To myself, I rationalized,
鈥淚 know this toxic narrative is wrong about us.鈥�
鈥淢y partner and I have a loving, supportive relationship.鈥�
鈥淭he kids are alright.鈥�
鈥淥ther people have it way worse.鈥�
鈥淲别鈥檝e been through this before.鈥� 
鈥淲别 know how to survive.鈥�

It鈥檚 true. We do know how to survive鈥�
When your rights are stripped away on repeat 
When the walls keep closing in tighter 
When they destroyed
because they can. 
When it feels more possible to disappear than earn a doctorate degree, survival becomes the primary goal.

We know how to survive. A lot of us have been surviving our entire lives.
And I鈥檓 not just talking about raw survival against street and institutional violence. 
It鈥檚 the way the hypervigilance we carry in our bodies impacts our nervous system. 

It鈥檚 the increased prevalence of autoimmune diseases, cardiovascular issues, depression, and PTSD among trans people, particularly those who have also experienced racialized trauma.
It鈥檚 also the economic barriers to health care and discrimination within the medical-industrial complex. 
Being trans is beautiful, but the world makes it exhausting.

Path to Liberation

Trans people have saved my life time and time again. I came out in 1998. I was 14 and living in a town along the so-called U.S.鈥揗exico border. All we had was each other. In a time with few legal protections and next to no resources, we had to organize deep systems of care for ourselves. Over the past two decades, there have been many political and cultural changes, thanks to the labor of advocates (trans and otherwise) who have pushed tirelessly to implement pathways to better protect folks.

However, it is risky to become dependent upon incremental policy change. As important as these kinds of wins are, what is granted by colonial law can also be revoked by colonial law. When we become comfortable within the bounds of what is 鈥済iven鈥� to us (often crumbs), we settle for less than what we know we really need: real solutions to the root causes of the political and ecological crisis we are facing. 

False 鈥渟olutions鈥� and concepts like individual upward mobility or assimilation (when even possible) often distract us with temporary comfort and take us away from building up the collective care and self-governance muscle that will actually protect us. We need that are rooted in values like radical care, collective governance, and mutuality.听

When we are not organized, the impacts of backlashes, such as the one we are experiencing now, are far more detrimental because when they come for us, what and who do we fall back on?  

Our autonomy is our power. Our long-built systems of survival and community defense are our power. There is so much to draw from in our collective DNA to guide us through this time. We know how to do this.

Trans people: Brown, Black, Indigenous, working class. 
So many beautiful stories. 
So much cultural wealth and lived wisdom rooted in the will to survive like hell against all odds.

From street economies to the people鈥檚 pharmacies
From houses for disowned youth to adopted queer parents
From Stonewall to
From our own designs of family to fierce love and solidarity
From prisons walls to asylum halls

Trans people have navigated a million plot twists鈥攎any steeped in violence鈥攂ased upon a perception of us:聽
How we exist in the eyes of others.
Be it the state, religion, our families of origin, or neighborhoods.听
And still they have no idea who we really are.听
Nonetheless, we remain.听
Our most prominent hxstorical rebellions powerfully led by Black and Brown trans women.

It Means Home鈥�

I kept trying to understand why I was questioning my existence last month.
It might have had something to do with the right鈥檚 violent campaign to erase us while simultaneously hyper-visibilizing us, spending $215 million on anti-trans ads, to create another common enemy and boost votes.

鈥淭ake America back from pronouns and immigrants!鈥�
Come on, we know they鈥檙e full of鈥�.

But it worked. Across our backs.
Not even 0.5% of the population posed a supposed threat so big it gave the right (and moveable center) a perfect point of unity: 
鈥淧rotect our kids.鈥�

Protect them from what exactly?
Learning and embracing that all different kinds of people exist?聽
A culture that teaches to not harm people for being different from yourself?
It is no surprise that those who see our Mother Earth and her life sources as nothing more than a dollar sign would despise a worldview in which we respect and revere life in all of its complex and beautiful intelligence.听

We will never understand all there is to this planet, but you don鈥檛 have to understand it to respect it. 

