Photograph by Sabine Villiard / Trunk Archive
words by yessenia funes
Hurricane season is upon us, and scientists project it may be among the worst in decades. That’s causing a bit of anxiety for Osvaldo Fonseca, who moved to Florida from Puerto Rico four years ago. He survived Hurricane Maria in 2017, but recovery wasn’t easy. He and his family were without power for nine months. The historic storm left the archipelago in the dark for nearly an entire year, making the blackout the longest in U.S. history. An estimated 4,645 people died.
“There were deaths, so many deaths,” Fonseca said in Spanish.
He had a rich life before the hurricane. He and his friends would go out dancing as queer people do. Many of their favorite spots closed after the storm. New ones opened, but the experience wasn’t the same. Fonseca also struggled financially. And the electricity would come and go. “Every day, you would lose power,” he said. “You feel that you’re surviving more than you’re living.” In 2020, Fonseca left behind his life in Puerto Rico—and his trusted queer community—to pursue better opportunities on the mainland.
Fonseca remains in the path of future hurricanes, but he’s working now to support other Puerto Rican LGBTQIA+ people in Florida in his role as a community engagement manager with Del Ambiente, a local organization dedicated to educating and resourcing queer folks, including in disaster preparedness. LGBTQIA+ people remain among the most vulnerable during extreme weather events, but this year will be particularly brutal as many southern states where rains, floods, and winds grow the most severe have also passed legislation targeting the very existence of trans and queer people.
Across the U.S., lawmakers have introduced over 500 anti-LGBTQIA+ bills this year alone. Only 39 have been passed—with a large portion in southern states like Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, and South Carolina. In Florida, representatives have introduced more than 20 anti-LGBTQIA+ bills this year, but only one made it to the desk of Gov. Ron DeSantis, where he signed it into law. Resistance has blossomed in Florida to challenge these hateful policies, but hurricane season always presents new obstacles.
“Climate change, hurricanes, and other extreme weather events greatly affect the mental health of the community,” Fonseca said. “It is important that we can work on that.”
He knows these impacts firsthand as a survivor, but he’s not the only Puerto Rican who fled the archipelago after Hurricane Maria: At least 300,000 people left, and the queer people in the mix are now navigating not only new cultures and languages but also the loss of their chosen family back home. Like Fonseca, they’ve likely landed in new disaster zones.
“A county with higher proportions of same-sex couples is more likely to be at risk for extreme weather disasters.”
Indeed, a report published in April by UCLA’s The Williams Institute found that LGBTQIA+ people are more likely to live in counties that face greater risk of climate change impacts. The researchers looked at all sorts of risks, including hurricanes but also wildfires, heat waves, and more. The authors found that a single percentage point increase in the proportion of same-sex couples in a county is associated with a roughly 6% increase in their projected risk of extreme weather disasters. “Essentially, that finding is saying that a county with higher proportions of same-sex couples is more likely to be at risk for extreme weather disasters,” said report author Ari Shaw, senior fellow and director of international programs at The Williams Institute.
What’s more, their communities are often less prepared to withstand such devastation due to lower-quality infrastructure. Maybe their buildings weren’t built to withstand high-velocity winds, or their communities lack enough green space to help absorb floodwaters.
The report is extremely limited, however. It relies on county-level U.S. census data on same-sex couples who live together, one of the few pieces of federal data on queer people. That means the paper doesn’t capture the impacts on single or trans LGBTQIA+ folks, for example.
“This is a common challenge that many researchers on LGBT issues face,” Shaw said.
While the report’s findings highlight that many queer folks living in coastal communities—like Miami or New York—are especially vulnerable to climate impacts, Shaw emphasized that they’re not the only ones. Some of the most at-risk counties lie in the South and the Midwest where there’s a strong population of LGBTQIA+ people—counties like St. Louis City, Missouri, or DeKalb, Georgia.
“This is very much a story of risk and vulnerability to the impacts of climate change regardless of which part of the country you live in,” Shaw said.
