United States Department of Agriculture

Forest 

Service

Pacific Northwest 

Research Station

General Technical Report

PNW-GTR-923

December

2015

Climate Change Through an 

Intersectional Lens: Gendered 

Vulnerability and Resilience in 

Indigenous Communities in the 

United States 

Kirsten Vinyeta, Kyle Powys Whyte, and Kathy Lynn
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Authors

Kirsten Vinyeta is a Ph.D. student in the Environmental Studies Program and 

Sociology Department at the University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403 (kvinyeta@

gmail.com). Kyle Powys Whyte holds the Timnick Chair in the Humanities, 

Department of Philosophy, Michigan State University. Kathy Lynn is coordinator of the Tribal Climate Change Project and a Faculty Research Assistant in the 

Environmental Studies Program at the University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403 

(kathy@uoregon.edu). 

This publication is the result of a joint venture agreement (2014-JV-11261935-061) 

between the USDA Forest Service Pacific Northwest Research Station and the 

University of Oregon.

Cover: “Fish Sticks” by Jon Ivy, Coquille Indian Tribe
Abstract

Vinyeta, Kirsten; Powys Whyte, Kyle; Lynn, Kathy. 2015. Climate change 

through an intersectional lens: gendered vulnerability and resilience in 

indigenous communities in the United States. Gen. Tech. Rep. PNW-GTR-923. 

Portland, OR: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest 

Research Station. 72 p. 

The scientific and policy literature on climate change increasingly recognizes the 

vulnerabilities of indigenous communities and their capacities for resilience. The 

role of gender in defining how indigenous peoples experience climate change in the 

United States is a research area that deserves more attention. Advancing climate 

change threatens the continuance of many indigenous cultural systems that are 

based on reciprocal relationships with local plants, animals, and ecosystems. These 

reciprocal relationships, and the responsibilities associated with them, are gendered 

in many indigenous communities. American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native 

Hawaiians experience colonization based on intersecting layers of oppression in 

which race and gender are major determinants. The coupling of climate change 

with settler colonialism is the source of unique vulnerabilities. At the same time, 

gendered knowledge and gender-based activism and initiatives may foster climate 

change resilience. In this literature synthesis, we cross-reference international 

literature on gender and climate change, literature on indigenous peoples and climate change, and literature describing gender roles in Native America, in order to 

build an understanding of how gendered indigeneity may influence climate change 

vulnerability and resilience in indigenous communities in the United States.

Keywords: Climate change, indigenous peoples, gender.
Foreword

Linda E. Kruger, Research Social Scientist

Pacific Northwest Research Station

Navigating the complex issues that surround climate change, and the rapidly 

expanding literature that attempts to describe and explain it, is challenging 

enough without introducing the variable of gender. However, that is exactly where 

Vinyeta, Whyte, and Lynn take us in this synthesis of the international literature 

on indigenous peoples, gender and climate change. Gender is rarely a topic of 

discussion in the climate change literature. The authors aim to fill the gaps in 

understanding that challenge our ability to design and implement efficient and 

effective adaptation and mitigation strategies in Indian Country. This is a venture 

into uncharted territory. 

It is fairly well recognized that indigenous peoples face higher risk from the 

effects of climate change than other populations because of their close relationships 

and interdependence with plants, animals, and entire ecosystems. The authors 

recognize that it is these relationships with nature and the environment, under siege 

from climate change, that are gender-specific in many indigenous communities. 

In this paper, Vinyeta, Whyte, and Lynn investigate the gendered knowledges, 

gender-based activism, and initiatives that may foster community resilience in 

Native American, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian communities. They explore 

different men’s and women’s roles. For example, women’s relationship with and 

knowledge of water has led to a higher degree of activism and community resilience related to water. Many men have special knowledge and skills related to hunting and fishing. Together the genders provide for the community in complementary 

ways. However, climate change threatens access to species that are being affected 

by climate change such as the culturally important salmon. As indigenous peoples 

are displaced or relocate to other lands, they are displaced from the use, adaptation, 

and transmission of traditional knowledge.

The authors describe the adaptive processes employed by some tribes to 

encourage men and women to learn the responsibilities they have to each other. 

Young men and women are learning about food collection and preparation—regardless of gender. The authors also expand our understanding of indigenous lesbian, 

gay, bisexual, transgender, two-spirit, and queer (LGBTTQ) persons who have 

played important cultural roles throughout history. They describe vulnerabilities 

and contributions of the LGBTTQ communities within the context of climate 

change. Their discussion of “two-spirit people” makes a significant contribution to 

the literature on tribal communities and gender.
For indigenous communities, gendered knowledges and responsibilities have 

been critical for community sustainability and cultural resilience. The authors have 

provided a path for indigenous communities interested in incorporating gender in 

climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies. The document is also an aid to 

nonindigenous researchers, agencies, and organizations working with indigenous 

communities. In closing, Vinyeta, Whyte, and Lynn challenge us to explore gender 

specifically within the areas of public health; migration, displacement and altered 

social networks; unemployment, poverty, and impacts to tribal economies; and 

impacts to traditional species, places and relationships, which they meld together as 

culture. They assist us in this endeavor by presenting several provocative questions. 

Exploration of these questions will help move this work forward and expand the 

benefits that are possible. 
Contents

1 Introduction

2 Report Purpose and Structure

4 Context

4 Gender, Gender Roles, and Gender Inequality

5 Gender in International Climate Change Initiatives and Research 

7 Concepts of Gender in U.S. Indigenous Communities

14 Gendered Responsibilities in Indigenous Communities

19 Perspectives on Climate Change Vulnerability and Resilience

21 Gendered Climate Change Vulnerability and Resilience in Indigenous 

Communities in the United States

21 Public Health

33 Migration, Displacement, and Altered Social Networks

38 Unemployment, Poverty, and Impacts on Tribal Economies

42 Culture: Impacts on Traditional Species, Places, and Relationships

49 Conclusion 

49 Public Health

50 Migration, Displacement, and Altered Social Networks 

50 Unemployment, Poverty, and Impacts on Tribal Economies

51 Culture: Impacts on Traditional Species, Places, and Relationships

52 Acknowledgments

52 References

69 Glossary
1

Climate Change Through an Intersectional Lens: Gendered Vulnerability and Resilience in Indigenous Communities

Introduction

The scientific and policy literature on climate change increasingly describe 

indigenous peoples’ vulnerabilities to climate change on their communities’ 

close cultural connection to, and reliance upon, local species and ecosystems 

(Cameron 2012, Lynn et al. 2011, Maldonado et al. 2014, Parrotta and Agnoletti 

2012, Whyte 2013, Wildcat 2013, Williams and Hardison 2013). For many indigenous communities, engaging in reciprocal relationships with local plants, animals, and ecosystems is the basis of their members’ health, cultures, economies, 

and ways of life. Indigenous communities have already had to absorb disruptions 

to these relationships associated with settler colonialism; these relationships are 

now further threatened by climate change (Reo and Parker 2013, Whyte 2013). 

Specific examples of threats to indigenous peoples’ health, cultures, economies, 

and ways of life include permafrost melt, sea-level rise, more frequent and 

stronger storms, longer periods of drought, increased frequency and intensity 

of wildfires, and opportunistic invasive species (Bennett et al. 2014, Grossman 

and Parker 2012). Indigenous peoples across the world are already experiencing 

many of these impacts (ACIA 2004, Bennett et al. 2014, IPCC 2007, IPCC 1 

2001, IPCC 2 2001). 

In the United States, American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians 

are actively engaged in climate change initiatives within their communities and 

collaboratively with outside entities such as federal agencies and nongovernmental 

organizations. Tribes, indigenous scholars, and agencies and organizations working 

in collaboration with tribes are crafting culturally appropriate adaptation strategies by incorporating tribal cultural values and indigenous knowledge systems 

into climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies. The implications of 

climate change on indigenous relationships with and responsibilities toward land, 

water, plants and animals, and the development of solutions that prioritize these 

relationships and responsibilities, are topics that are being explored with increasing 

frequency in the United States and globally (Bennett et al. 2014, Maldonado et al. 

2014, Maynard 1998). 

The role of gender (see “Gender, Gender Roles, and Gender Inequality” for a 

definition of gender as used in this paper) in defining climate change experiences 

in the United States is a research area that deserves more attention. Gender is a 

socially constructed concept that is fluid and ever-changing, the meanings and 

accepted norms of which vary across cultures and across individuals. Despite its 

fluidity, gender has concrete, socially determined implications in people’s lived 

experiences. For genders most frequently subject to oppression in the United States, 

such as women, and transgender and other gender nonconforming peoples, climate 
2

GENERAL TECHNICAL REPORT PNW-GTR-923

change may have more significant impacts. At the same time, gender-based activism, initiatives, and communities may foster resilience in a climate change context. 

Denton (2002: 18) states:

Women are already paying huge prices for globalisation, economic depression, and environmental degradation. Climate change is likely to worsen 

their already precarious situation, and leave them even more vulnerable. 

More efforts should be made to give climate negotiations a people-centred 

approach, and to give women their rightful place within the sustainable 

development circle. 

Denton points out that gender can be coupled with climate change impacts in 

ways that intersect with other forms of oppression, such as economic class and 

marginalization, to create unique climate change vulnerabilities. Similarly, Cudworth and Hobden (2011: 51) suggest that “human relations with the environment 

are socially intersectionalised, that is, existent in a context of overlapping relations 

with other systems of social relations, such as those based on class, gender and 

ethnic hierarchy.” American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians have 

endured intersecting layers of oppression (Allen 1992, Chrystos 1995, Kauanui 

2008, Maracle 1996, Miranda 2002, Morgensen 2011, Rifkin 2011, Ross 1998, 

Smith 2005) that according to Andrea Smith (2005: 8), involve “issues of colonial, 

race, and gender oppression” that “cannot be separated” (see also Crenshaw 1991 

for a discussion of race and gender intersectionality). Based on these ideas of 

intersectionality, this literature synthesis explores currently published materials on 

the intersection of indigenous peoples (indigeneity), gender, and climate-change 

impacts in the United States. 

Report Purpose and Structure

In the following synthesis, we describe some of the ways in which gender may play 

a role in defining indigenous peoples’ experiences of climate change in the United 

States. This report is intended to serve as a resource for indigenous communities 

who want to explore how gender might be incorporated into indigenous climate 

change research, mitigation, and adaptation efforts. It is also intended to serve as 

a resource for nonindigenous researchers, agencies, and organizations working in 

collaboration with American Indians and Native Alaskans in the United States on 

climate change initiatives. Here, we will use the term indigenous communities to 

refer to the diversity of indigenous groups living within and neighboring the United 

States, including federally recognized, state-recognized, and unrecognized bands, 

tribes, and nations. 
3

Climate Change Through an Intersectional Lens: Gendered Vulnerability and Resilience in Indigenous Communities

In this literature synthesis, we cross-reference international literature focused 

on gender and climate change, literature on indigenous peoples and climate change, 

and literature describing certain indigenous concepts of gender, in order to identify 

gendered impacts of climate change and solutions that may arise within indigenous 

communities in the United States. By better understanding how gender may affect 

climate change vulnerability and resilience for indigenous women, men, and 

LGBTTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, two-spirit, queer) persons, indigenous communities and collaborating agencies and organizations can embark on 

climate change initiatives that alleviate, not exacerbate, intersectional oppression. 

We open this report with a “Context” section in which we broadly define 

gender and gender roles, describe how gender is shaping discussions of climate 

change internationally, and provide an overview of literature describing traditional 

gender roles in indigenous communities in the United States, as well as literature 

describing the impacts that colonization has had on these roles. In this section, 

we also discuss common perspectives on indigenous and gendered vulnerability 

and resilience, illustrating some of the limitations that exist when these issues are 

analyzed through Western institutional lenses. The “context” is intended to build a 

foundation that frames the next section of the synthesis, titled “Gendered Climate 

Change Vulnerability and Resilience in Indigenous Communities in the United 

States,” in which we focus on how gender may play a role in defining climate 

change impacts and solutions related to four key arenas: (1) public health; (2) 

migration, displacement, and altered social networks; (3) unemployment, poverty, 

and impacts on tribal economies; and (4) culture: impacts on traditional species, 

places, and relationships.

We conclude by highlighting gaps in the academic and policy literature that 

could benefit from future research, and we describe some of the key implications of 

gender with regard to policy and collective action within indigenous communities 

in a climate change context. 

• Climate change threatens indigenous relationships to lands and waters 

that are vital for indigenous health, cultures, economies, and ways of life.

• Indigenous peoples are actively engaged in addressing climate 

impacts on their communities.

• A greater consideration of gender in indigenous climate initiatives 

may increase resilience in indigenous communities.
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GENERAL TECHNICAL REPORT PNW-GTR-923

Context

Gender, Gender Roles, and Gender Inequality

Although “gender” and “sex” are sometimes used interchangeably, they are in fact 

distinct concepts. Gender Spectrum (2014) describes the difference as follows: 

[Gender is] a socially constructed system of classification that ascribes 

qualities of masculinity and femininity to people. Gender characteristics can 

change over time and are different between cultures. Gender is often used 

synonymously with sex, but this is inaccurate because sex refers to physical/

biological characteristics and gender refers to social and emotional attributes. 