If we are speaking ecologically: Diversity is our best defense in the face of crisis. 
If we are speaking like my old timers: 鈥淓verything in its place.鈥�  
Eradicating one thread in an ecosystem disrupts the entire ecosystem. 
Global traditional knowledge has carried that teaching since time immemorial. Everything is connected.

Humans are but one expression of nature. And yes, we are human.
Never mind the dehumanizing, ableist narrative that we are 鈥渋mposing mental illness鈥� by advocating for a right to a dignified life and basic respect.

Despite the long-overused weaponization of 鈥渘ature鈥� against queer and trans people (鈥淚ts not natural!鈥�), sex and gender variance is reflected all across the natural world.听

From birthing male seahorses聽
to split-gill mushrooms鈥� 28,000 different sexes聽
to the female swallowtail butterfly鈥檚 鈥渄oublesex鈥� genes that provide wing pattern camouflage from predators鈥�
Biodiversity is a part of nature.
Adaptation is a part of nature.
Trans, gender-expansive, and two-spirit people are a part of nature.
Honor it.听聽

My comrade asked me: 鈥淲hat are your wildest dreams for trans relatives?鈥澛�
My dream is not just for us to survive, but that we come to know belonging.听
That we remember the truth of who we really are in a mess of endless projections and attacks.听
I pray that as we endure a war on our right to exist鈥攚e hold the deep knowing that we are not alone.听
The Earth and so many others, human and non-human, are also enduring profoundly violent disruptions.听
We struggle in solidarity with all those who persist on the side of justice, the side of life.听
Now more than ever, our interconnection mandates us to protect the living world. Yes, we have a right to be here, but more than that, we need to be here.

Building on the decades-long fights for reproductive justice and LGBTQIA+ rights, we marched in the autumn sun and chanted about collective power outside the Capitol and Supreme Court buildings. Our route ended with a rally elevating intersectional themes and a defiant dance party outside the headquarters of the Heritage Foundation, a key architect of .

At the time, we were among a minority of Americans who took that agenda鈥檚 promise of societal regression seriously. We hoped our effort would serve as an antidote during an uncertain election cycle. By then, the course charted by leaders across the political spectrum had proven dismal.

Democratic candidate that myopically focused on cisgender women and girls accessing abortion care with sparing mentions of access to in vitro fertilization. In contrast, Republican candidate Donald Trump danced around whether he would enact a . At the same time, his vice presidential pick opined about 鈥�,鈥� insinuating that women who couldn鈥檛 or didn鈥檛 bear children were of lesser societal value than their counterparts.

Due to countless threads missing from the larger political discourse around care, things worsened for people on the margins by the time we made it to the ballot box. The chief conservative demonized Haitian immigrants, planned to 鈥�,鈥� and orchestrated a rally that drew similarities to the historic Nazi regime. He also dealt a heavy blow to our burgeoning movement, spending on ads denouncing the idea that transgender people, especially migrants and those who are incarcerated, deserve holistic health care.

Now, less than four months after Trump鈥檚 inauguration, there are more profound threats toward the universal right to bodily autonomy鈥攁nd it is essential to understand the connective tissue and how they impact everyone, trans and cis alike.

On Inauguration Day, Trump signed an claiming to collapse sex and gender into a single identity category defined by a binary. He asserts that people assigned male at birth must identify as a man, and people assigned female at birth must identify as a woman. But the deeper aim, as has been the goal of the Republican party for nearly a decade, was to eliminate the acknowledgement and discussion of trans people in all corners of society. 

While the presidential action wasn鈥檛 legally binding, it set a precedent for continued attacks against the community. Within days, trans and nonbinary people reported that requests to change were being denied. The administration also struck down the option for an 鈥淴鈥� marker for more nuanced gender identities. This order, however, goes far beyond attacking trans and nonbinary people. It also erases the experiences of intersex people, whose sex often isn鈥檛 adequately defined by binary ideas of male and female. 

Then came an executive order calling for an end to gender-affirming care for anyone under the age of 19. The Trump administration elevated the conservative lie that affirming trans and nonbinary youth is detrimental, ignoring that shows the opposite. Further, anti-trans advocates never discuss cis youth who may have to access similar care to have a more normative bodily experience. They also ignore that intersex youth regularly face to make their bodies conform to a sex binary. We must also understand the widespread practice of nonconsensual youth circumcision as incompatible with bodily autonomy, regardless of the cultural or religious implications.