Lakey Love, a researcher, writer, and organizer who cofounded the Florida Coalition for Transgender Liberation, had to leave Florida last year after they were doxxed and someone spraypainted their spouse’s car with death threats. Now, they live in a state where there’s still a conservative stronghold—as well as flooding and wildfire risk. “There’s no one throwing Molotov cocktails into our home,” Love said, but they still worry about what would happen if a storm were to cut off their power. They have a lung disease and need oxygen to breathe.
This is a reality many LGBTQIA+ people face. The community is more likely than nonqueer folks to have a health condition that requires regular attention or a chronic condition that prevents them from fully participating in society. This makes them especially vulnerable when a strong hurricane forms. If someone struggles to get to work due to their illness, how will they manage to evacuate?
At least there’s an end to hurricane season. Love worries more about the danger queer and trans people face at school and at work year-round given the laws states are passing—from banning books about diversity to banning mandatory water breaks for outdoor workers. Fighting for their community, however, is where Love finds joy.
Indeed, their beloved Florida has a stronghold of queer climate justice activism. Can’t Stop Change, a documentary about the movement that premiered at the Tampa Bay Transgender Film Fest in March, lays out these connections beautifully by interviewing several queer and trans activists and experts throughout and beyond the state of Florida. So far, the film has been screened at least 13 times. In the film, viewers can see for themselves the devastation left behind by Hurricane Ian in 2022: dilapidated houses, water lines, and grief. The documentary also uplifts the power of community and solidarity by showing the ways LGBTQIA+ people show up during moments of crisis.
“The problem is not the hurricanes…The problem is the political and economic and social systems that make certain communities vulnerable, that make hurricanes disastrous.”
“There are so many queer and trans people in the climate justice movement,” said documentary co-director Vanessa Raditz, who is a queer climate justice researcher and educator. “Vulnerability to disasters is not something that’s innate to our communities. The problem is not the hurricanes… The problem is the political and economic and social systems that make certain communities vulnerable, that make hurricanes disastrous.”
Can’t Stop Change also illustrates quite effectively the ways the fossil fuel industry has brought us to this point in the climate crisis where hurricanes are supercharged from record-breaking ocean temperatures—and where LGBTQIA+ people are stripped of their rights and protections, making them more vulnerable when disasters unfold. While these companies and executives profit financially, they pollute and heat the planet while dehumanizing the people fighting to protect it.
“We are highlighting that these are similar forces that are driving both harm to queer and trans people and increasing the severity of disasters,” Raditz said.
Research has identified that an effective response to disaster is “social cohesion,” or the ability of a community to come together and rely on one another. That’s a skill queer folks have been forced to develop and now do extraordinarily well. It’ll come in handy as hurricane season ramps up and makes its grand arrival.
Tropical Storm Alberto, the first named storm of the season, struck Mexico and Texas last Wednesday, and more will surely come. Queer communities need to be prepared and develop disaster response and evacuation plans. Fonseca teaches his community the importance of keeping their documents and medications organized so that they can be accessible when mandatory evacuations occur. What shelter will be most welcoming to you and your family? Does your family include pets? Is it possible to avoid the emergency shelter system altogether and go stay with a friend or family member? Safety is paramount, he urges.
Safety isn’t only about escaping floodwaters or high winds. It also means being among allies. He directs many community members to a church in Orlando that welcomes families regardless of what they look like. Here, people displaced by Hurricane Maria gathered to pick up whatever materials they needed. Now, the church organizes an emergency response committee when a hurricane is approaching. The place of worship has become an essential partner to Del Ambiente, which recognizes the cultural role churches play among Latine communities.
Fonseca didn’t know about the church when he arrived in Florida, but he’s grateful to have a place he can point others to now. There’s enough hate where he lives, but here is somewhere people can be secure. Pockets of safety exist everywhere, but finding it isn’t always easy—especially when the rainy winds whisper of only death and destruction. But queer folks have learned to listen carefully whenever the Earth speaks. She also sings her sorrows through these storms.
I’m sorry, she says. I’m so, so sorry.
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Queer Communities Brace for Supercharged Hurricane Season