Though important in some cultures, masculinity and femininity are not 

always the basis of gender. In Two-Spirit People, Jacobs et al. (1997: 2) 

define gender as the “cultural rules, ideologies, and expected behavior of 

diverse phenotypes and psychosocial characteristics,” going on to state that 

“Cross-cultural comparative studies have shown that genders and sexualities are not always fixed into only two marked categories. Institutionalized 

gender diversity is found throughout the world but not in all cultures.” 

In other words, while some cultures (including many Western cultures) 

predominantly recognize only two genders (man or woman) and are thus 

said to institute a “gender binary,” there are cultures that recognize more 

than two genders. 

Traditional gender roles are based on individual society’s social constructs of 

gender, and encompass the activities, responsibilities, expectations and decisionmaking power that a given culture has historically assigned to different genders 

within the public and private sphere (Gender Spectrum 2014, Gilles 2012). The 

dominant cultural paradigm in the United States recognizes two basic gender roles: 

masculine—having the qualities attributed to males—and feminine—having the 

qualities attributed to females (Corwin 2009, Norton and Herek 2013, Roscoe 1998, 

Rifkin 2011, Smith 2005). People who do not conform to socially assigned gender 

roles sometimes refer to themselves as gender nonconforming, gender variant, 

genderqueer, or transgender (Gender Spectrum 2014, UC Berkeley Gender Equity 

Resource Center 2014). Throughout history, diverse cultures—including some 

indigenous communities prior to colonization in the present-day United States—

have recognized three or more gender roles (Corwin 2009, Gender Spectrum 2014, 

Roscoe 1998, Rifkin 2011). Gender roles are by no means static; they vary across 

space and time, are relational, and are constantly renegotiated (Alston 2013, Corwin 

2009). Despite this constant flux, many societies have had long-standing genderbased power inequalities (Gilles 2012). 
5

Climate Change Through an Intersectional Lens: Gendered Vulnerability and Resilience in Indigenous Communities

Today, indigenous communities in the United States and Canada experience 

significant gender inequalities (Barker 2008, Deer 2009, Goeman and Denetdale 

2009, Kauanui 2008, Mihesuah 1996, Rifkin 2011, Smith 2005, Weaver 2009), but 

for some of these communities, it was not always this way. Prior to colonization, 

gender roles within many tribes were egalitarian, and many indigenous cultures 

were matrifocal (Allen 1992, Brave Heart et al. 2012, Kauanui 2008, Mihesuah 

1996, Roscoe 1998, Smith 2005, Wagner 2001, Weaver 2009). Colonizers stripped 

indigenous women and gender nonconforming peoples of power and instituted a 

patriarchal system that continues to have significant impacts today (Allen 1992, 

Brave Heart et al. 2012, Kauanui 2008, LaFortune 2010, Mihesuah 1996, Morgensen 2011, Smith 2005, Weaver 2009).

Gender inequality is most commonly thought of as the social, political, and 

economic advantages favoring men at the expense of women. Note, however, that 

not all women have been (or are) affected equally, as race, class, ability, colonial 

history, and various other factors intersect with gender to affect lived experiences. 

For example, Euro-American women have benefitted greatly from the dispossession 

of indigenous communities and are likely to possess more socioeconomic privilege 

than an indigenous person, regardless of the indigenous person’s gender. Chrystos 

(1995: 128) writes: “Patriarchy is only one of the many tools of colonizer mentality & it is often used by women against other women.” Note also that women are 

not the only gender affected by gender inequality. Transgender and other gender 

nonconforming individuals who challenge current socially constructed norms of 

masculinity and femininity are often misunderstood and discriminated against by 

various societies (Gilles 2012). Additionally, socially constructed gender roles and 

inequalities can prove limiting for all genders, including men (Gilles 2012). 

In the context of climate change, gender role expectations and existing gender 

inequality can affect individuals’ vulnerability, resilience, and adaptive capacity 

(Alston 2013, Cuomo 2011, Denton 2002, Glazebrook 2011). As climate change 

progresses, preexisting gender inequality may worsen (UNDP 2007). Climate 

change research and initiatives worldwide can benefit from exploring the implications of gender on climate change impacts and solutions, and the implications of 

climate change for gender justice, in order to develop more effective strategies 

while simultaneously fostering gender justice.

Gender in International Climate Change Initiatives and Research 

The relevance of gender in the context of climate change is now being acknowledged with increasing frequency in international research, yet seldom do climate 

change policies or initiatives address gendered impacts and solutions. “Despite 

In the context of 

climate change, gender 

role expectations 

and existing gender 

inequality can 

affect individuals’ 

vulnerability, resilience, 

and adaptive capacity.
6

GENERAL TECHNICAL REPORT PNW-GTR-923

increasing evidence that women are more vulnerable, it has become apparent that 

climate change policies, frameworks, discourses and solutions are rarely gendersensitive” (Alston 2013: 8). In response to this lack of focus on gender issues, 

organizations have formed to promote research and information-sharing regarding 

the implications of gender, particularly women, in a climate change context. One 

of these organizations is GenderCC–Women for Climate Justice, an international 

organization whose main objective is integrating gender justice in climate change 

policy at local, national, and international levels. 

GenderCC and other organizations have encouraged the Intergovernmental 

Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to pay closer attention to gender in their 

research and reporting. In light of these requests, “the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report recognises that gender roles and relations shape vulnerability and 

people’s capacity to adapt to climate change” (Terry 2009: 7). The IPCC’s Fifth 

Assessment Report on Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability further addresses 

the implications of gender in the context of climate change by including gender 

as a contributor to differential risks with regard to vulnerability and exposure 

(IPCC 2014). 

Other major international organizations have addressed the importance of gender justice in the context of climate change by developing gender-sensitive initiatives, producing reports that shed light on gendered impacts and gendered solutions, 

or both. In 2009, the United Nations Population Fund (UNPFA) published a report 

that addressed the importance of reproductive health and improved gender relations 

in the fight against climate change. The World Health Organization (WHO 2011 

publication Gender, Climate Change and Health aims “to provide a framework to 

strengthen the organizations support to Member States in developing standardized 

country-level health risk assessments and climate policy interventions that are 

beneficial to both women and men” (WHO 2011: 6).

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Gender Office has 

also been at the forefront of gender justice in climate change research and action. 

The IUCN has co-founded the Global Gender and Climate Alliance (GGCA), 

an alliance of 60 United Nations agencies and civil society institutions working 

together on gender and climate issues. Additionally, it has published the first Gender 

and Climate Change Training Manual (Aguilar 2009)—now used internationally—

to include a gendered perspective in the analysis and implementation of national 

and regional adaptation and mitigation measures. The GGCA also trained nearly 

500 participants from more than 100 countries on the linkages between gender and 

climate change. Many of those participants have used this training to spearhead 

their own initiatives in their home countries (Aguilar 2013: 150–151).
7

Climate Change Through an Intersectional Lens: Gendered Vulnerability and Resilience in Indigenous Communities

The Tebtebba Foundation in the Philippines has published resources examining the impacts of climate change on indigenous women, including a 2011 report 

that highlights the potential threats to indigenous women and their roles in traditional forest ecosystem and resource management (Tebtebba Foundation 2011). In 

understanding indigenous women’s vulnerabilities and strengths, Tebtebba aims 

to develop programs and policies that protect women’s needs, and enable women’s 

gendered knowledge and skills to form a vital part of climate change initiatives. 

Concepts of Gender in U.S. Indigenous Communities

It is crucial to preface any description of sociocultural characteristics of indigenous 

communities in the United States by emphasizing that every tribe and Native group 

is unique in its social dynamics, belief systems, cultural practices, and in how it has 

been colonized and by whom. Below we provide a general understanding of gender 

dynamics in indigenous communities, but it is important to note that not all indigenous 

communities share these characteristics, nor are the gender dynamics of all indigenous 

communities described below. Additionally, within any given indigenous community, 

there may be a wide range of beliefs, traditions, and cultural practices regarding gender 

and gender roles. The description below is a synthesis of some of the available literature 

describing traditional gender roles and relations that have formed part of indigenous 

cultures in the United States This description is not intended to minimize indigenous 

concepts of gender nor “freeze” them in time. It serves only as a starting point from 

which we can begin to explore the intersections of gender, indigeneity, and climate 

change, and assumes concepts of gender to be fluid, diverse, and ever-changing.

Many indigenous persons argue that gender roles were quite different in their 

communities prior to the colonization of North America. Key differences included 

egalitarian relationships between men and women and the leadership roles of 

women in various communities (Allen 1992, Brave Heart et al. 2012, Kauanui 

2008, Mihesuah 1996, Roscoe 1998, Smith 2005, Wagner 2001, Weaver 2009), the 

institutionalized presence of multiple genders (Blackwood 1997, LaFortune 2010, 

Morgensen 2011, Roscoe 1998), and the infrequency of gender violence (Brave 

Heart et al. 2012, Deer 2009, Smith 2005, Weaver 2009). 

With regard to gendered power dynamics in traditional indigenous communities, Allen (1992: 2) states, “Traditional tribal lifestyles are more often gynocratic 

than not, and they are never patriarchal.” Although patriarchal systems have 

predominantly shaped gender and sexuality in European cultures, gynocratic 

systems (social systems in which females have central sociopolitical roles, are 

figures of moral authority, have control over property, or some combination of these 

characteristics) have shaped the formation of gender and sexuality in many North 

American indigenous communities:
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GENERAL TECHNICAL REPORT PNW-GTR-923

Some distinguishing features of a woman-centered social system include free 

and easy sexuality and wide latitude in personal style. This latitude means 

that a diversity of people, including gay males and lesbians, are not denied 

and are in fact likely to be accorded honor. Also likely to be prominent in 

such systems are nurturing, pacifist, and passive males (as defined by western minds) and self-defining, assertive, decisive women. In many tribes, the 

nurturing male constitutes the ideal adult model for boys, while the decisive, 

self-directing female is the ideal model to which girls aspire. (Allen 1992: 2)

In some indigenous communities, gender identities and roles were more fluid, 

and individuals who did not conform to today’s Western gender binary were 

respected and active community members (Allen 1992, Calhoun et al. 2007, Farrer 

1997, Grahn 1984, Roscoe 1998, Thomas 1997). In these instances, it was often a 

person’s contributions to the community, not their biological sex, which defined 

their gender identity (Calhoun et al. 2007, Roscoe 1998). Andrea Smith (2005: 178) 

explains “... Native societies were not necessarily structured through binary gender 

systems. Rather, some of these societies had multiple genders and people did not fit 

rigidly into particular gender categories.” There are said to be over 80 tribes, spread 

throughout North America, in which gender and sexual diversity and fluidity have 

historically been accepted and/or deemed valuable, even sacred (Allen 1992, Grahn 

1984). These include the Apache, Navajo, Winnebago, Cheyenne, Sioux, Menominee, Osage, Klamath, Shoshoni, Aleut, Pawnee, Mohave, Quinault, Ojibwe, Aztec, 

Seminole, Crow, and Eskimo (Grahn 1984). Gender diversity was also something 

that indigenous communities may have aspired to, which is different from the idea 

of leveling off differences across genders that is common in Western conversations 

about gender justice. Calhoun et al. (2007: 527) describe, “...in precontact times, the 

term ‘equity’ was not considered a relevant concept. All that was engendered was 

considered to have value necessary to the survival of traditional communities and 

all that was engendered was considered necessary for the survival of the people.” 

Today, some indigenous communities and individuals have adopted the term 

“two-spirit,” first coined in 1990 at a Native queer gathering in Winnipeg. Gathering participants sought to find “a new term for Native sexualities and gender 

diversity” (Morgensen 2011: 81). “The term two-spirit was chosen as an intertribal 

term to be used in English as a way to communicate numerous tribal traditions and 

social categories of gender outside dominant European binaries” (Driskill 2010: 72). 

Morgensen (2011: 81) states: 

As a calque of a term from “Northern Algonquin...niizh manitoag 

(Two-Spirits),” which participants at the Winnipeg gathering defined as 

“the presence of both a masculine and a feminine spirit in one person,” 
9

Climate Change Through an Intersectional Lens: Gendered Vulnerability and Resilience in Indigenous Communities

Two-Spirit in English referred at once to “gay, lesbian, transvestite, transsexual, transgender, drag queens, and butches, as well as winkte, nadleeh, 

and other appropriate tribal terms.”

Although the term “two-spirit” has served to define some contemporary indigenous LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer) narratives and identities, 

not all gender and sexuality nonconforming indigenous peoples refer to themselves 

as two-spirits or necessarily agree with that terminology. Thus, we use the more 

inclusive acronym LGBTTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, two-spirit, queer) to 

refer to indigenous persons who do not conform to the Euro-American gender binary, 

heteronormativity, or other settler colonial norms regarding gender and sexuality.

