Sinister Wisdom
Special Issue: Ecolesbian Futures

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

This Sinister Wisdom issue aims to explore a new term – ecolesbianism – and what it can offer us
in this climate crisis. As guest editors who share resonant but different experiences with ecology
and lesbianism, we want to connect with people interested in, identified by, and/or provoked by
the ecolesbian concept, while advancing the depth of the ecolesbian conversation as we explore
the futures it prompts us to imagine and work towards. In this issue, we are asking: what is
“ecolesbianism” and what can its future/s hold?

This call welcomes non-essentialized takes on gender and lesbianism and a diversity of queer
identities exploring the concept of ecolesbianism. We welcome submissions of fiction,
non-fiction, poetry, interviews, visual art (e.g. illustrations, photographs, collages), and
genre-non-specific work, up to 5,000 words. We expect submissions to have an informed
understanding of intersectionality across issues (eg, disability and racial justice), and to
incorporate such perspectives where possible. For thematic guidance, authors can approach the
ecolesbian concept broadly, or take inspiration from these further questions:

• What does it take to be an ecolesbian? What is the scope of ecolesbianism, and can it
  move us beyond gender-essentialized views of lesbianism?
• How is climate change affecting lesbian practices and perspectives? Can we be informed
  by lesbian experiences from areas facing extreme climate change?
• How might distinct lesbian niches (e.g. trans lesbians, Black lesbians, butch culture)
  inform the ecolesbian concept and movement?
• Building upon established concepts such as ecofeminism, ecosexuality, and queer
  ecologies, what new insights can ecolesbianism or lesbian ecologies offer to our activism,
  relationships, writing, thinking, and being?

INSTRUCTIONS FOR SUBMISSION

Expected timeline:

1. By 1st February 2026: Contributors to submit final drafts to the editorial team for
   review. Details on what is expected of each submission is listed below and clarifications
   can also be found in the journal’s submission guidelines page. Editorial process may
   involve communication with authors throughout upon submission, potentially including
   but not limited to revision requests.
2. By 1st August 2026: Editorial team to send final confirmation of acceptance for
   inclusion in the journal.
3. 2027/2028: Issue published.

Please direct submissions to the Sinister Wisdom Submittable page and contact the editorial team directly with any questions (emails listed below).

• Submissions in non-English and/or multiple languages are welcome. The editorial team
  speaks English, Spanish, and Cantonese, and will work to understand submissions in
  other languages. Translations are welcome but not required.
• Written submissions files should be in a clearly legible font type and size. These may be
  changed by the editorial team should the contribution be included in the final journal
  issue.
• Written submissions should be in an editable WORD file format. Submission in other
  types of file should be accompanied by a strong reason for it, and cooperation for
  re-formatting may be required if the submission is incompatible with tools used to edit
  the issue.
• Visual art submissions should be submitted in the highest quality possible, in a widely
  downloadable format, e.g. PNG, JPEG, PDF.
• Written submissions have a 5,000 words limit.
• Submissions of previously published work will not be accepted.
• Contributors should indicate if they are comfortable with any part of their submission
  being re-formatted into a creative product (e.g. magazine, poster, etc.). The issue will
  primarily be published in a standard text and image format, and editors will explore
  further presentation formats once all submissions are finalized.

FURTHER INTRODUCTION TO ECOLESBIANISM

Why are we putting together this issue, and why now?

Remaining hopeful amidst the state of global affairs necessitates work. Between climate change
and a global swing towards an androcentric, (cis)heteronormative and techno-fascist far-right, the
future of our intimacies seems far from guaranteed. The libertarian identity politics that promised
freedom once upon a time now feel like a distracting façade, breaking our issues into digestible
bites without apparent connections between one or the other. The time for solidarity is long
overdue – both across queer groups and across species. We cannot risk the mistake of
understanding our mutual struggle as a human issue exclusively. The taxonomization of life into
species is a colonial impulse which has produced hierarchical boundaries between the human and
the ‘sub-human’ that have hurt us collectively. The same logic governs the ideology of
transphobia for example, imposing a prescriptive taxonomy of gender onto human life. Our
queer ontologies, and more specifically our lesbian ontologies, will not find a breakthrough for
as long as we remain operating as humans for humans, neglecting our other-than-human kin with
whom political, personal, and communal horizons are yet to be built. As ecolesbians, we want to
see what could happen if we apply the unique passion, voracity, and thrill of lesbian love to our
relationship with the Earth.

This Sinister Wisdom issue emerges from a Singapore-published zine “The Anthropussy: an
ecolesbian manifesto” (2024) which introduced ecolesbianism as an extension of our lesbian
principles and gender-marginalised intimacy onto our relationships with the environment and
more-than-human kin. The idea of the ‘Anthropussy’, playing with the scholarly term
‘Anthropocene’, alludes to the erotic and utopian potential we carry within this era of
unprecedented anthropogenic climate change. It combines an environmentalist recognition of the
climate crisis with a feminist and queer theory analysis of the vulva as a symbol for vast
potential, pleasure, intimacy, and expansiveness that a lesbian experience of interspecies
relationships might involve, while seeing kinship with the non-human as a way to transgender
(verb) the cisgender body.

We are also particularly interested in futures, or futurity, in this issue. For the queer body, the
concept of ‘the future’ is laden with uncertainty – we are not guaranteed the political rights,
health care, and social acceptance that we need, but still we move forward. Our climate future is
of course marked with uncertainty as well. What places are becoming uninhabitable, and for
whom? What will become of what we call ‘nature’? And where can we find what Anna Tsing
(2015) calls a “third nature”: that which lives despite capitalism? We hope this issue will call
back to connections made in Sinister Wisdom 77 “Environmental Issues/Lesbian Concerns”, with
an updated political landscape and concern for futurity. We are inspired by scholars like Donna
Haraway, Gloria Anzaldúa, José Esteban Muñoz, and Kim Tallbear, and by our own queer
communities, persisting on this uncertain earth and living despite capitalism. And we want to be
inspired by more – by you! We want to collect stories, perspectives, visions, and all sorts of
explorations of our Ecolesbian Futures.

GUEST EDITORIAL TEAM

Isabella Blea Nuñez (they/she)

Colorado, USA

isabella.b.nunez@gmail.com

Izzy is a community organizer based in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and a co-author of “The
Anthropussy.” Izzy’s understanding of ecolesbianism has evolved in recent years through
experiences in small-scale agriculture, healing justice, and food systems work.

Yasmin Sani (they/he)

Singapore

yasmin@u.yale-nus.edu.sg

Yasmin is a writer and researcher currently based in Singapore. They received their B.A. with
Honours in Environmental Studies from Yale-NUS College. Drawing from the environmental
humanities and political ecology, Yasmin works across archival research, critical theory, and
site-specific inquiry.

Max D. López Toledano (they/she)

Singapore

maxlopez@nus.edu.sg

Max is an anthropologist based at the NUS Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, with
particular interest in queer sports scenes across the world, transgender issues, and in how ‘the
future’ is defined, experienced, anticipated, negotiated, claimed, and challenged by different
communities. This includes but is not limited to the consequences of anthropogenic
environmental change, epidemiological notions of ‘preparedness’, or the gendered politics of
reproductive futurity. As a trans lesbian, Max wonders how untethering lesbianism from
prescriptive ideals of the body may expand our understanding beyond the realm of gender and
sexuality, possibly even across species lines.