10 LGBTQ-led Organizations Building a More Inclusive Outdoors
Photo Credit: canva.com. Graphic Artist: Sarai Pak
The outdoor industry is notorious for its narrow idea of an “outdoorsy person.” For too long, scores of populations have been excluded from the conversations and narratives surrounding nature, outdoor recreation, and sustainability.
Many organizations are striving to share different outdoor stories and celebrate intersecting identities. For Pride Month, learn about ten LGBTQ-led organizations working to redefine what it means to be queer in the outdoors!
The Venture Out Project
The Venture Out Project (TVOP) envisions a world where queer, trans, and LGBTQ+ youth and adults can create community, develop leadership skills, and gain confidence through the shared experience of outdoor adventure and physical activity. They provide a safe space for education and identity exploration and lead backpacking and wilderness trips for the queer and trans community.
“We strive to provide opportunities for queer people to be in outdoor spaces that we were not always welcome in,” says SJ Lupert, Director of Basecamp of Beaver Falls for TVOP. “Our organization is providing a vital space for queer people to be able to connect to the outdoors and to each other to strengthen our community.”
The Venture Out Project aims to make the trips as inexpensive as possible to serve as many people as possible. They provide gear for participants who need it, a sliding payment scale, and scholarships for the trips to improve access.
“For too long, access to the outdoors (which you would think is accessible) has been completely inaccessible to so many. Our organization exists to provide spaces for the queer community to feel safe and confident. ”
Over the next five years, TVOP aims to launch nationwide to expand access to queer people all over the country, starting with a volunteer program. In this way, they hope more people can explore the outdoors with like-minded individuals.
2. Wild Diversity
Wild Diversity is a Portland-based nonprofit working to decolonize outdoor spaces. They are redefining who can take up space in the outdoors through diverse leadership, educational resources, and community building.
“We are here so that our community can access the outdoors in ways that make them feel at home. And we are here to help bring the badass outdoorist that lives within each of us to life,” says Kristen Trudo, Marketing Coordinator at Wild Diversity.
The organization aims to create a personal connection to the outdoors for BIPOC and LGBTQ2S+ communities through outdoor adventures and education. They build a welcoming space for both novice and experienced adventurers through programs such as their Adventure Guide Development, which focuses on developing outdoorists into leaders through fun and engaging training.
“
We are here for our participants, as they are, and to support BIPOC, queer, and trans folks in the outdoors so that they can recognize their place in these spaces.
”
Additionally, Wild Diversity has conservation, swim, and youth ecology programs. These programs help enrich the participants' knowledge and equip future generations with equitable access to outdoor adventures and education.
“We dream of spaces where our community can feel safe and welcomed while growing and thriving in all realms of the outdoors. Spaces where their voices are heard and are one of many.”
Wild Diversity works to create an inviting community where all are encouraged to be their whole selves and forge a personal connection as stewards of the land and nature.
“ We are grateful to be able to offer spaces where our participants can bring their entire selves into the fold, and begin repairing what has been severed, or reclaiming what has been taken away from them.”
3. QPOC Hikers
Jasmine Maisonet founded QPOC Hikers intending to inspire a community of Queer POC in the outdoors. Based in the Pacific Northwest, the organization exists to connect people with a space to share stories and experiences and to increase the visibility and representation of queer POC.
QPOC Hikers believes that everyone has a story to share, and they aim to uplift these stories. Additionally, by bringing awareness to the issues faced, they provide a safe space for this underrepresented population to explore their interests.
As they work to create an intentional outdoor community, QPOC Hikers hosts hikes on various trails that anyone can join. They meet the participants where they are and ensure that the group stays together. By making solidarity a priority, they lower the intimidation factor that prevents many from exploring their outdoor interests. As a result, QPOC Hikers is reducing the barriers for queer, POC outdoor lovers.
4. Unlikely Hikers
Nature is diverse, and Unlikely Hikers is cultivating an organization that reflects these differences. They are an anti-racist, body-liberating outdoor community for the underrepresented outdoors person.
Founder Jenny Bruso started the Unlikely Hikers Instagram page after discovering a passion for hiking a few years ago. As she continued her outdoor journey, she noticed that the people around her on the trails did not resemble her. So, wanting to do something to address what she saw, she put out a call to other people in the hopes of connecting with those who felt the same way.
As the outdoor industry has long displayed a narrow scope of what an "outdoorsy person" looks like, Unlikely Hikers is slowly reimagining who can and should be outdoors. By organizing hikes targeting marginalized populations, the organization provides the space for individuals within these populations to envision themselves as outdoor people and to reduce the stigma surrounding people like them hiking.
Unlikely Hikers is for adventurers who are plus-size & fat, BlPOC, queer, trans and non-binary, disabled, neurodivergent, and beyond. They build community at the intersections of these identities, creating a more inclusive outdoors.
5. Queer Climbing Collective
Queer Climbing Collective (QCC) hopes to connect the LGBTQIA2S+ community through their love for climbing and the outdoors. In addition, QCC helps to break down some of the barriers that exist in the climbing scene and to support each other both inside and outside of the scene.
As climbing can be expensive, QCC serves as a bridge to get into the sport and learn. They provide mentorship opportunities for members to improve their skills in necessary climbing areas such as outdoor safety, setting up gear outdoors, and progressing in the sport..