A third noted characteristic of gender relations in indigenous communities prior 

to colonization was the infrequency with which gender violence took place (Weaver 

2009). “Domestic violence and child abuse were not tolerated; any perpetrator’s 

actions would be avenged by male relatives and often lead to banishment” (Brave 

Heart et al. 2012: 178). Even during conflict with incoming colonizers, Native men’s 

respectful treatment of white women was noteworthy. Smith (2005: 20) describes, 

“European women were often surprised to find that, even in war, they went unmolested by their Indian captors.”

The respectful gender relations in many indigenous communities were rapidly 

disrupted upon the arrival of European colonists (Allen 1992, Brave Heart et al. 

2012, Calhoun et al. 2007, Mihesuah 1996, Smith 2005, Weaver 2009). Mihesuah 

(1996) explains:

If we look at tribal societies at contact and trace the changes in their 

social, economic, and political systems over time through interaction with 

Euroamericans and intertribal relations, we will find that women did have 

power taken from them and so did Indian males. Gender roles changed over 

time, and Europeans were among the catalysts for this change.

In light of indigenous women’s powerful and respected roles within many communities, European colonizers believed that the colonization of indigenous peoples 

depended in large part on the subjugation of indigenous women (Allen 1992, Smith 

2005, Weaver 2009, Weisiger 2007). This colonial strategy would initiate a long 

history of disempowerment and violence toward indigenous women that continues 

today. Allen (1992: 3) states: 

The colonizers saw (and rightly) that as long as women held unquestioned 

power of such magnitude, attempts at total conquest of the continents were 

bound to fail. In the centuries since the first attempts at colonization in 

the early 1500s, the invaders have exerted every effort to remove Indian 
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GENERAL TECHNICAL REPORT PNW-GTR-923

women from every position of authority, to obliterate all records pertaining to gynocratic social systems, and to ensure that no American and few 

American Indians would remember that gynocracy was the primary social 

order of Indian America prior to 1800.

Indigenous peoples who didn’t conform to the European gender binary and/or 

heteronormativity were also targeted during colonization (Allen 1992, LaFortune 

2010, Morgensen 2011, Smith 2005). LaFortune (2010) explains:

...early explorers and adventurers from Europe were outraged by the fact 

that many Two Spirit people (who might be called gay, lesbian, bisexual, 

or transgender in American English) among Indigenous cultures were 

persons of standing and rank in their communities. They were targeted at 

the beginning for extermination, particularly by the Spanish, from Florida 

to California.

Rifkin (2011: 144) describes the Euro-American persecution and villainization 

of indigenous forms of kinship, familial relations, and diverse sexuality as a social 

tool to advance the imperial agenda of the United States:

Non-nuclear modes of habitation, identification, and eroticism are cast as a 

challenge to the operation of U.S. sovereignty, and reciprocally, the exertion 

and extension of state power is justified on the basis of the need to protect 

the “social relations” that lie at the heart of civilized existence.

Through laws like the Dawes Allotment and the Indian Reorganization Act, the 

United States normalized heteronormative, patriarchal, nuclear-family-oriented narratives that promoted individuality, privatization, and property-holding, while framing indigenous relations as deviant and uncivilized, and delegitimizing indigenous 

clan and community-centered kinship that was frequently gynocratic (Calhoun et al. 

2007, Rifkin 2011). Ross (1998) analyzes the history of the Euro-American criminalization of indigenous lifeways, the eradication of indigenous judicial systems, 

and the incarceration of indigenous peoples as a means to undermine sovereignty. 

Precontact Native criminal justice was primarily a system of restitution—a 

system of mediation between families, of compensation, of recuperation. 

But this system of justice was changed into a shadow of itself. Attempts 

were made to make Natives like white people, first by means of war and, 

when the gunsmoke cleared, by means of laws—Native people instead 

became ‘criminals.’ (Ross 1998: 14)

The United States also used the law to disrupt traditional indigenous gender 

roles and kinship models by forcing indigenous children to attend boarding schools 
11

Climate Change Through an Intersectional Lens: Gendered Vulnerability and Resilience in Indigenous Communities

that stripped them of their indigenous culture, language, and traditions, and inculcated them with European cultural values (Brave Heart et al. 2012, Rifkin 2011, 

Smith 2005). These schools separated indigenous children from their families and 

communities for long periods of time, which often led to rampant sexual, physical, 

and emotional abuse; replaced indigenous spirituality with Christianity; and molded 

indigenous children to fit patriarchal, nuclear family-oriented systems (Rifkin 2011, 

Smith 2005). The United Nations’ definition of genocide includes “forcibly transferring children of the group to another group” (UN General Assembly 1948). By this 

definition, and by the accounts of indigenous communities, Indian boarding schools 

were genocidal both in intent and in nature.

The cultural assimilation catalyzed by Indian boarding schools has led to the 

long-term devaluation of indigenous women (Calhoun et al. 2007, Weaver 2009) 

and increased violence, particularly violence against women and children, within 

indigenous communities (Smith 2005, Weaver 2009). Calhoun et al. (2007: 533) 

stated, “Gender inequity for American Indian students began in boarding schools 

that valued men’s work and devalued women’s work.” These traumatizing and 

disempowering experiences have led many indigenous peoples to struggle with 

internalized self-hatred, which combined with the introduction of alcohol has led to 

high rates of substance abuse and suicide (Calhoun et al. 2007, Smith 2005, Weaver 

2009). Additionally, the erosion of precolonial gender roles and the separation of 

children from their families during boarding school have affected the ability of 

some indigenous adults to be good parents (Ball 2009, Bigfoot and Funderburk 

2011, Brave Heart et al. 2012, Mokuau 2002, Strickland et al. 2006). 

The erosion of fathering among Lakota men, in part the result of the 

destructive influences of boarding schools that undermined traditional 

parenting roles, has contributed to confusion among boys and a lack of 

clarity regarding the meaning of becoming wicasa was’aka. (Brave Heart et 

al. 2012: 179)

Today, indigenous women, men, and LGBTTQ persons are striving to reconstruct positive gender roles and identities that will help heal the wounds of colonization and restore health to their communities (Allen 1992, Goeman 2013, Jacob 2013, 

LaFortune 2010, Maracle 1996). Allen (1992: 193) writes:

To survive culturally, American Indian women must often fight the United 

States government, the tribal governments, women and men of their 

tribe or their urban community who are virulently misogynist or who are 

threatened by attempts to change the images foisted on us over centuries 

by whites.

Today, indigenous 

women, men, and 

LGBTTQ persons are 

striving to reconstruct 

positive gender roles 

and identities that will 

help heal the wounds 

of colonization and 

restore health to their 

communities.
12

GENERAL TECHNICAL REPORT PNW-GTR-923

As Allen points out above, there can be disagreements regarding gender rights, 

roles, and identities within indigenous communities (Barker 2008, Denetdale 2008, 

Valencia-Weber 2011). For some indigenous groups, the fight to protect indigenous 

culture and sovereignty has taken precedence over gender rights. This tendency was 

evident in the court case of the Santa Clara Pueblo vs. Martinez: 

Decided in 1978, the Martinez case denied Julia Martinez access to federal 

court to challenge a Pueblo membership ordinance treating female members who marry outside the Pueblo differently from male members who 

marry outside. The case has long attracted attention from feminists and 

human rights advocates, because they see a woman’s claim of gender discrimination pitted against a Pueblo’s claim of tribal sovereignty (ValenciaWeber 2011: 451).

Barker (2008: 259) describes the long fight that Indian women endured in 

Canada to amend the Indian Act of 1868, which used “patrilineality as the criterion 

for determining Indian status, including the rights of Indians to participate in band 

government, have access to band services and programs, and live on the reserves.” 

Barker explains how the Indian Act propelled a sense of entitlement among status 

Indian men, who over time came to expect band government and property rights 

over Indian women. When various Indian women’s constituencies rallied for (and 

eventually secured) amendments to the act to partially reverse the patrilineal 

criterion, their band governments (comprising primarily status Indian men) accused 

them of being anti-Indian, and complicit with colonial ideologies seeking to undermine indigenous sovereignty and lifeways.

In a related example, Ramirez (2008: 303) highlights some of the sexist tendencies of the American Indian Movement (AIM): 

Native women frequently occupied subordinate positions within the movement, and were expected to satisfy and fulfill the sexual desires of AIM’s 

male leaders. Native women were, therefore, encouraged to believe that 

indigenous men should be in power. Native American women were taught 

in this sexist environment to support an indigenous nationalism that disregarded their own antisexist priorities.

Some Native American women community leaders may choose to prioritize race over gender when it comes to activism, because in advocating along 

racial lines they protect not just women, but their entire indigenous community 

(Prindeville 2003). The mainstream feminist movement, the discourse of which 

is mostly formulated within circles of white women, often fails to resonate with 

women of color whose culture and history differs greatly from that of white 
13

Climate Change Through an Intersectional Lens: Gendered Vulnerability and Resilience in Indigenous Communities

women (Goeman and Denetdale 2009, Mayer 2007, Ramirez 2008). For indigenous 

women, the mainstream feminist movement fails to account for the colonial history and unique cultural characteristics that have defined indigenous women’s past 

and present experiences (Allen 1992, Goeman and Denetdale 2009, Maracle 1996, 

Mayer 2007, Stewart-Harawira 2007). Lorrain F. Mayer (2007: 23) describes her 

issues with feminism as a Cree Métis woman: 

My reasons for rejecting feminism on any level were due in part to three 

major influences in my life. First, I agreed with Native women activists like 

Janet McCloud of the Tulalip Tribe, who criticized feminism as an attempt 

to “divert us into participating as ‘equal’ in our own colonization” (quoted 

in Jaimes 1992: 314). As I understood it, feminism was about asserting 

one’s rights to be like white men. Second, since a gendered pronoun was 

absent from the Cree language, I could not conceive of Cree people ordering their world around a male-created reality; therefore, I reasoned, it must 

be a colonial construct. Third, and just as important to me, was the absence 

of domination in my early personal experiences with Native men. Thus, I 

was convinced that feminist claims about patriarchal hierarchy and domination could only refer to the white world.

It is important to note that concepts in white feminism do not predate indigenous concepts of gender equality and feminine power. In fact, indigenous gynocracies have often inspired or been a point of reference for social activists of diverse 

genders and races seeking more just and egalitarian social systems. As Allen 

(1992:2) describes, “American Indians are not merely doomed victims of western 

imperialism or progress; they are also the carriers of the dream that most activist 

movements in the Americas claim to be seeking.” Wagner (1996, 2001) documents 

how the matrilineal culture of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) informed the early 

mainstream feminist movement. And yet today, mainstream feminism fails to 

address the intersectional oppressions faced by contemporary indigenous women 

and other women of color.

Indigenous scholars and thinkers are reaching back into their gendered histories 

and bringing them into a contemporary context to reconstruct indigenous feminisms 

that take into account the impacts of colonization, and work with (not against) tribal 

cultures and sovereignty (Allen 1992, Goeman and Denetdale 2009, Green 2007, 

Mayer 2007, Ramirez 2008, Stewart-Harawira 2007). Gender rights need not be set 

aside for sovereign indigenous rights; both have suffered as a result of colonization, 

and one cannot be properly addressed without the other. With regard to the many 

forces converging to oppress Native Hawaiian women, Kauanui (2008: 285) states:

For indigenous women, 

the mainstream 

feminist movement 

fails to account for 

the colonial history 

and unique cultural 

characteristics 

that have defined 

indigenous women’s 

past and present 

experiences.
14

GENERAL TECHNICAL REPORT PNW-GTR-923

Even if patriarchy is understood as a colonial “import” to Hawai’i, male 

dominance and feminist critique are far from irrelevant to the oppression 

of Hawaiian women. If one asserts that women were not oppressed by men 

in traditional Hawai’i before the coming of foreign influences, the peril is 

that some may argue that simply getting rid of those influences (as if we 

could) would solve the problem of women’s oppression in Hawai’i today. In 

other words, we risk treating the problem of contemporary forms of gendered oppression as secondary to the restoration of political sovereignty, as 

though the recognition of Hawai’i’s sovereignty claims would be enough to 

deal with the structural manifestations of sexism and misogyny. Along with 

activism, critical analysis, and a decolonizing sensibility attuned to gender 

oppression are necessary emancipatory strategies for reckoning with the 

legacies of colonial male domination.

The ideas discussed in this overview regarding the intersection of indigeneity and gender are certainly relevant to climate change impacts. In preparing for 

climate change, indigenous communities and their allies can strive to address both 

indigenous and gender concerns by developing climate change frameworks that 

are sensitive to gendered, indigenous experiences, by fostering gender diversity in 

climate change leadership and decisionmaking, and by ensuring that climate change 

initiatives work to dismantle, not exacerbate, the colonial oppression of indigenous 

women, men, and LGBTTQ people.