Many, like the majority of , regard these attacks on trans and intersex people as inconsequential because each group is estimated to make up just of the total U.S. and global populations, respectively. But Trump鈥檚 directives also reveal a malicious desire to define personhood as beginning at conception and to reduce people to their reproductive capabilities.

This has far-ranging influence on the fight for abortion access and resurfaces an outdated notion of child-bearing as a defining factor, which has historically limited opportunities for those assigned female at birth, particularly in education and employment.

Conservatives are obsessed with telling people who they are and what they can and can鈥檛 do with their bodies. Their current platform blends Christian religious dogma, the goals of the science-fiction-inflected , and the so-called . All of these, in their own ways, urge conformity and uniformity at all costs. In essence, you and your body are for serving a particular version of god and an authoritarian executive while upholding a white supremacist, capitalist patriarchy. Otherwise, those on the margins (including LGBTQIA+ people, women, migrants, people of color, and those who are poor) will fully wrest control and destroy society.

Over the last two months, it seems like those forces are winning, but there are historical sources of inspiration that believers in bodily autonomy can look toward. The concept of reproductive justice provides a sturdy foundation to expand how we think about access and the care that we deserve.

The framework was coined in a placed by the Women of African Descent for Reproductive Justice collective to demand that Congress center Black women鈥檚 barriers to the U.S. health care system and to comprehensively reform it. They specified their ideal outcomes, including universal coverage, physician choice, equal access to services, and protection from discrimination. 

The 鈥渞eproductive justice鈥� framework moved beyond the limited focus on that dominated mainstream feminist discourse and organizing and shifted toward overall reproductive care. But unfortunately, three decades later, many of the initial aims and subsequent wins of the abortion rights and reproductive justice movements are in peril. In 2022, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, ending a near half-century of constitutional protection of abortion rights. 

Since then, the conservative push for statewide abortion bans has accelerated, with access at risk of being severely limited or prohibited in 26 states and three territories, according to the . While the language, promise, and organizing power of reproductive justice endure, this restrictive political landscape is demanding a retrenched focus on abortion access to the detriment of other goals.

In the last few years, for trans people, particularly youth, have increased alongside abortion bans. A year before Roe v. Wade was overturned, Arkansas became the first state to ban gender-affirming care for trans minors. That number has since increased to 27. Now, the trans rights movement has taken up the mantle to defend the right to gender-affirming care to varying degrees of success.听

Unfortunately, the movement has been plagued by widespread cis ignorance about what the care entails and whether youth deserve access to it. If people moved beyond salacious headlines and hateful rhetoric, they鈥檇 learn that 鈥渆ncompasses a range of social, psychological, behavioral, and medical interventions.鈥� They鈥檇 also realize that plenty of cis people access similar treatment for a variety of reasons. Unfortunately, this endless discourse often ignores that other health care decisions for minors are often trusted to be handled by physicians, parents, and the minors in question.

While conservatives regularly claim that banning gender-affirming care will defend and protect youth, the Trump administration鈥檚 order tries to ban gender-affirming care for people in the first year of legal adulthood as well. It reveals a larger conservative hope to , as was tried in Florida in 2023. This is all the more reason why we must build a broader movement that intertwines the fight for reproductive rights, gender-affirming care, intersex rights, and bodily autonomy writ large.

Every day in this Trumpian hell has been chaotic and demoralizing. These stressful times encourage us to turn inward and pull away from the collective. However, now is the time for us to expand and tap into collaboration and solidarity. We must begin to think beyond the silos of queer, trans, feminist, or reproductive justice movements, but as a broader fleet of gender liberationists. After a decade of discussions about trans visibility that have proved largely ineffectual, I鈥檓 invested in moving away from having my experiences simply being seen. They need to be understood as just one thread of a larger collective tapestry that includes everyone understanding their right to gender liberation.

In 2018, she discovered the childfree subreddit, an online forum on Reddit for people who do not have children and do not want them. In that forum, she learned about , a procedure that removes both fallopian tubes and permanently prevents pregnancy.