“We provide resources as well as scholarships to our educational clinics to those most marginalized in our community as accessibility is not equal among the LGBTQIA2S+ scene,” says Elli Jahangiri, founder of the Queer Climbing Collective”
Additionally, QCC regularly collaborates with other groups to provide space for intersectionality and different coexisting communities. By providing more resources, they are widening ideas of what a climber looks like. To that end, Queer Climbing Collective would like to change these narratives and provide opportunities for all in the climbing world.
“I hope as a community we are able to provide more opportunities for our members to learn and grow not just as climbers but professionally in these spaces as well. There aren't a lot of queers and BIPOC/POC that are setters, guides, or coaches, and I'd like to see that change in the future.“
6. Queer Nature
In a material world that is generally disconnected from the natural world, Queer Nature plays a pivotal role in bridging the gap. The organization is a project characterized by environmental and nature-based education, public mysticism and scholarship, and social sculpture based in the Northwestern U.S. and Intermountain West.
Queer Nature provides an outlet for in-depth soul searching. Co-envisioned by Pinar At es Sinopoulos-Lloyd and So Sinopoulos-Lloyd, the organization facilitates nature-based workshops and multi-day immersions intended to be financially, emotionally, and physically accessible to LGBTQI2+ people and QTBIPOC.
The organization dreams about what queer "ancestral futurism" looks like and what alternative forms modernity can take. Their mentorship in place-based education inspires skills used to solve community problems at the ground level.
For Queer Nature, place-based skills include naturalist studies/interpretation, handcrafts, "survival skills," and recognition of colonial and Indigenous histories of the land, which includes an emphasis on listening and relationship building with ecological systems and their inhabitants.
Queer Nature hopes that these spaces cultivate new narratives and carve out a corner of the world where everyone belongs.
7. Pride Outside
Pride Outside is dedicated to connecting the LGBTQIA+ community outdoors. They host events such as hikes, outdoor skill classes, and LGBTQIA history walking tours.
Hannah Malvin founded Pride Outside in 2016, and since then, the Washington D.C based organization has expanded. As everyone comes from different backgrounds and experience levels, the organization aims to help those looking to explore nature but are intimidated by the prospect of doing so.
Pride Outside also provides an alternative recreation activity for LGBTQIA+ people, according to Malvin, as much of the queer social world revolves around bars and drinking. Instead, Pride Outside offers a space where people can socialize and explore natural beauty.
In the spirit of growth and to provide even more resources, Pride Outside teamed up with The Wilderness Society in 2019 to launch the LGBTQ Outdoor Groups Map as a resource for people across the country looking for queer outdoor groups. Since its inception, more than 50 groups have been added. In this way, Pride Outside works to amplify connections nationwide to promote a strong understanding and image of what it means to be an outdoor person.
Instagram: @prideoutside
8. Adventuring LGBTQ
Started back in 1979, Adventuring LGBTQ is D.C's oldest gay outdoors club. Since then, they have broadened their horizons to include people of many intersecting identities. Their volunteers lead hikes and other outdoor excursions year-round.
The club began as a program run by the Gay Community Center of Washington, DC as an alternative to the city's bar scene. At that time, founder Pete Kostik noticed that there were not nearly as many places for LGBTQIA+ individuals to meet and interact with others in ways beyond nightlife as there are today. Adventuring was created in response to that revelation.
Adventuring makes it easy for people to approach the outdoors as they do not charge membership dues, and they coordinate carpools for those who need it. For Adventuring, anyone can join in so that no one is left out.
Instagram: @adventuringoutdoorsclub
9. LGBTQ Outdoor Summit
The LGBTQ Outdoor Summit is a chance for participants to come together with representatives of the outdoor industry, the conservation community, and environmental education to discuss the state of the LGBTQ community and the outdoors, and to look for opportunities to support equity and social justice.
What began as a joint effort between OUT There Adventures and Pride Outside has evolved into an annual inclusive opportunity for growth and opportunity. The first summit in 2017 brought a diverse population together for change and set the stage for successful future gatherings. It provided engaging workshops on everything from dismantling systemic barriers to journaling while queer and everything in between.
One goal of the summit is to accurately represent some of the community's unique barriers, needs, and desires around getting outside. Additionally, the socioeconomic and cost of time getting outdoors is a barrier for many, and the summit is one way to discover ways to make it more accessible.
The most recent summit in April of 2022 focused on connection and joy, where participants were allowed to reflect and connect with the natural world in a fulfilling way.
Instagram: @lgbtqoutdoorsummit
10. Out For Sustainability
Out for Sustainability is a volunteer platform for co-creating climate resilience and environmental justice by and for LGBTQIA+ communities. Through advocacy, training, relationship-building, and fundraising, the organization works to highlight connections between LGBTQIA+ communities, sustainability, and justice.
The idea of OUT4S was built in 2008 on the premise that LGBTQIA+ identity and sustainability values are interconnected. Since those early days of community building in Seattle, OUT4S has evolved organically to become a leading voice for the LGBTQIA+ sustainability movement.
This growth has culminated in Fab Planet Summit, which builds actionable content face-to-face and through other publishing and multimedia content. It is a national conference to discuss the distinct role of the LGBTQ+ community in social and environmental justice and sustainability.
Additionally, OUT4S has created Greener Pride, an initiative to engage the LGBTQIA+ community to adopt more sustainable practices in events, businesses, and other community-building centers. In this way, OUT4S is cultivating a robust space dedicated to combating climate change and promoting sustainable ideals in new and engaging ways.
Instagram: @out4s