Gendered Responsibilities in Indigenous Communities

Gender has historically played an important role in defining social structure and sociocultural responsibilities within indigenous communities in North America (Anderson 

2005, Jacobs et al. 1997, Kuhlmann 1992, McGregor 2005, Mihesuah 1996, Roscoe 

1998). Traditionally, responsibilities to land, water, plants, and animals were often 

gendered (Anderson 2005, Kuhlmann 1992). In many indigenous communities, women 

were often responsible for managing and harvesting plants and engaging in agricultural 

activities, whereas men were often responsible for hunting or fishing activities (Anderson 2005, Colombi 2012, Kuhlmann 1992, Scarry and Scarry 2005). “In aboriginal 

California, women were the ethnobotanists, testing, selecting, and tending much of the 

plant world, men were the ethnozoologists, applying their intimate knowledge of animal 

behavior and skillful hunting, fishing and fowling” (Anderson 2005: 41-42). Scarry and 

Scarry (2005: 261) describe that it was the women of Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, and 

Chickasaw tribes in the southeastern United States that “bore the primary responsibility 

for preparing fields, planting, weeding and harvesting.” Thomas (2005) describes how 

sugar maple sap harvest and maple sugar preparation activities among the Ojibwe and 

Potawatomi Tribes in Wisconsin and Michigan were traditionally carried out by women. 
15

Climate Change Through an Intersectional Lens: Gendered Vulnerability and Resilience in Indigenous Communities

Women across many indigenous communities have had a strong connection 

to water, often leading initiatives to protect it (Bruce and Harries 2010, McGregor 

2005, McNutt 2012). “Women have a special relationship to water, in birth, ceremonies, and even cooking and cleaning” (McNutt 2012: 104). Bruce and Harries (2010: 

6) explain that as the protectors of water, women “play an intimate role in defending 

this precious resource.” 

Historically, the traditional gendered responsibilities of gender-variant individuals (today’s LGBTTQ people) varied on a tribal and case-by-case basis. Different 

tribes had different terms to describe gender diversity within their communities, 

and these different terms sometimes came with specific responsibilities and norms. 

In some cases, gender-variant individuals preferred or excelled at traditional activities and responsibilities of a sex not their own (Roscoe 1998). In tribes in which 

gender diversity was institutionalized, this was typically acceptable and people 

were free and often encouraged to pursue the traditional responsibilities to which 

they were inclined (Roscoe 1998). For example, in the Navajo language, the term 

nádleehí was used to refer to gender-variant community members. 

Female nádleehí gained prestige in men’s pursuits such as hunting and 

warfare, while male nádleehí specialized in equally prestigious women’s 

activities of farming, herding sheep, gathering food sources, weaving, knitting, basketry, pottery, and leatherwork (Roscoe 1998: 41).

Yet gender-variant individuals didn’t necessarily abandon the traditional 

responsibilities ascribed to their biological sex; sometimes they pursued both 

traditionally masculine and feminine activities and responsibilities (Farrer 1997, 

Roscoe 1998). 

Although some gendered responsibilities remain strong in today’s indigenous 

communities, other responsibilities have been altered in part because of the social 

and ecological changes brought on by colonization (Anderson 2005, Hoover 2013, 

McGregor 2005, Thomas 2005). Settlement of Indian lands, genocide of indigenous 

peoples, the disempowerment of indigenous women and LGBTTQ people, the 

exploitation of natural resources by settlers, and the physical relocation of various tribes have challenged many indigenous communities’ relationships with the 

landscapes, seascapes, plants, and animals with which they had regularly interacted 

since time immemorial (Anderson 2005, Hoover 2013, Jacob 2013, Merchant 2007, 

Smith 2005, Wilkinson 2005). 

Some environments have been so severely degraded by industrial practices that 

the health repercussions for indigenous peoples threaten life across various generations. This is amplified by the fact that environmental justice is rarely served when it 

comes to locating toxic industries and waste. Of the 1,322 existing Superfund sites (or 
16

GENERAL TECHNICAL REPORT PNW-GTR-923

hazardous waste cleanup sites) in the United States, nearly 25 percent of them are in 

Indian Country, and some of the persisting impacts, as in the case in Mohawk territory, 

may include the presence of endocrine disruptors (Hansen 2014). As the name implies, 

endocrine disruptors are chemicals that disrupt the normal function of the endocrine 

system, the system that regulates the body’s hormones, potentially leading to a host of 

health problems in human and nonhuman animals, including developmental and reproductive abnormalities, reduced fertility, and increases in immune and autoimmune 

diseases as well as some types of cancer (NIEHS 2010, NRDC 1998). These chemicals 

are especially prevalent in pesticides and plastics (NIEHS 2010, NRDC 1998).

Murphy (2013) describes the environmental injustices faced by the Aamjiwnaang First Nation, a small Ojibwe group situated on the shores of the St. Clair River 

between Ontario, Canada, and Port Huron, Michigan, a place that has been dubbed 

“Chemical Valley.” With a population of 850, the Aamjiwnaang’s reserve comprises 

1,280.5 acres, surrounded on all sides by refineries and petroleum facilities, including Dow Chemical, Suncor, and Shell, and is near various other factories producing 

toxic outputs. The effect of industrial toxins on tribal lifeways was already apparent 

in the 1970s, when commercial fishing was banned on the St. Clair River owing to 

mercury levels in the fish. The Aamjiwnaang, for whom fishing was an important 

subsistence activity, were among several First Nations communities to be diagnosed 

with Ontario Minamata Disease, a form of mercury poisoning. As Murphy (2013: 

114) states, “The loss of this traditional food source was yet another manifestation 

of colonial violence in chemical form.” 

Three decades later, and as a result of a lack of government regulation, the Aamjiwnaang are continuously exposed to pollutants that cause cancer, as well as cardiovascular, respiratory, developmental, and reproductive disorders. Among the greatest 

concerns are the Nation’s 39 percent rate of miscarriage, and an unprecedented birth 

ratio of two girls for every boy (Murphy 2013). In 2013, A First Nations’ rights group 

working in association with the Idle No More movement provided a “Toxic Tour” 

of Chemical Valley to shed light on the environmental injustices experienced by the 

Aamjiwnaang. Toledano (2013), who attended the tour, states: 

Aamjiwnaang’s out-dated welcome sign, which reads “Population: 1,800,” 

betrays the truth of its endangered population. Many have abandoned the 

reserve due to health problems, often leaving behind elderly family members. Others stay because they cannot afford to leave. But a community 

continues to exist in this polluted wasteland—life goes on in toxic air.

Some indigenous peoples continue to carry out their traditional relationships 

with species and places despite having to do so in highly degraded environments. 

Some indigenous 

peoples continue 

to carry out 

their traditional 

relationships with 

species and places 

despite having to do 

so in highly degraded 

environments.
17

Climate Change Through an Intersectional Lens: Gendered Vulnerability and Resilience in Indigenous Communities

One such case is documented by Hoover (2013: 6), in which a Mohawk man 

describes his reasons for continuing to fish, despite regional fish advisories warning 

the community of industry-caused toxicity in the water and in the fish:

We give thanks for that food and we have to use it. I mean it doesn’t make 

sense scientifically, but it makes sense spiritually and mentally that you 

should eat that, you know. You can’t just put it aside and say, “well your 

work is not good enough,” or something, you know? They’re still given out 

what their original instructions were, and it’s us that are at fault, it’s our 

fault that they’re like that, you know. 

Hoover (2013: 6) goes on to explain:

Even though as a Mohawk he is not responsible for the contamination that 

has affected the fish, as a human being he is implicated in the problem, and 

therefore it is even more important that he works to maintain this relationship with the fish. Because the job given by the Creator to fish is to offer 

themselves as food, and the job given to humans is to respectfully harvest 

these fish, people like Richard who are working to maintain tradition feel 

obligated to maintain these roles.

The social changes experienced by indigenous communities have also 

affected the ability of community members to exercise their traditional responsibilities and perpetuate traditional knowledge (Jacob 2013, McGregor 2005). 

Indian boarding schools separated children from their families at ages when 

they would have been learning traditional roles and responsibilities. Indigenous 

women, whose traditional roles and responsibilities had been critical to their 

communities, were often disempowered and forced to assimilate into Eurocentric 

gender roles (Jacob 2013, Smith 2005, Weaver 2009, Weisiger 2007). In reference 

to efforts to alter the roles of Navajo women, Weisiger (2007: 441) states, “Since 

the mid-nineteenth century, the Bureau of Indian Affairs had endeavored to transform Native societies by stripping women of their power as agricultural producers 

and hide processors and transforming them into good housewives.” In describing 

the plight of Cree women, Ohmagari and Berkes (1997: 217) state: “Traditionally 

certain bush skills and knowledge were held by women, and their overall role and 

knowledge were considered as important as those of men. However, since settling 

into permanent villages, women have lost their role and some of their knowledge 

base.” Similarly, when describing the eventual changes in maple sugar production 

among the Ojibwe and Potawatomi Tribes in Wisconsin and Michigan, Thomas 

(2005: 321) states: 
18

GENERAL TECHNICAL REPORT PNW-GTR-923

It is my contention that the changes from women to men and from sugar 

to syrup that accompanied the abandonment of kettles and adoption of flat 

pans were not coincidental, but related to a larger process of westernization 

and masculinization of the Indian sugarbush.

The sociocultural impacts of colonization have also greatly affected the traditional roles of indigenous peoples with genders outside the European gender binary, 

in part due to assimilation into Western religion and cultural values that disapprove 

of gender diversity (Lang 1997). 

Traditional gender roles for two-spirit individuals have disappeared on 

many reservations, and young people who grow up to be “different” in 

terms of occupational preferences and/or sexual orientation often find themselves at a loss for role models. This holds true even more for urban Native 

Americans (Lang 1997: 109).

Despite these challenges, many indigenous peoples still interact intimately 

with landscapes, seascapes, plants, and animals that have formed part of their cultural history (Wildcat 2009). Indigenous communities are well aware that ceasing 

to engage in these reciprocal relationships with traditional places and species can 

lead to cultural and ecological loss. “When intimate interaction ceases, the continuity of knowledge, passed down through generations, is broken, and the land 

becomes ‘wilderness’” (Anderson 2005: 4). Indigenous food sovereignty movements, in which indigenous communities re-assert their right to interact with and 

have access to traditional foods species, represent just one of the ways in which 

indigenous peoples are fighting for the preservation of traditional responsibilities 

and cultural practices. Some of these movements and initiatives are highlighted 

under “Traditional Foods, Diet, and Nutrition in the “Public Health’” subsection 

of this report. 

Climate change exposes vulnerabilities, as it threatens to affect the range 

and distribution of culturally critical plants and animals as well as alter cultural 

landscapes, thereby compromising the ability of indigenous peoples to carry out 

traditional responsibilities and relationships (Whyte 2013). At the same time, 

indigenous communities can use their intimate knowledge and awareness to 

identify climate change threats and develop meaningful mitigation and adaptation 

strategies. Gendered traditional responsibilities and knowledge have formed part 

of various successful indigenous activist strategies (Bruce and Harries 2010, Goeman 2013, Jacob 2013, Weisiger 2007), and can form a vital part of climate change 

initiatives. Both vulnerability and resilience will be discussed in more detail in 

what follows. 

Gendered traditional 

responsibilities and 

knowledge have 

formed part of various 

successful indigenous 

activist strategies, 

and can form a vital 

part of climate change 

initiatives.
19

Climate Change Through an Intersectional Lens: Gendered Vulnerability and Resilience in Indigenous Communities

Perspectives on Climate Change Vulnerability and Resilience

In climate change literature and other literatures exploring social vulnerability, indigenous communities are often described as simultaneously vulnerable and resilient. Many 

of the factors that make contemporary indigenous communities uniquely vulnerable in 

the face of environmental change are directly related to European colonization. Historically, indigenous communities have been highly adaptable and resilient to environmental change (Turner and Clifton 2009). However at present, the ability of indigenous 

communities to exercise resilience is often limited by the ongoing impacts of colonialism. Colonization made possible the globalized economic system that has catalyzed 

anthropogenic climate change, while simultaneously dispossessing indigenous communities and creating environmental and social conditions that profoundly challenged their 

ability to exercise the knowledge, skills, and traditions that contribute to their resilience 

(Cameron 2012, Harris 2004, Mirzoeff 2013, Powless 2012, Wildcat 2009). Thus, it is 

critical to frame discussions of indigenous climate change vulnerability and resilience 

within the context of European colonization, as the two are inseparable. 

Climate change itself, as a number of Indigenous leaders and scholars have 

made clear, is thoroughly tied to colonial practices, both historically and in 

the present, insofar as greenhouse gas production over the last two centuries hinged on the dispossession of Indigenous lands and resources (Gray 

and Mason 2009, Johnson 2010, as cited in Cameron 2012: 104).

Despite the numerous barriers posed by the continued impacts of colonization, 

indigenous communities continue to resist and thrive, using their unique positions 

as indigenous sovereigns to form coalitions and movements that are innovative, 

strategic, and culturally appropriate. In his analysis of indigenous movements to 

confront climate change, Powless (2012: 412) states: 

Indigenous Peoples have indeed forged a unique, formidable, and cohesive 

social movement across borders, working both inside and outside official, 

governmental spaces and legal processes, in order to contest but also 

engage the dominant understandings of climate change and their hegemonic 

and (neo)colonial bases, while, at the same time, creating spaces to assert 

their own understandings and encounter potential allies. On the one hand, 

the movement challenges official decision-making processes while demanding inclusion on their own terms. On the other, they are constructing 

alternative spaces and forms of Indigenous collective power and, to some 

extent, with allied movements.

