projects aim to overturn human-centric hierarchies and envision an equitable, multispecies future. IQECO fosters interdisciplinary work and promotes interconnectivity, intimacy, and multispecies relationality.
10. MI Leggett (they/he)
MI Leggett is a New York-based non-binary artist and founder of the anti-waste, gender-free upcycle brand, Rebrand. A former food justice advocate with a background in sustainable agriculture, video art, and painting, they now transform unwanted materials into one-of-a-kind clothing and sculptures.
11. Nicole ZiZi (she/her)
Nicole Zizi is a queer Haitian-American multimedia artist and founder of the gender-free streetwear, accessories, and home essentials brand NICOLE ZÏZI STUDIO. Using materials science and progressive design, she aims to develop innovative sustainable products composed of recycled, alternative, and natural materials.
12. Becca McCharen-Tran (they/she)
Becca McCharen-Tran is an artist, CEO, and founder of the architectural bodywear brand Chromat. McCharen-Tran collaborates with engineers, artists, and scientists to bridge the realms of technology, sustainability, and fashion. Their designs combine their architectural background with a focus on the body to create swimwear, lingerie, and athleticwear.
13. Zach - Sustainable Queer (they/xe)
Zach Thomas, aka Sustainable Queer, is a Boston-based photographer, art director, and digital content creator who harbors a deep passion for all things vintage, secondhand, and sustainable. Drawn to the unique beauty found in pre-loved items, they explore their own identity and relationship to the world around them through fashion and interiors. Their practice prioritizes anti-colonialism, replacing exploitative industry language with non-violent terms, and always respecting boundaries. Thomas was one of our first Sustainable Baddies of the Week; read our interview with them here.
14. Queer Nature
Queer Nature is a project “characterized by nature-based education and critical naturalist studies in the Northwestern U.S. and Intermountain West” that explores queer 'ancestral futurism' and alternatives to modernity. They offer mentorship in place-based skills, emphasizing awareness of post-industrial, globalized, ecocidal contexts and colonial and Indigenous histories of the land. Queer Nature blends a rites-of-passage/transformational framework with detailed field observation influenced by the natural sciences, supporting community involvement, and the intersection of personal growth, environmental activism, and ecological literacy.