鈥淚 was 19 or 20, and I knew I probably wouldn鈥檛 be able to get it,鈥� says Young, who didn鈥檛 meet the minimum age requirement to have a at the time. 鈥淏ut it was something that was kind of in my back pocket.鈥� 

In 2022, when a document suggesting the U.S. Supreme Court was likely going to overturn Roe v. Wade was leaked, Young, who now met the minimum age requirement, immediately made an appointment with her gynecologist for a bilateral salpingectomy. 

After observing the mandatory one-month waiting period, Young received the procedure. 鈥淸I had felt like] an animal in a trap,鈥� she says. 鈥淏ut when I woke up from that surgery, it was just 鈥� indescribable peace.鈥� 

Young is one of many people of reproductive age whose health care decisions have been influenced by the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the fundamental ruling protecting the right to abortion in the United States.

In the years since, for people between 18 and 30 has jumped, particularly among female-born people. During the 2024 election, abortion rights were a key ballot issue and several states, including Maryland and Colorado, enshrined the right to abortion into their state constitutions. 

Political promises to legalize abortion鈥攁 critical issue, but one topic in the much larger ecosystem of reproductive health care鈥攈ave overlooked some of the discussions the country must have to improve reproductive rights for the millions of reproducing people in America. When we take a closer look at the quality of reproductive health care that most people receive, it鈥檚 clear that simply restoring Roe v. Wade isn鈥檛 enough.

鈥淭he populations with the best reproductive health care outcomes 鈥� have all of [their] basic and human life needs met,鈥� says Dr. Regina Davis Moss, president and CEO of , a group that amplifies Black voices to advocate for reproductive equity. 鈥淭hat is why we have some of the worst outcomes when we compare ourselves to other industrialized countries.鈥� 

Pregnant people in the United States are more likely to die during pregnancy, childbirth, or postpartum than any other high-income nation, even though are preventable. The , who statistically are less likely to have access to high-quality medical care. On average, giving birth in the U.S. can . 

Cost is a leading prohibitive factor for those who most need to access birth control, abortion, and other reproductive health care. But there are legal barriers to subsidizing reproductive health care services鈥攕uch as the Hyde Amendment, which bans the use of federal funds for abortion with few exceptions鈥攁nd in many counties, no one to provide them. An estimated , for example, do not have a single birthing facility or obstetric clinician to deliver maternal care. 

So, what might reproductive health care look like in a reimagined America that puts equity first? There鈥檚 already a framework for it: , a critical feminist framework that advocates for the right to have children, the right not to have them, and the right to raise children in a safe environment.

A Quest for Overall Well-Being 

In 1994, a group of Black women activists coined the term 鈥渞eproductive justice鈥� to achieve, as , 鈥渢he complete physical, mental, spiritual, political, social, and economic well-being of women and girls, based on the full achievement and protection of women鈥檚 human rights.鈥�

While reproductive justice promotes equitable reproductive health care for everyone, the idea was born out of the struggles that people of color鈥攑articularly Black women鈥攈ave faced in the United States since slavery, when they were forced to bear children to work on plantations.

The framework acknowledges that Black women face poorer reproductive health outcomes鈥攁nd aims to do something about it. 鈥淭he reproductive justice framework analyzes how the ability of any woman to determine her own reproductive destiny is linked directly to the conditions in her community鈥攁nd these conditions are not just a matter of individual choice and access,鈥� Ross writes. 鈥淩eproductive justice addresses the social reality of inequality鈥攕pecifically, the inequality of opportunities that we have to control our reproductive destiny.鈥� 

There is a modern-day implicit bias in health care, says Davis Moss, that women as a whole can鈥檛 be trusted to make their own decisions about their bodies. For example, Black women commonly report that health care providers are not offering them the full range of contraceptive options.

鈥淭he subjugation, the control, all that has happened ever since the country was born,鈥� says Davis Moss. 鈥淲别鈥檝e seen that happen over the years in our health care system, in segregated hospitals, all the way up to modern day in clinical care encounters.鈥� 

Though Young鈥檚 bilateral salpingectomy, which can cost thousands of dollars without insurance, was fully covered by Ohio Medicaid, cost remains a prohibitive factor for many people accessing reproductive health care in the United States. 