Although examples of indigenous resilience are abundant, indigenous narratives, 

including narratives of indigenous resilience, are often absent or misrepresented 
20

GENERAL TECHNICAL REPORT PNW-GTR-923

in academic literature, in great part because of underrepresentation of indigenous 

peoples and epistemologies in Western academic institutions (Matsinhe 2007). 

When indigenous vulnerability and resilience are examined in academic arenas, it is 

sometimes through a colonial lens that distorts or reduces indigenous experiences, 

knowledge, and capacity. For example, Cameron (2012) describes the way in which 

deep-rooted colonial ideologies have led scholars to consider indigenous knowledge 

and skills relevant only at a local level, thereby limiting notions of indigenous 

agency, power, and relevance in an age of global environmental change. These limiting notions contrast with Powless’ (2012) analyses highlighted above, in which he 

describes the transnational nature of many indigenous movements.

European colonization has especially marginalized the voices of indigenous 

women and LGBTTQ people (Kauanui 2008, LaFortune 2010, Maracle 1996, 

Miranda 2002, Smith 2005, Weaver 2009). This marginalization may be a reason 

why first-hand accounts of indigenous women’s experiences, including ways in which 

they may be vulnerable or resilient in the face of climate change impacts, are scarce 

in the literature. When women’s vulnerability and resilience is discussed in international climate change literature, it is often done in a generalizing, reductive way that 

disregards intersectional oppressions or privileges (Arora-Jonsson 2011). Additionally, the source of women’s climate change vulnerabilities may be oversimplified in 

these literatures, blaming, for example, the likeliness of women’s poverty without 

examining the unequal gendered power dynamics that undergird such poverty in 

the first place (Arora-Jonsson 2011). These simplistic portrayals of women’s vulnerabilities and resilience in the literature can make it challenging to assess indigenous 

women’s climate change vulnerabilities and resilience with the desired level of depth. 

There is also a shortage of literature on LGBTTQ people and climate change. 

• Indigenous conceptions of gender differ from western conceptions 

in that many indigenous communities were (and sometimes still are) 

traditionally matrifocal, and often made valued spaces in society for 

more than two genders. 

• Colonial impacts on gender roles in indigenous communities affect 

the health of these communities and reduce the resilience of indigenous peoples to climate change.

• Academic literature on indigenous resilience and vulnerability may 

include problematic assumptions about gender. 

When indigenous 

vulnerability and 

resilience are examined 

in academic arenas, 

it is sometimes 

through a colonial 

lens that distorts or 

reduces indigenous 

experiences, 

knowledge, and 

capacity.
21

Climate Change Through an Intersectional Lens: Gendered Vulnerability and Resilience in Indigenous Communities

It is important to keep the above perspectives on vulnerability and resilience in 

mind. In the following sections, we examine literature describing gendered climate 

change impacts and solutions, and cross-reference it with the preceding description 

of indigenous gender roles and responsibilities before and after European settlement 

of the Americas. This literature synthesis seeks to identify literature that challenges 

misrepresentations of indigenous communities with regard to both climate change 

and gender. In the process, we hope to identify some ways in which gender may 

define climate change vulnerabilities and promote resilience in indigenous communities in the United States. 

Gendered Climate Change Vulnerability and Resilience 

in Indigenous Communities in the United States

Public Health

The intersections between gender, climate change, and health are being explored 

with increasing frequency in the international arena. Understanding the gendered health implications of climate change for indigenous communities in the 

United States is important, particularly because American Indians rank highest 

in health disparities among ethnic and racial groups in the United States, despite 

comprising the smallest of these groups (Brave Heart et al. 2012). International 

literature analyzing the implications of gender on health risks in a climate 

change context tends to focus on women’s vulnerabilities, in part because of 

the limitations experienced by women as a result of cultural gender norms, and 

because of the challenges women often experience socioeconomically in comparison to men. Indigenous women and LGBTTQ people in the United States 

are vulnerable because their race and gender intersect to create socioeconomic 

and environmental challenges that affect their climate change resilience. For 

example, indigenous women experience some of the highest rates of violence 

of any women in the United States (Amnesty International USA 2007, Weaver 

2009), making them particularly vulnerable to the escalating rates of domestic and sexual violence that have been documented after natural disasters or 

weather-related crises. Although little research has been done specifically on the 

health vulnerabilities of indigenous LGBTTQ people, LGBTQ literature reveals 

that members of the LGBTQ community struggle to find healthcare options that 

meet their unique needs, making them more likely to postpone care or receive 

inadequate care (Chávez 2011). 

Although indigenous women and LGBTTQ people may be particularly vulnerable, it is also important to recognize the health crises affecting indigenous 

men in the United States, in part because of the cultural impacts of colonization. 

Brave Heart et al. (2012) report that death rates of American Indian males exceed 

Indigenous women 

and LGBTTQ people in 

the United States are 

vulnerable because 

their race and gender 

intersect to create 

socioeconomic 

and environmental 

challenges that affect 

their climate change 

resilience.
22

GENERAL TECHNICAL REPORT PNW-GTR-923

those of females for every age group up to age 75, because of health disparities 

such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, and diabetes, but also because of high 

rates of suicide, substance abuse, and mental health disorders, which disproportionately affect American Indian men and boys. Thus, it is also critical to assess 

the ways in which indigenous men’s health may be uniquely vulnerable in the 

context of climate change.

Below, we discuss the potential implications of gender with regard to three climate 

change health impacts that are of particular relevance to indigenous communities: 

• Injuries resulting from extreme weather or natural disasters.

• Traditional foods, diet, and nutrition.

• Mental health and community violence.

Injuries resulting from extreme weather or natural disasters—

In the face of extreme weather and natural disasters, women may be more vulnerable to injury and death than men (Alston 2013, David and Enarson 2012, 

Kukarenko 2011, Nellemann et al. 2011, Terry 2009, UNPFA 2009). This may 

be partly due to biological differences. For example, women may be particularly 

vulnerable in extreme weather conditions or in a natural disaster while in the later 

stages of pregnancy, because of the unique physical needs and limited mobility that 

may come with being pregnant (Neumayer and Plümper 2007, Zotti et al. 2012). 

However, Nellemann et al. (2011) explain that women’s increased vulnerabilities 

are most often linked to socially constructed differences in gender norms and roles. 

Across many cultures, it is women who are most often expected to manage households and care for children and elderly family members (UNPFA 2009). This tends 

to limit the mobility of women in caretaking roles, making them less able to evacuate in the case of a weather emergency, placing them in a more vulnerable position 

(David and Enarson 2012, UNPFA 2009). Additionally, women caring for children 

are likely to risk their own lives in favor of protecting the children’s safety in the 

face of a weather-related crisis (McNutt 2012, UNPFA 2009). 

Women across most of the world are said to have lower socioeconomic status than 

their male counterparts, a fact that may challenge women’s access to the information 

and resources necessary to prepare for and protect themselves from extreme weather 

(Alston 2013, Cuomo 2011, David and Enarson 2012, Terry 2009, UNPFA 2009). 

Women are much more likely to be living in poverty, are less likely to own 

land and resources to protect them in a post-disaster situation, and have less 

control over production and income, less education and training, less access 

to institutional support and information, less freedom of association, and 

fewer positions on decision-making bodies (Alston 2013: 9). 
23

Climate Change Through an Intersectional Lens: Gendered Vulnerability and Resilience in Indigenous Communities

Although there is evidence that women are more likely to die during heat waves 

(Kukarenko 2011, WHO 2011), acts of heroism and risk-taking behavior associated 

with masculinity in certain cultures may make men more vulnerable in other extreme 

weather scenarios (WHO 2011, Terry 2009). The World Health Organization (2011) 

reports that men are much more likely to drown, a statistic that may be linked to risktaking behavior. Terry (2009: 7) states: 

In some cases, cultural norms may create situations where men suffer 

from gender-specific vulnerability. For instance, the deaths in recent years 

of many young West African men trying to reach Europe by boat can be 

partly attributed to climate stress on rural livelihoods, which leads them to 

leave their families and communities and take fatal risks, hoping they will 

be able to find work and remit part of their earnings back home.

Climate change is leading to extreme weather in various regions of the 

United States. Findings from the Third National Climate Assessment reveal 

that extreme weather and climate events have increased in recent decades, 

including excessively high temperatures, heavy precipitation, and severe 

droughts, depending on the region (Melillo et al. 2014). Climate models project 

that heat waves, overall temperatures, heavy downpours, sea level rise, and 

hurricane-related storms and rainfall are all expected to increase (Melillo et 

al. 2014). These impacts have had (and will continue to have) repercussions for 

indigenous communities.

Hurricane Katrina (which took place in 2005) was among the worst natural 

disasters in U.S. history, and serves to illustrate some of the intersectional challenges faced by indigenous communities during and after a natural disaster. In 

2008, the American Indian Culture and Research Journal released a special issue 

titled “Indigenous Locations Post-Katrina: Beyond Invisibility and Disaster.” In the 

issue’s Introduction, Jolivette (2008: 3) states:

While millions across the world watched their televisions in horror and disbelief, a greater tragedy began to unfold. Centuries of neglect and disinvestment in the indigenous and tribal communities of Louisiana would reach an 

all-time high in the aftermath of the storm forever known as Katrina.

Contributors to the issue, who include scholars and indigenous community 

members affected by the Hurricane, describe the immediate devastation and 

lingering impacts that Katrina brought to the Gulf Coast’s indigenous communities, 

particularly Houma, Point-au-Chien, Choctaw, Tunica-Biloxi, and mixed IndianCreole communities (Childs 2008, Collins 2008, Cranford-Gomez 2008, Dardar 

2008, D’Oney 2008, Dunn 2008, King 2008, Klopotek et al. 2008). 

Climate models project 

that heat waves, overall 

temperatures, heavy 

downpours, sea-level, 

and hurricane-related 

storms and rainfall 

are all expected 

to increase. These 

impacts have had 

(and will continue to 

have) repercussions 

for indigenous 

communities.
24

GENERAL TECHNICAL REPORT PNW-GTR-923

The intersectional impacts of and recoveries from Hurricane Katrina have also 

been documented in The Women of Katrina: How Gender, Race and Class Matter in 

an American Disaster (David and Enarson 2012). This book highlights the intersectional experiences of hurricane survivors by featuring articles written post-Katrina 

in protest of the inadequacy of media coverage, and of rescue and recovery strategies 

that completely disregarded gendered and racialized experiences, as well as by including various testimonials from survivors discussing how gender, race, class, and ability 

defined their experiences during and after Katrina. One of the testimonials (Robichaux 2012) highlights the efforts of Brenda Dardar Robichaux and her Houma tribal 

community, and illustrates the post-disaster strength and perseverance that must come 

from within, particularly for indigenous communities that are federally unrecognized: 

During those early days, Robichaux traveled down the bayou in her husband’s truck; when they reached a point where water still covered the road, 

they got into pirogues (dugout canoes made from cypress) and brought 

people food and water that way (Robichaux 2012: 43). 

The testimonial also describes the way in which Robichaux housed, fed, and 

held cultural workshops for volunteers, whom she states “were a blessing.” It then 

describes the greatest challenge Robichaux faced in rebuilding her tribal community:

Robichaux’s greatest challenge, however, came from the federal government, which she believed should have come to their aid. The tribe is fighting for federal recognition status through the Bureau of Indian Affairs. To 

compound their pending status, no one could get through to FEMA or the 

Red Cross. “They were incompetent and ineffective,” Robichaux comments. 

“I don’t know where we would be without the volunteers. Our people have 

language barriers and education barriers; 47 percent of the adult population 

has less than a high school education” (Robichaux 2012: 45).

For indigenous communities, relying on the support of the federal government 

after extreme weather or natural disaster can be risky, given the inadequacy of 

previous emergency responses and support. This is especially true for tribes that 

are federally unrecognized, as they cannot rely on federal funding that is allocated 

to federally recognized tribes only. These challenges compound the physical and 

socioeconomic threats to indigenous peoples in an extreme weather situation.

Indigenous women and children may be more vulnerable to injury and death in 

the face of severe weather or natural disasters. The Native Women’s Association of 

Canada (2007: 2) states: 

The listing of vulnerable population as outlined by Health Canada places 

Aboriginal women and children within most or all of the categories of 

For indigenous 

communities, relying 

on the support of the 

federal government 

after extreme weather 

or natural disaster 

can be risky, given the 

inadequacy of previous 

emergency responses 

and support.
25

Climate Change Through an Intersectional Lens: Gendered Vulnerability and Resilience in Indigenous Communities

vulnerable segments of the Canadian population. As a national Aboriginal organization, we are tasked with an important role in preparing 

our women and children to prepare for extreme weather impacts and to 

adopt adaptation strategies necessary to reduce the risks associated with 

climate change.

