5 - Rainbows, Flags, and Bridges

Summary

In this chapter, we adopt an intersectional approach to explore accounts of activism and resistance as they shape animal and LBQTNB human lives. In the first section of the chapter, we take up some of the specificities of LGBQTNB animal activism by examining how trans women and drag queens have both engaged in activism in regard to animal lives. In the second section of the chapter, we turn to consider how histories of the Pride Flag contain within them recourse to claims about ‘nature’, and how this sits somewhat uneasily alongside more recent calls for the Pride Flag to be updated to better reflect the intersectionality of LGBQTNB communities. Continuing with our theme of nature, we then conclude the second section by exploring accounts of Radical Faeries, groups of primarily white gay men who make recourse to claims about nature to authenticate ideas about a gay spirituality and sense of community. The final analytic section in this chapter focuses on appropriation, initially by examining the appropriation of First Nation narratives in accounts of the death of an animal, and then by exploring how animal and LGBQTNB human rights are claimed in the face of resistance from the religious right.