Take contraception, for example. A , which interviewed more than 5,000 female-born participants, looked at how cost influences contraceptive choice. Researchers found that a quarter of those surveyed with insurance had to pay at least part of their birth control costs out of pocket. 鈥淎ny time you have to make a choice about day-to-day expenses and a copay鈥� you know, living expenses, keeping food on the table鈥� that is going to have an impact [on health],鈥� says Davis Moss. 

The survey also found that of those who were in their reproductive years, one in five women who were uninsured had to stop using a contraceptive method because they couldn鈥檛 afford it. That data is supported by a Commonwealth Fund survey of women in several high-income nations, which found that women of reproductive age in the U.S. were the most likely to due to cost.

Solutions for the Future

In 2023, In Our Own Voice and more than 50 other Black women鈥檚 organizations published the , a playbook on how to improve reproductive justice for birthing people at the policy level. 

The report makes more than a dozen policy recommendations that Davis Moss calls 鈥減roactive, comprehensive, and life-saving.鈥� Among them are , requiring states to provide maternity and newborn care for at least one year (the time frame in which ), and increasing access to doulas and midwives who advocate for patients.

Passing acts like the would require the federal government to provide funding for abortion services. 鈥淭hat in and of itself directly impacts a large percentage of Black women of child-bearing age [who] are on Medicaid and Medicare,鈥� says Davis Moss.

For people struggling to pay for contraception, with or without health insurance, the cost of an in-person abortion鈥攖he median price is $600鈥攊s somewhat unthinkable. Medication abortion, however, can be cheaper and more accessible. Such is the promise of telehealth abortion, a virtual way to connect with a doctor, receive a prescription, and take abortion pills in a supportive environment.

Increasingly more women in the United States are finding themselves living in maternity care and 鈥攁reas where there is limited or nonexistent access to prenatal, postnatal, maternity, contraceptive, or abortion services. Telemedicine can provide a range of services for people living in these areas at a fraction of the cost鈥攖he median price of a telehealth medication abortion is $150.

鈥淭elehealth does a lot to remove barriers to access to health care,鈥� says Dr. Ushma Upadhyay, a public health scientist at UC San Francisco who researches the impacts of telehealth abortion. 鈥淧eople who live in rural areas, young people, people who report facing food insecurity鈥� in our research, they are the most likely to have said that telehealth enabled them to have an abortion.鈥� 

But even with the advent of telehealth, both Upadhyay and Davis Moss say addressing racism is essential to establishing an equitable reproductive future. That鈥檚 one of the reasons the Black Reproductive Policy Agenda recommends funding anti-Black racism programs as a part of its agenda. 

鈥淭his is the reason those 12 Black women 30 years ago said 鈥榊ou can鈥檛 only focus on abortion,鈥欌�� says Davis Moss. 鈥淚t鈥檚 impossible to have one without the other.鈥�

After getting a bilateral salpingectomy, Young feels relieved. Yet she still worries about what will happen with Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act鈥攖he resources she relies on to help her afford care for chronic health issues鈥攗nder the Trump administration, and what that means for others seeking care.

鈥淭hinking about if other women don鈥檛 have access, that breaks my heart, and from the abortion side [鈥 it鈥檚 too much to bear,鈥� she says, emotion tugging at her voice.  鈥淚 feel relieved I got [the procedure] done when I did. I feel safe.鈥�

The frog appears to be calmly responding, or at least thinking, 鈥淏ro, relax, I am literally just attractive.鈥� Underneath this image and text is a scene from the gay cowboy movie Brokeback Mountain, showing Heath Ledger鈥檚 character, Ennis, hugging Jake Gyllenhaal鈥檚 character, Jack, from behind.

Mediatized panic over the specter of gay frogs, including queer mockery of this panic, has a more traceable history. Beginning in the 1990s, scientists began sounding the alarm over synthetic substances called endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs), which interfere with naturally occurring hormones and thus interfere with all kinds of bodily functions and organ development, including but not limited to reproductive organs. 

While these environmental health scientists meant well, and hormone-interfering chemicals do appear to cause serious health issues, including cancer and diabetes, the science and advocacy around these chemicals almost exclusively focused on their reportedly feminizing effects, in terms of reproductive organs as well as what鈥檚 understood as sexual behavior.