Indigenous men also face unique risks in the event of severe weather or natural disasters, particularly if they associate their masculinity with heroic acts and 

risk-taking. Rhoades (2003) has described the prevalence of risk-taking behaviors 

among American Indian men, and points out that American Indian men are more 

likely to die from accidents than American Indian women. Men may also be 

vulnerable to accidents if the environments in which they carry out their traditional 

activities, including hunting, whaling, and fishing, become more hazardous as a 

result of climate change. This trend is manifesting itself in the Arctic, where Alaska 

Natives and other indigenous groups may face unusual risks owing to the thinning 

and unpredictable nature of the sea ice on which they traditionally hunt (Ford and 

Smit 2004, McBeath and Shepro 2007).

Traditional foods, diet, and nutrition—

International literature reports that women are more likely to suffer from chronic 

hunger and malnourishment (Roberts 2009, WHO 2011). Women may be more 

likely to suffer from hunger in part because of lower socioeconomic status that 

limits access to sufficient or adequately nutritious food (WHO 2011). Roberts 

(2009: 39) states, “Among the chronically hungry people in the world, 60 percent 

are women. Climate change will only exacerbate these numbers.” This is particularly problematic because, as the World Health Organization (2011: 17) points out, 

“Women are more prone to nutritional deficiencies because of their unique nutritional needs, especially when they are pregnant or breastfeeding.”

With regard to climate change impacts on diet, some indigenous communities 

face disproportionate risks because of subsistence lifestyles, the cultural importance 

of traditional foods, and the health implications associated with losing these foods 

(Arquette et al. 2002, Hoover 2013, LaDuke 1999, Lynn et al. 2013). “Whereas 

climate change has widespread effects on communities globally, indigenous peoples 

who rely on traditional, locally harvested foods are especially vulnerable” (Wesche 

and Chan 2010: 361). 

Traditional foods are those that have been the staples of indigenous diets since 

before European colonization and hold cultural and spiritual meaning. Indigenous 

communities have stewarded the landscape in ways that promote the abundance of 

traditional food species, engaging in reciprocal relationships with the plants and 

animals that feed their families (Anderson 2005, Whyte 2013). 

Men may also be 

vulnerable to accidents 

if the environments 

in which they carry 

out their traditional 

activities, including 

hunting, whaling, and 

fishing, become more 

hazardous as a result 

of climate change.
26

GENERAL TECHNICAL REPORT PNW-GTR-923

Traditional foods are critical to maintaining health in indigenous communities. When access to these foods is limited, indigenous communities may have few 

viable options but to replace these nutritious foods with processed alternatives that 

are cheap and readily available, with negative impacts on the health of community 

members (Arquette et al. 2002, Norgaard 2004). In interviews carried out by the 

Centre for Indigenous Environmental Resources (CIER 2007: 5), some members 

of the Black River First Nation of Canada “attributed greater occurrence of sickness in the community (e.g., cancer, arthritis) to the greater reliance of community 

members on processed food instead of traditional food.” Norgaard (2004) documents a case in which the Karuk Tribe’s access to salmon has been compromised 

by various converging forces, including the construction of hydroelectric dams and 

the implementation of “non-Indian” laws and regulations, forcing the community to 

replace salmon with processed foods that have led to skyrocketing rates of diabetes 

and cardiovascular disease. 

A traditional lifestyle and diet helps to prevent many chronic diseases, 

but climate change is decreasing access to some healthy traditional foods 

(Brubaker et al. 2011). 

Indigenous communities know the traditional foods that are imperative for 

their health. The impact of climate change on the availability and quality of these 

plant and animal species requires strategies for adaptation that will help indigenous 

communities retain access to these species (Lynn et al. 2013). “The identification 

of feasible adaptation options, such as other available traditional wildlife species, 

and improved understandings of local and regional trends are urgently required for 

maintaining food security under changing and uncertain conditions” (Wesche and 

Chan 2010: 361).

Because women comprise a large proportion of the world’s population 

suffering from hunger (Roberts 2009), it is important for the dietary needs of 

indigenous women to be addressed as climate change advances. Particularly 

vulnerable are indigenous women who are pregnant or breastfeeding and have 

specific nutritional needs. Katsi Cook, a Mohawk midwife and environmental 

justice activist, helped create the Akwesasne Mothers’ Milk Project, “in an effort 

to ‘understand and characterize how toxic contaminants have moved through 

the local food chain, including mothers’ milk’” (LaDuke 1999: 19). Regional 

lands, waters, and wildlife have been plagued with a high concentration of PCB 

contaminants resulting from a Superfund site in Massena, New York, right next 

to the St. Lawrence River and the Mohawk Reservation (LaDuke 1999). The 

Akwesasne Mothers’ Milk Project “studied 50 new mothers over several years 

and documented a 200 percent greater concentration of PCBs in the breast milk 
27

Climate Change Through an Intersectional Lens: Gendered Vulnerability and Resilience in Indigenous Communities

of those mothers who ate fish from the St. Lawrence River as opposed to the 

general population.” “But their PCB levels came down after they stopped eating 

fish,’ Katsi explained” (LaDuke 1999: 19).

Hoover (2013: 10) describes the difficult choices Mohawk mothers face when 

trying to avoid the industrial toxins found in the fish of their region:

When Mohawk mothers who participated in the breast milk study demonstrated that removing local fish from their diets decreased the PCB 

contamination in their breast milk, they showed that exposure to PCBs was 

avoidable, and thus according to conventional risk assessment the problem 

was eliminated. What was not predicted, and the reason why indigenous 

scholars such as Arquette et al. (2002) and Ranco et al. (2011) are calling for 

more holistic risk assessment, was that avoiding fish consumption had other 

health implications, both physical and cultural.

Mohawk mothers and their communities already contend with limits to their 

traditional diets because of corporate contamination of traditional foods. Changes 

in climate may further affect the availability and quality of traditional foods, adding 

yet another challenge to the community’s ability to harvest and eat the foods that 

are critical to their health and culture.

 In the Arctic, there is concern that climate change may increase the concentrations of contaminants in marine animals that are vital to indigenous communities’ 

traditional diets, something which could be particularly threatening to pregnant 

indigenous women and their unborn children (Booth and Zeller 2005). Prenatal 

exposure to contaminants such as methyl mercury, for example, has been correlated 

with cognitive disorders in children (Booth and Zeller 2005). 

Climate change may affect traditional methods of food preparation and storage, particularly in the Arctic. “As temperatures rise, methods for traditional food 

preparation and storage are less likely to prevent pathogens that cause illness. Just 

as the useful period for ice cellars has shortened, so also has the period when fish, 

seal, and caribou can be preserved on drying rack” (ANTHC 2011: 47). This trend 

has gendered implications. As the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium Center 

for Climate and Health (2011: 47) points out: “Pregnant women, infants, the elderly, 

and those with weakened immune systems are at higher risk for severe infections, 

such as those that result from eating wildlife diseased with zoonotic infections. 

Cases of zoonotic diseases may be increased by climate change.”

Indigenous food sovereignty movements are leading the way in protecting 

indigenous rights to traditional foods. The Northwest Indian College Traditional 

Plants and Foods Cooperative Extension Program (NWIC 2014) defines communities that exhibit tribal food sustainability and food sovereignty as those that:
28

GENERAL TECHNICAL REPORT PNW-GTR-923

• Have access to healthy food;

• Have foods that are culturally appropriate;

• Grow, gather, hunt, and fish in ways that are maintainable over the long term;

• Distribute foods in such a way that people get what they need to stay healthy;

• Adequately compensate the people who provide the food; and

• Use tribal treaty rights and uphold policies that ensure continued access to 

traditional foods. 

Examples of food sovereignty movements and initiatives include Makah and Nuuchah-nulth efforts to preserve the cultural tradition of whaling in the Pacific Northwest 

(Coté 2010), the efforts of Winona LaDuke and her fellow Anishinaabe people of the 

White Earth Nation of Minnesota to protect wild rice from genetic manipulation by the 

University of Minnesota (LaDuke 2007), the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin’s Annual Food 

Sovereignty Summit (Walschinski 2014), and food sovereignty programs springing up 

at various tribal colleges with the intent of strengthening traditional food knowledge 

and skills among indigenous students, and by extension, their families and communities 

(Aaniiih Nakoda College 2014, NWIC 2014, Wendholt Silva 2012). The stewardship, harvest, preparation, and consumption of traditional foods involve gendered cultural responsibility and traditional knowledge, calling for consideration of gender in food sovereignty 

movements (Anderson 2005, Bruce and Harries 2010, Colombi 2012, Kuhlmann 1992, 

Marshall 2006, McGregor 2005, McNutt 2012, Scarry and Scarry 2005).

Some tribes are proactively embarking on initiatives to protect traditional foods in 

the face of climate change impacts. One such example comes from the Confederated 

Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation (CTUIR) of Oregon, who have developed a 

“First Foods” framework that serves to protect critical tribal foods species in the face 

of climate change impacts (CTUIR 2010). First foods, or traditional foods, refers to 

foods that indigenous communities rely on for traditions and culture, sustenance and 

health (Viles 2011). Based on the tribes’ first foods ceremonies, each branch of this 

framework defines the land and water management needs of one of the first foods 

important to the tribes (CTUIR 2010). In addition, the CTUIR are addressing the 

importance of gendered knowledge when it comes to traditional foods. The Tribes’ 

Comprehensive Plan includes a foods category referred to as “Women’s Foods,” which 

include berries and roots of cultural importance. The plan also recognizes that there 

is a gendered knowledge and management gap, stating that not enough attention has 

been given to plants, which are typically the women’s domain (CTUIR 2010). To 

address this gap, the tribes have carried out women’s food assessments, and tribal 

women have stepped up to assert their knowledge and involvement in management 

decisions (Shippentower 2014). In this way, the CTUIR have embarked on a climate 

change foods initiative that reempowers indigenous women. 

The stewardship, 

harvest, preparation, 

and consumption 

of traditional foods 

involve gendered 

cultural responsibility 

and traditional 

knowledge, calling 

for consideration 

of gender in 

food sovereignty 

movements.
29

Climate Change Through an Intersectional Lens: Gendered Vulnerability and Resilience in Indigenous Communities

Mental health and community violence—

Research on the impacts of environmental change on mental health has revealed 

that in various communities, gender plays a role in how people’s mental health is 

affected by environmental change (Kukarenko 2011, Alston 2013, WHO 2011). 

Men’s mental health may be particularly vulnerable to environmental change 

that affects the places and resources critical to men’s livelihoods and masculine 

identity (Kukarenko 2011, WHO 2011). Alston (2013) and the World Health Organization (2011) describe trends linking men’s mental health and drought. The World 

Health Organization (2011: 15) explains that “The stresses of lost incomes and 

associated indebtedness can spill over into mental health problems, despair and 

suicide among men. There is some empirical evidence linking drought and suicide 

among men in Australia (Nicholls et al. 2006).” In her analysis of gendered climate 

change impacts on human health in the Arctic, Kukarenko (2011) notes: 

The disruption of traditional roles for men has been identified in a number 

of studies as a reason for profound problems in male identity and loss of 

men’s self-esteem, which, in turn, leads to a lot of psycho-social disorders 

among men, including higher suicide rates and alcoholism. 

These vulnerabilities are further challenged by trends revealing that men and 

boys are less likely to seek help when suffering from stress and mental health issues 

(WHO 2011). This demonstrates how environmental and social vulnerabilities 

couple to affect people differently, in part based on gender.

International research indicates that women’s mental health may be affected 

in part by the social changes that result from environmental change. Rapid environmental change, such as that resulting from natural disasters, has been shown 

to increase rates of domestic and sexual violence, and human trafficking (Alston 

2013, Nellemann et al. 2011, WHO 2011). Kukarenko (2011) explains that men’s loss 

of self-worth and other mental stresses caused by environmental change may lead 

men to be more violent towards women and children, thereby affecting women and 

children’s mental health, physical safety, and well-being. Alston (2013) notes that 

women became particularly vulnerable to violent attack in the United States following Hurricane Katrina. 

Environmental change can be especially distressing to communities that have a 

strong connection to the land (Cunsolo Willox et al. 2013, McNamara and Westoby 

2011). The stress, loss, and cultural changes associated with colonization, combined 

with the introduction of alcohol, have led to unusually high rates of substance 

abuse, suicide, and violence within indigenous communities (Maracle 1996, 

Mokuau 2002, Ross 1998, Smith 2005, Strickland et al. 2006, Weaver 2009). Jacob 

Research on 

the impacts of 

environmental change 

on mental health 

has revealed that in 

various communities, 

gender plays a role in 

how people’s mental 

health is affected by 

environmental change.

Rapid environmental 

change, such as that 

resulting from natural 

disasters, has been 

shown to increase 

rates of domestic and 

sexual violence, and 

human trafficking.
30

GENERAL TECHNICAL REPORT PNW-GTR-923

(2013: 11) uses historical trauma as a theoretical framework to describe how the 

violence of colonialism travels and intensifies across indigenous generations:

As the theory explains, if the traumatic response to colonialism goes unaddressed and unresolved, then healing the soul wound will not happen. The 

trauma will worsen across generations. The soul wound is an important 

concept for decolonizing work because it accurately explains that the root 

cause of many social problems can be traced back to historical and ongoing 

forms of settler-colonial violence.

