I am a non-binary person working in wildfire right now and I have been waiting to read something like this for a while. I have been so frustrated that even the most progressive people in fire are unwilling to name the real problems behind all of our frustrations with land management, that is, that it is not our land to manage. People are slowly willing to acknowledge that white colonial practices of forcing an end to cultural burning caused a lot of the fuel loading problems we face now, but somehow it always stops short of anything even remotely close to “land back.”
There’s also the necessity, I think, to engage with the concepts of conservation and preservation as they’re used in our conversations about public lands and how they embody an anthropocentric perception of nature that encourages ownership and domination.
Hello fellow nonbinary person! Thank you for this, and I totally agree. I think some (or many) folks think that we need to prioritize the basics (getting ppls jobs back) and not detract from the issue. But that kind of thinking is short sighted and exactly how we got here, to a place where many progressive folks are ill-informed on how these places were established and how they continue to keep Indigenous folks away from their rightful heritage.
Your response is exactly why I wrote my book. Also, if you'd ever like to connect (or receive support) regarding being nonbinary in fire, lmk. I worked in fire almost 15 years ago, before I came out as nonbinary (or even knew it was an option) but nonetheless dealt with so much gender dysphoria. Not an easy place to be for that.
I am a non-binary person working in wildfire right now and I have been waiting to read something like this for a while. I have been so frustrated that even the most progressive people in fire are unwilling to name the real problems behind all of our frustrations with land management, that is, that it is not our land to manage. People are slowly willing to acknowledge that white colonial practices of forcing an end to cultural burning caused a lot of the fuel loading problems we face now, but somehow it always stops short of anything even remotely close to “land back.”
There’s also the necessity, I think, to engage with the concepts of conservation and preservation as they’re used in our conversations about public lands and how they embody an anthropocentric perception of nature that encourages ownership and domination.
Hello fellow nonbinary person! Thank you for this, and I totally agree. I think some (or many) folks think that we need to prioritize the basics (getting ppls jobs back) and not detract from the issue. But that kind of thinking is short sighted and exactly how we got here, to a place where many progressive folks are ill-informed on how these places were established and how they continue to keep Indigenous folks away from their rightful heritage.
Your response is exactly why I wrote my book. Also, if you'd ever like to connect (or receive support) regarding being nonbinary in fire, lmk. I worked in fire almost 15 years ago, before I came out as nonbinary (or even knew it was an option) but nonetheless dealt with so much gender dysphoria. Not an easy place to be for that.