One 2008 documentary lamented the 鈥渄isappearing male,鈥� for instance, and a , publicly endorsed by famed environmental activist Erin Brockovich, despaired over the threats that 鈥減lummeting sperm counts鈥� and 鈥渟hrinking penises鈥� posed to humanity.

Frogs, meanwhile, have been a model organism for laboratory science for as long as laboratory science has existed. And frogs make sense to study in the context of toxic environmental exposures because they spend so much of their lives in the water, where so much chemical pollution circulates.

Scientists studying the effects of EDCs on frogs widely reported that individual frogs exposed to these chemicals displayed same-sex sexual behavior, exhibited both female- and male-marked phenotypes, and tadpoles changed sex during development, resulting in what researchers and journalists variously called 鈥済ay,鈥� 鈥渋ntersex,鈥� or 鈥渢ransgender鈥� frogs (with 鈥渟ad sex lives鈥� to boot). Queerness was thus characterized as a bad outcome of toxic exposure, and media outlets鈥攂oth mainstream and fringe鈥攚ere quick to jump directly from frog to human bodies and behaviors.

Framing same-sex sexual behavior, transness, or intersex conditions as both unnatural and undesirable has a long and ugly history that continues to rear its head, as demonstrated by recent and proliferating statewide bans on gender-affirming care and sexuality education. But labeling frogs as harmed by toxicants because toxicants 鈥渕ake them gay鈥� is not only socially wrong, it鈥檚 also biologically wrong.

Frogs, among many other animal species, engage in same-sex sexual behaviors in the wild all the time. And tadpoles, it turns out, change sex all the time, irrespective of chemical exposure. Intersex frogs, meanwhile, can still successfully mate to produce offspring.

Scientists overwhelmingly assumed that intersex frogs and male-male frog sex鈥攏obody seemed concerned about female-female frog sex鈥攄emonstrated evidence of chemical harm because that鈥檚 what biological sciences like toxicology have taught them. I hope my work helps correct this scientific and popular miseducation, for the sake of stamping out stigma as well as injustice.

Toxic environmental pollution, as environmental researchers and activists have amply documented, is indeed demonstrably harmful, while its demonstrable harms are vastly and unevenly deployed. The challenge I offer鈥攁nd rise to鈥攊s how to organize effective political action against the poisoners without stigmatizing the poisoned. I am pushing people to ask not simply what makes a poison, but rather who?

Toward Critical Toxicity Studies

The scientific elites who codified toxicology occupied particular gender-, race-, and class-privileged social locations, positions that empowered them to grant themselves the authority to define what makes a toxicant safe (and measurable), what chemical risks are acceptable (and to whom), and how much of an exposure is tolerable (where, for whom, and for what). 

I show that despite toxicologists鈥� best intentions, toxicology鈥檚 inherent biases undermine the usefulness of toxicological findings for environmental justice struggles by focusing on the environmental toxicology and ecotoxicology of EDCs, which is the sub-field fretting about feminized frogs.

The challenge for critical feminists and EDC toxicologists, including those who identify as both, is to communicate the urgency of reducing toxic pollution鈥攂y both better regulating chemicals and reining in corporate power鈥攚ithout resorting to eugenicist and masculinist tropes of deformity, low intelligence, queerness, or weakness.

I do not mean to sound flippant; EDCs are a class of toxicants that have become ubiquitous throughout our environments, being constitutive components of such commonplace objects as plastic bottles, receipt paper, or body lotion, among many other items. EDCs are particularly alarming to scientists and other environmental health advocates because they have been shown to interfere with our bodies鈥� hormonal processes via the endocrine system. 

Hormonal disturbances, in turn, can adversely affect fundamental aspects of physiological development and function, leading to a range of serious health issues, including different cancers and cardiovascular and metabolic failures. Moreover, because EDCs either mimic or override bodies鈥� naturally occurring hormone signals and hormone receptors, these particular toxicants may be more harmful at lower doses than at higher doses, upending the core tenet of toxicology: 鈥淭he dose makes the poison.鈥� 

My work does not question the urgency of attending to EDC contamination, but rather how EDC toxicology inadvertently鈥攐r by design鈥攔eviles the poisoned more than the poisoner.