Relatedly, LaDuke (1999: 90) describes the rise of the term “ethnostress” to 

describe the psychological pressures experienced by some Indians:

Anes Williams, a Seneca social worker, came up with a term in her practice 

on the Cattaraugus reservation: “ethnostress.” That’s what you feel when 

you wake up in the morning and you are still Indian, and you still have to 

deal with stuff about being Indian—poverty, racism, death, the government, and strip mining.

Climate change is likely to intersect with the impacts of colonization to further 

alter the places and species that are vital to indigenous cultures, economies, and 

health (Lynn et al. 2013, Voggesser et al. 2013). In a study about the impacts of 

climatic change on the emotional health of the Inuit community of Rigolet, Nunatsiavut, Cunsolo Willox et al. (2013: 20) describe: 

For those who travel on the land and ice regularly, and maintain lifestyles of 

hunting, trapping, and fishing, not being able to travel on the land because 

of warmer weather and changes in ice patterns is incredibly restrictive and 

feels as though something fundamentally important to and in life is missing.

American Indian men and boys are unusually prone to accidents, suicide, and 

homicide (Brave Heart et al. 2012). Indigenous men in the United States have been 

found to exhibit increased risk-taking behaviors, explanations for which include 

loss of cultural identity, loss of traditional male roles, failure of primary socialization, and unresolved grief from historical trauma (Rhoades 2003). Studies also have 

found that indigenous men are less likely to use outpatient and inpatient services 

than indigenous women (Rhoades 2003), paralleling international trends suggesting 

that men and boys are less likely to seek help for mental health issues (WHO 2011). 

Indigenous women’s mental health vulnerabilities may become amplified if climate change impacts, such as extreme weather or natural disasters, lead to elevated 

levels of domestic and sexual violence against indigenous women and children. 

Since colonization, indigenous women have suffered some of the highest rates of 

Climate change is likely 

to intersect with the 

impacts of colonization 

to further alter the 

places and species that 

are vital to indigenous 

cultures, economies, 

and health.
31

Climate Change Through an Intersectional Lens: Gendered Vulnerability and Resilience in Indigenous Communities

domestic and sexual violence in the United States (Amnesty International USA 

2007, Maracle 1996, Ross 1998, Smith 2005, Weaver 2009). Some of this violence 

can be attributed to substance abuse and other mental stressors in indigenous communities, but it is important to note that “according to the US Department of Justice, 

in at least 86 percent of the reported cases of rape or sexual assault against American Indian and Alaska Native women, survivors report that the perpetrators are 

non-Native men” (Amnesty International USA 2007). As climate change impacts 

affect the stability and mental health of indigenous and nonindigenous communities, 

indigenous women and children’s vulnerability may increase. As Smith (2005: 28) 

states, “In times of crisis, sexual violence against Native women escalates.” 

Ross (1998) documents the experiences of incarcerated indigenous women, and 

highlights the violence that often permeates their lives leading up to imprisonment. 

Ross describes the years of physical, verbal, or sexual abuse many of the indigenous 

women she interviewed endure before finally retaliating against their perpetrators out 

of self-defense. Unfortunately, the justice system often operates in racist and misogynist ways to the disadvantage of these women, imprisoning them for long sentences 

even in cases in which self-defense or “battered woman syndrome” are unquestionable 

(Ross 1998). In prison, mental health conditions and rehabilitation are rarely prioritized, 

and many of these women must contend with being separated from their children, as 

most of them are mothers (Ross 1998). This cycle of violence and trauma can affect 

several generations and perpetuate oppressive conditions. In a climate change context, 

the mental health and well-being of criminalized indigenous men, women, LGBTTQ 

people and their families will be a critical component of community mental health. 

Justice system reform, better economic opportunities for people who have been imprisoned, and proper support for victims of domestic and sexual violence are critical steps 

toward reducing violence, imprisonment, and post-incarceration economic hardships.

Traditional healing practices and culturally appropriate mental health services 

have proven successful in helping indigenous peoples heal (Jacob 2013, Mokuau 

2002, Nebelkopf and Penagos 2005). In Alaska, numerous organizations are working to ensure that Alaska Natives have access to a broad array of health services, 

including the Alaska Native Hospital, the Alaska Native Tribal Heath Consortium 

(ANTHC), and the Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium. The ANTHC in 

particular has developed a program to facilitate learning and communication about 

the impacts of climate change on Alaska Native Villages through the Local Environmental Observers Network. 

The Holistic Native Network, resulting from a collaboration between the Friendship House American Indian Healing Center and the Native American Health Center 

in the Bay Area, is an example of a “comprehensive, holistic, culturally-competent, 

In a climate change 

context, the mental 

health and wellbeing of criminalized 

indigenous men, 

women, LGBTTQ 

people and their 

families will be a 

critical component 

of community mental 

health.
32

GENERAL TECHNICAL REPORT PNW-GTR-923

integrated system of care for Native Americans suffering from substance abuse, 

mental illness and HIV/AIDS” (Nebelkopf and Penagos 2005: 257). In Hawaii, 

organizations such as Queen Lili’uokalani Children’s Center and Ho’omau Ke 

Ola incorporate traditional Native Hawaiian values and culture to create effective 

support programs for at-risk Native Hawaiian children and substance abuse patients, 

respectively (Mokuau 2002).

Addressing substance abuse, supporting at-risk youth, and addressing mental 

health vulnerabilities in culturally meaningful ways can reduce instances of violence in the community. It is critical for such programs and initiatives to take into 

account the ways in which race, class, gender, and colonial history intersect to 

define the experiences of the people in need of healing. In Yakama Rising, Jacob 

(2013: 12) describes how Yakama cultural revitalization must involve efforts to heal 

the historical trauma, or “soul wounds” of Yakama people: 

To address high rates of suicide and substance abuse, for example, one 

cannot simply look at problems in terms of individual deficit or even as 

evidence of lack of sufficient available social services (although these 

realities can contribute to the problems as well). Rather, healing approaches 

must look at the health and social problems in terms of land loss, genocide, 

warfare, assimilation, termination, and relocation (Jacob 2013: 12).

Jacob (2013: 12) describes the decolonized praxis that Yakama cultural revitalization activists are using to heal these wounds:

By drawing from traditions to undermine settler-colonial-imposed hierarchies 

and reasserting the importance of spiritual relations between humans and our 

surroundings, Yakama cultural revitalization efforts represent a distinctive 

indigenous feminist approach to “making power” within our community. 

There is a shortage of documentation with regard to the mental health vulnerabilities of indigenous LGBTTQ people in a climate change context, and yet 

indigenous LGBTTQ people may be particularly vulnerable, given that their race 

and gender identity may intersect to create a unique set of challenges. Following 

natural disasters, extreme weather, and subsequent patterns of displacement and 

migration, preexisting patterns of discrimination and abuse often become amplified 

(UNPFA 2009). In addition, research shows that LGBTTQ communities of all ages 

find it difficult to find healthcare providers who are sensitive to their unique needs, 

making them more prone to postpone care or receive inadequate care (Chávez 2011, 

Gendron et al. 2013, Hoffman et al. 2009). In light of this, it is important to further 

research indigenous LGBTTQ people’s potential vulnerabilities when it comes to 

mental health and physical safety in a climate change context. 
33

Climate Change Through an Intersectional Lens: Gendered Vulnerability and Resilience in Indigenous Communities

In early 2014, the Navajo Nation Human Rights Commission carried out public 

hearings and a data summit in which they collected written testimonies to learn 

more about the realities of violence and discrimination against Navajo women and 

LGBTTQ people. With the resulting findings, the Commission intends to “analyze 

existing laws, close loop holes and make recommendations to current Navajo laws, 

regulations and policies to address the hideous nature of violence against Navajo 

citizens” (NNHRC 2014). Efforts like these can strengthen gender justice within 

indigenous communities and make these communities more resilient to the gendered impacts of climate change.

Migration, Displacement, and Altered Social Networks

Extreme weather events and long-term ecosystem changes exacerbated by climate 

change are likely to compromise the habitability of many global locations (Laczko 

and Aghazarm 2009). A number of world regions are already experiencing rapid 

climatic changes that are challenging the safety and livelihood of citizens, leading 

to citizen migration and displacement (Laczko and Aghazarm 2009). “The number 

of natural disasters has more than doubled over the last two decades, and more than 

20 million people were displaced by sudden-onset climate-related natural disasters 

in 2008” (OCHA 2009, as cited in Laczko and Aghazarm 2009: 9). The UNPFA 

(2009: 32) states, “Many environmentally induced population movements are 

temporary; many people prefer to return home as soon as it’s safe and feasible.” 

In a climate change context, some impacts may be sufficiently mild or short term to 

make returning home a possibility (i.e., after a severe storm), while other impacts may 

• Indigenous peoples may experience gendered vulnerability in the face 

of extreme weather and natural disasters.

• Federal emergency response and aid have often been inadequate in 

indigenous communities, a fact that increases the need for indigenous 

self-reliance in the face of extreme weather and natural disasters.

• Climate impacts on traditional foods affect the mental, physical, and 

spiritual health of indigenous peoples. 

• Socially marginalized indigenous peoples, such as LGBTTQ people 

and those who have been criminalized, may face additional health 

risks as climate change affects indigenous lifeways and economies. 

• Climate change impacts on mental health may be gendered, potentially leading to higher rates of domestic violence against women and 

children, and higher rates of suicide and depression among men.

A number of world 

regions are already 

experiencing rapid 

climatic changes that 

are challenging the 

safety and livelihood 

of citizens, leading to 

citizen migration and 

displacement.
34

GENERAL TECHNICAL REPORT PNW-GTR-923

make an area permanently uninhabitable (i.e., an island now inundated by sea-level rise). 

Migration and displacement can severely alter social networks and can have gendered 

consequences. International literature provides varying accounts regarding relocation 

trends by gender, differences that may have to do with varying interpretations of what 

is considered optional migration, versus what is considered displacement (or forced 

migration). Although trends differ by region, international literature seems to indicate 

that men are more willing to migrate (WHO 2011) and that women, children, and the 

elderly are more likely to stay behind while one or more family members (often young 

males) relocate in search of better economic opportunities (UNPFA 2009). Conversely, 

when it comes to displacement (or forced migration), women and children make up the 

majority of displaced populations (Roberts 2009). In an article describing the impacts of 

war and climate change on women, Roberts (2009: 39) states, “Of the approximately 50 

million people displaced from their homelands, about 80 percent are women and children,” numbers which she claims will be exacerbated by climate change. In reference to 

displacement after Hurricane Katrina, Roberts (2009: 40) states, “...households headed 

by low-income single mothers in New Orleans has [sic] dropped from 18,000 in 2005 to 

3,000, indicating a significant displacement of these women and their children.”

Migration and displacement affect the social networks of those who relocate 

and those who stay behind. As social networks shift and social environments 

become less familiar, women and children may become particularly vulnerable to 

violence and trafficking (Nellemann et al. 2011; UNPFA 2009). “Both in gradual 

and sudden migration and displacement scenarios, preexisting patterns of discrimination and abuse are often aggravated. Women and girls are at risk to sexual and 

gender-based violence, human trafficking, child abuse and alcohol-related abuse” 

(UNPFA 2009: 35-36).

International refugee cases can also reveal gendered vulnerabilities that 

may arise during climate-induced migration and displacement. Freedman (2010) 

discusses the pressing need for international organizations such as the United 

Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to address gender-related persecution and 

violence against women refugees. She points out that it wasn’t until the 1980s that 

gender was put on the agenda concerning protection of refugees, after an incident in 

which forced migration from Southeast Asia by boat led to the rape of almost all of 

the women on board by pirates who later set the boat on fire. 

When it comes to altered social networks and climate change vulnerability, it 

is also important to note that “older men are particularly disadvantaged by their 

tendency to be less connected than women to social networks and therefore unable 

to seek assistance from within the community when they need it” (Consedine and 

Skamai 2009, as cited in WHO 2011: 18).
35

Climate Change Through an Intersectional Lens: Gendered Vulnerability and Resilience in Indigenous Communities

Displacement is a phenomenon that many indigenous communities in the 

United States are all too familiar with. During the European settlement of the 

United States, many tribes and Native groups were displaced from their homelands, 

in some cases being forcibly relocated to reservations hundreds of miles from the 

lands they had long inhabited. Migration of indigenous peoples away from rural 

indigenous communities and to urban centers has also been a prevalent phenomenon, and one that the federal government often catalyzed via the enactment of 

policies such as the Indian Termination and Indian Relocation Acts of the 1950s 

(NUIFC 2009). 

Today, many indigenous peoples in the United States live in urban centers. “In 

2000, there were 4.3 million people who identified as American Indian and Alaska 

Native alone or in combination. Sixty-one percent of these Native people did not reside 

on reservations or other Native lands, up from 38 percent in 1970” (NUIFC 2009: 8). 

Native people came to urban areas in substantial numbers because of a lack 

of employment and other social and economic problems existing on the 

reservation. Their transition to city life was often difficult due to a lack of 

necessary support (i.e., finding housing, accessing job training programs, 

finding employment, etc.) and a lack of understanding from the communities that they had relocated to (NUIFC 2009: 12).