As mentioned, decades of EDC research on frogs in particular has been built on the homophobic and ableist assumptions that same-sex sexual behavior is abnormal, that frog sex changes are unnatural, and that intersex frogs cannot produce offspring.

The violent histories that EDC research unwittingly recites by deploying such terms as 鈥渄emasculinization鈥� and 鈥渃hemical castration鈥� is a form of violence in and of itself. By assuming and perpetuating the white supremacist and heteropatriarchal ideologies that queer, transgender, intersex, neurodivergent, and disabled bodies are somehow aberrant (read: abhorrent), the work of prominent EDC researchers and anti-toxics advocates reinforces social stigma as well as judicial, material, and biomedical inequity.

Social science scholars and activists have well documented the unjust ways that people who are marked as queer, trans, disabled, nonwhite, and foreign struggle disproportionately more to receive the medical care they need, safely access transportation and public restrooms, survive bullying and other forms of violence in schools and sports, and so on.

Put another way, feminist critique of EDC research and advocacy is not simply about problematic language or social stigma on a conceptual level, it鈥檚 about how scientific theories can be complicit in prejudicial mistreatment on an undeniably material, visceral level鈥攁nd sometimes fatally so.

Critical Toxicity Studies calls for a queer, ecofeminist study of toxicants that explicitly, carefully situates toxicants in their sociohistorical contexts, while simultaneously prefiguring a world where all bodies and identities鈥攚hether female, male, trans, intersex, disabled, queer, melanated, more-than-human, microbial, weedy, fungal, fishy, fat, young, old, sick, and so on鈥攁re fiercely, generously, handled with care.

This excerpt, adapted from by Melina Packer (New York University Press, 2025), appears by permission of the publisher.

However, as the movie progressed, I shockingly began relating more to Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) than Nessarose, though I am also a wheelchair user. While Elphaba and Nessarose have the same mother, Elphaba was conceived when their mother has an extramarital affair with a man who gives her a green elixir to drink. 

From the moment Elphaba is born with green skin, her father, Frexspar (Andy Nyman), rejects her and begins treating her like an outsider. He even delegates her child-rearing to an anthropomorphic bear named Dulcibear. At the same time, Frexspar dotes relentlessly on Nessarose, his biological daughter, and discourages Elphaba from using magic in public.

Elphaba is treated as an outcast because of her green skin, which the film regards as a disability. Whenever Elphaba encounters a person for the first time, they often visibly gasp because her skin is so different from theirs. 鈥淔ine, let鈥檚 get this over with,鈥� she always retorts. 鈥淣o, I am not seasick; no, I did not eat grass as a child; and yes, I鈥檝e always been green.鈥� 

When Elphaba first meets Glinda (Ariana Grande-Butera) and offers this spiel, Glinda says: 鈥淲别ll I, for one, am so sorry that you have been forced to live with … this.鈥� She then offers to fix Elphaba鈥檚 鈥渁ilment,鈥� saying, 鈥淚t is my intention to major in sorcery. So if at some point, you wanted to address the, um, problem, perhaps I could help.鈥�

Elphaba鈥檚 green skin, which , is treated by the people around her as a liability or something worthy of being pitied. The inability of Elphaba鈥檚 father and classmates to connect with her because of her exterior difference made me recall the many times over the course of my life where I have been pre-judged because I use a wheelchair.听

The hesitation to acknowledge Elphaba鈥檚 existence is something I鈥檝e experienced as a Black woman with a physical disability. People have judged and misjudged me before they even learned my name or heard me speak; the world isn鈥檛 kind or thoughtful to people whose physical presentations are different. 

It鈥檚 painfully familiar for me to be ridiculed before being embraced. I鈥檓 always in a cycle of wondering what others think and if they鈥檙e being genuine. That鈥檚 a sadness that never leaves, even as I鈥檝e grown immune to what others think about me. Throughout the film, Elphaba is isolated, which fuels loneliness鈥攁nother emotion that鈥檚 particularly resonant. Being the 鈥渙nly鈥� in your family and community with such a striking difference is a bold act of existing in a world that demands conformity.  

And yet, despite the fact that Elphaba鈥檚 stepfather treats her as if she鈥檚 a burden, she鈥檚 still incredibly protective of Nessarose. When the sisters first arrive at Shiz University, where Nessarose is enrolled, an overbearing teacher attempts to push Nessarose鈥檚 wheelchair before she even asks for assistance. When Elphaba sees this transpire, she becomes upset about her sister being infantilized and conjures powerful magic that gains her impromptu admission into Shiz and gets the immediate attention of Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh), a professor who begins mentoring her.

Elphaba respects Nessarose鈥檚 autonomy, though other people in their lives fail to do so. It鈥檚 an example of what I call 鈥淭he Good Samaritan Gone Wrong鈥� factor, wherein people overextend themselves to help a disabled person without pausing to interrogate why. I am often forced to ask: Did the disabled person ask for help, or are you projecting a sense of helplessness onto them simply because they鈥檙e disabled? 

The latter is incredibly ableist, and a disabled person has a right to rebuff that projection. But seeing Nessarose deal with ableism in a whimsical film about magic reminded me that ableism is always lurking, even in Oz.  

But Nessarose doesn鈥檛 reciprocate Elphaba鈥檚 protective impulse. When Elphaba begins sounding the alarm about anthropomorphic animals losing their ability to speak, she鈥檚 disregarded and then silenced, an all-too-familiar reality for Black women in our real world who are constantly attempting to save our society from itself and its cruelty. Since Elphaba is also an outlier who鈥檚 isolated and disbelieved, she鈥檚 able to easily make the connection between how she鈥檚 been treated and how these animals are being treated. She understands that the push for conformity is closer than anyone recognizes. 

This parallel is even more relevant during our current political climate. During the 2024 presidential election, Black voters, especially Black women voters, considered harm reduction while some other voters leaned into鈥攁nd even relished鈥攖he harm. It can be isolating to point out injustice, especially when others can鈥檛 see or don鈥檛 believe it鈥檚 happening.

As a disabled activist, I know that the people鈥攊ncluding your fellow comrades, who should understand the misgivings of the world鈥攚ill choose a less friction-laden route rather than directly addressing the injustice. When I began speaking out against , I realized that people with privilege can be severely conflict avoidant and would rather 鈥減lay nice鈥� than hold people accountable.

Glinda, who has built a friendship with Elphaba, knows the animals in Oz are losing their ability to speak. And yet, we see her internal conflict around making noise about the issue because she鈥檚 worried it could negatively impact her social status as the most popular student at Shiz. Like Glinda, people don鈥檛 confront injustice because they still want access to the resources, money, and connections of those who cause harm. It reflects a scarcity mindset in which one believes an oppressor is worth keeping around because of potential gain. 

When Elphaba tries to bring attention to the issues occurring in Oz, she鈥檚 first scrutinized, then disbelieved, and eventually betrayed by the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum) and Madame Morrible. She鈥檚 coerced into using her magic to further discriminate against the animals in Oz鈥攁nd neither Glinda nor Nessarose come to her defense. Instead, she鈥檚 forced to go it alone, even as Madame Morrible calls her a 鈥渨icked witch鈥� across Oz鈥檚 radio waves.

Elphaba is villainized simply because she鈥檚 attempting to stop powerful people from causing more harm. There鈥檚 a deep 鈥渒now your place鈥� tone when Elphaba bucks against the Wizard and Madame Morrible鈥攊t costs her deeply and shifts the public narrative of who she is. In this moment, we see Elphaba鈥檚 undesirability in a new light; it鈥檚 no longer just the micro (her interpersonal relationships). It鈥檚 now on a macro level, as she鈥檚 being treated as a political enemy of the state. 

The parallels in Wicked regarding the ways disability, disabled people, and overall differences among people (and other species) mirror the hardships people who cannot (and do not) conform endure in our society. I left the theater better understanding that the people we view as villains may not be the true or only villain in their story. Erivo breathtakingly embodied Elphaba through every emotion and every moment of rejection and frustration, a commitment that will hopefully continue in Wicked: For Good when it鈥檚 released in November. Ultimately, I hope that our collective understanding of Elphaba expands as we uncover what happens to her鈥攁nd how her story is further shaped by those who failed to view her with care.