The displacement and migration of indigenous peoples “have detrimental 

effects on social and cultural cohesion, the maintenance of tradition, and physical 

and psychological health” (Schweitzer and Marino 2005; Thornton 1997, as cited 

in Kingston and Marino 2010: 119). Climate change impacts may produce a new 

wave of displacement and migration of indigenous peoples by making tribal lands 

temporarily or permanently uninhabitable, and by altering the ecosystems and species that are critical to the culture, health, and economy of indigenous communities 

(Maldonado et al. 2013). A number of Alaska Native communities are among those 

already facing these threats:

Today there are nine indigenous communities in Alaska identified by state 

and federal governments that are in imminent danger of loss of life and 

property due to increased erosion and flooding. These changes in landscape 

can be linked directly and indirectly to warming temperatures and changes 

in climate patterns, and the number of villages susceptible to these hazards 

is likely to increase (Kingston and Marino 2010: 127).

Dardar (2008: 33) discusses the potential displacement faced by the Houma 

Nation of Louisiana as a result of industrial coastal degradation and climate 

change impacts:

Climate change 

impacts may 

produce a new wave 

of displacement 

and migration of 

indigenous peoples 

by making tribal 

lands temporarily 

or permanently 

uninhabitable, and 

by altering the 

ecosystems and 

species that are 

critical to the culture, 

health, and economy 

of indigenous 

communities.
36

GENERAL TECHNICAL REPORT PNW-GTR-923

What is the future of the Houma? A study was recently released with a 

bright red line drawn across the southern edge of Louisiana. We are told 

that if some drastic action is not taken in coastal restoration in the next ten 

years it will be too late to save those communities below the red line. Every 

Houma Indian community, the majority of our sixteen thousand citizens, 

lives below that red line. They tell us that in the end it will not be “costeffective” to spend the millions of dollars needed to protect our isolated 

communities adequately. There is a word circulating amidst politicians and 

scientists now that Native people have heard before: relocation.

In recent years, coastal tribes in Louisiana have engaged in efforts to understand their vulnerability and help shape relocation in a way that is reflective of their 

own cultural practices and values (Maldonado et al. 2013). 

Displacement and migration may affect indigenous men, women, and LGBTTQ 

people differently. As Freedman (2010) points out, women are particularly vulnerable to persecution and violence in international refugee situations. In light of this, 

and accounting for the fact that indigenous women are particularly vulnerable to 

gender violence (Amnesty International USA 2007), it is important to address the 

unique safety and health needs of indigenous women who are migrating, being 

displaced, or experiencing altered social networks owing to climate-related immigration to their geographic region. For example, warming of the circumpolar region 

has increased interest in resource extraction, and the corresponding economic 

growth has increased indigenous women’s risk of being trafficked (Sweet 2014). 

Additionally, indigenous women living in urban areas may face unique challenges. 

For example, “Urban Indian women have considerably lower rates of prenatal care 

and higher rates of infant mortality than even their reservation counterparts within 

the same state” (NUIFC 2009: 11).

Although there is a shortage of literature describing the experiences of indigenous LGBTTQ people during displacement and migration, we can draw some 

information from literature addressing other LGBTQ populations and migration. Karma Chávez’s research (2011) describes some of the challenges faced by 

LGBTQ migrants in southern Arizona. LGBTQ patients are challenged in finding 

healthcare providers that can adequately meet cultural needs while simultaneously 

meeting unique health needs. Another obstacle included finding adequate housing 

in a new location that will not discriminate based on race, migrant status, gender, 

or sexual orientation. Chávez noted that when searching for housing, LGBTQ 

migrants frequently rely on family and friends. This can be difficult when social 

networks are altered by displacement or migration. It is also important to note that 

“LGBTQ young people are more likely to be homeless than their heterosexual 
37

Climate Change Through an Intersectional Lens: Gendered Vulnerability and Resilience in Indigenous Communities

counterparts as somewhere between 20 percent and 40 percent of homeless youth 

are LGBTQ” (Ray 2006, as cited in Chávez 2011). Although indigenous LGBTTQ 

people’s lived experiences may be different from those of LGBTQ migrants and 

other LGBTQ youth, these trends serve to identify some of the challenges that 

indigenous LGBTTQ people may face when migrating or being displaced from 

their communities. 

One example of an organization formed by, and supporting, urban indigenous 

LGBTTQ people is Bay Area American Indian Two-Spirits (BAAITS) in California. As climate change and other factors potentially increase displacement and 

migration of indigenous LGBTTQ people to urban areas, organizations such as 

BAAITS can serve as a valuable cultural resource and a safe space to reconstruct 

supportive social and advocacy networks.

Indigenous men may also experience unique vulnerabilities as a result of migration and displacement. Although few articles address these vulnerabilities directly, 

the following description is revealing:

In 2000, there were slightly over 7,000 Alaska Native women eighteen years 

and above residing in Anchorage, but only some 5,500 men. The reasons 

for the higher numbers of women are complicated, but paramount among 

them is the longstanding division of labor between the sexes. As a general 

rule, Alaska Native men are the hunters and Alaska Native women are the 

gatherers, and gathering is more easily adapted to new terrains than hunting. 

Women can forage for berries near the roadsides outside Anchorage, or gather 

clams along the shoreline of the Kenai Peninsula, but when a man moves 

from the village to the city he forfeits access to, and specialized knowledge of, 

the hunting and fishing areas he has known all his life (Lee 2003: 586–587).

Lee’s article suggests that indigenous men migrating or being displaced from 

their homelands to more urban settings may find it particularly difficult to maintain 

their traditional relationships and knowledge. 

Lee also enlightens us on positive ways in which Alaska Native women have 

dealt with the transition to an urban location such as Anchorage for economic 

purposes, particularly through the creation of the Alaska Federation of Natives 

(AFN) crafts fair. Lee argues that institutions such as the AFN “help the increasing number of urban-based Native women in a variety of ways to adjust to city 

life while maintaining their connection to their home villages and to the land 

and animals from which they obtain the raw materials for craft production” 

(Lee 2003: 583–584). Another indigenous initiative serving urban Indians is the 

Menominee Community Center of Chicago created by the Menominee Tribe of 

Wisconsin in 1994.

Indigenous men 

migrating or being 

displaced from their 

homelands to more 

urban settings may 

find it particularly 

difficult to maintain 

their traditional 

relationships and 

knowledge.
38

GENERAL TECHNICAL REPORT PNW-GTR-923

Groups such as BAAITS, AFN, and the Menominee Community Center can 

help preserve indigenous social networks despite migration and displacement. 

Gender has played, and can continue to play, a critical role in the development and 

success of indigenous organizations and collective action initiatives. Whyte (2014) 

makes the case for indigenous women’s “unique capacities for collective action that 

advance adaptation and mitigation” in a climate change context. Such gender-based 

initiatives may become critical avenues for making indigenous communities active 

and resilient in the face of environmental change. 

On a larger scale, the displacement of entire indigenous communities as a result 

of climate change, such as is already occurring in some Alaska Native villages, 

calls for the urgent development of new national and international policies that 

secure the human and indigenous rights of these communities during these unprecedented relocation events. Several scholars, including Bronen (2011), Burkett (2011), 

and Maldonado et al. (2013) are proposing and critically assessing guidelines for 

human rights-based relocation policies in preparation for the likely displacement of 

peoples as a result of climate change. As these policies and guidelines begin to take 

clearer shape, it will be important to take the gendered social implications of 

relocation into strong consideration. 

Unemployment, Poverty, and Impacts on Tribal Economies

Climate change is affecting resources and places that drive both formal and informal economies, with impacts on people’s livelihoods and economic opportunities 

along the way. These impacts may have gendered consequences, given that gender 

often plays a role in determining available economic opportunities. International 

literature points to the fact that women are often economically disadvantaged 

(Alston 2013, Kukarenko 2011, Roberts 2009, UNPFA 2009). 

• In the face of climate-induced displacement and migration, indigenous women and LGBTTQ people may be susceptible to increased 

gender violence, while indigenous men may struggle to retain their 

traditional activities and responsibilities.

• Owing to the relationship between indigenous peoples and their 

homelands, climate change-induced displacement will have severe 

impacts on indigenous culture, health, and society.

• Displacement of entire indigenous communities (e.g., Alaska Native 

villages, small island communities) calls for immediate development 

of national and international policies and support for the human rights 

of these communities. 
39

Climate Change Through an Intersectional Lens: Gendered Vulnerability and Resilience in Indigenous Communities

The World Health Organization (2011: 17–18) describes the link between 

women’s roles as caretakers, poverty, and health:

Women and girls are generally expected to care for the sick, including in 

times of disaster and environmental stress (Brody et al. 2008). This limits the 

time they have available for income generation and education, which, when 

coupled with the rising medical costs associated with family illness, heightens levels of poverty, which is in turn a powerful determinant of health.

The socioeconomic conditions of women may make them particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Additionally, employment discrimination 

makes searching for new or better employment opportunities particularly difficult 

for certain groups (Gates 2011, Pager and Shepherd 2008, Sangganjanavanich 2009). 

Sangganjanavanich (2009: 128) states, “Although there are laws to protect disadvantaged groups such as women, ethnic groups, and sexual minorities against employment discrimination, this discrimination is still present in various employment 

settings.” For transgender individuals, retaining a job or seeking new employment 

can be a particularly challenging feat (Sangganjanavanich 2009). The economic 

impacts of climate change may be especially difficult for individuals for whom 

gender and race intersect, doubly challenging their ability to find employment. As 

Prindeville (2003: 592) states, “women of color, who bear the double burden of gender and racial discrimination, are often economically and politically marginalized.”

It is important to note that some scholars disagree with climate change vulnerability frameworks that highlight women’s poverty as a key factor making women 

vulnerable to climate change impacts. Arora-Jonsson (2011) states that statistics 

claiming women comprise a majority of the world’s poor are “anecdotal rather than 

empirically or statistically rigorous.” She also questions whether poverty is always 

directly linked to vulnerability. Perhaps most importantly, she argues that poverty 

alleviation strategies seeking to reduce women’s vulnerability sometimes place 

additional responsibilities and burdens on women, and serve to overshadow the real 

issue, which lies in the gender power imbalance forming part of social, economic, 

and political institutions. Arora-Jonsson’s observations reveal the need to critically 

analyze the long-term effectiveness of existing and proposed social programs. 

When addressing climate change vulnerability and developing adaptation strategies, it will be critical to assess whether these strategies provide actual, long-term 

benefits, and whether they address the unequal power dynamics that often lead to 

gendered (and racialized) economic challenges in the first place.

Climate change impacts may also have gendered economic consequences if 

certain, heavily gendered industries, suffer as a result. Roberts (2009: 40) discusses 

the gendered economic impacts of Hurricane Katrina:

The economic impacts 

of climate change may 

be especially difficult 

for individuals for 

whom gender and 

race intersect, doubly 

challenging their ability 

to find employment.

When addressing 

climate change 

vulnerability and 

developing adaptation 

strategies, it will be 

critical to assess 

whether these strategies 

provide actual, long-term 

benefits, and whether 

they address the 

unequal power dynamics 

that often lead to 

gendered (and racialized) 

economic challenges in 

the first place.
40

GENERAL TECHNICAL REPORT PNW-GTR-923

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the largest climate-spawned disaster 

to hit the United States, 180,000 people in Louisiana lost their livelihood. Of 

these, 103,000 were women. Health, education, and hospitality, all womendominated industries, were hit hardest. Also, households headed by low-income 

single mothers in New Orleans has [sic] dropped from 18,000 in 2005 to 3,000, 

indicating a significant displacement of these women and their children.

Although this example highlights impacts on female-dominated industries, 

male-dominated industries, such as the timber and fisheries industries, could also see 

impacts as a result of climate change, leading to underemployment or unemployment.

Indigenous communities are among the most economically impoverished in the 

United States (Leichenko 2003). According to Sarche and Spicer (2008: 126–127), 

“More than one-quarter of the American Indian and Alaska Native population is 

living in poverty, a rate that is more than double that of the general population and 

one that is even greater for certain tribal groups (e.g., approaching 40 percent).” 

Some researchers attribute these trends to geographic isolation, lack of access to 

markets, inadequate infrastructure, and the availability of mostly low-income jobs 

in rural tribal communities (Leichenko 2003, Sarche and Spicer 2008). Yet urban 

Indians also face economic challenges, given that their poverty rate is 20.3 percent 

compared to 12.7 percent for the general urban population, and their unemployment rate is 1.7 times higher than that of non-Indians living in urban areas (NUIFC 

2009). This may be significant in terms of climate change vulnerability:

Poor households are especially vulnerable to climate change because their 

marginal income provides little or no access to health services or other safety 

nets to protect against the threats from changing conditions and because they 

lack the resources to relocate when crises strike (UNPFA 2009: 3).

And yet, many indigenous communities have thriving tribal economies derived 

from tribal timber production, tribal fisheries, traditional crafts, gaming facilities, 

tribal foods production, tourism, and other tribal endeavors that have sustained 

or improved economic conditions for many indigenous communities. In a climate 

change context, strong indigenous economies may make indigenous communities 

more resilient. At the same time, some of these industries may be susceptible to 

climate change impacts, threatening economic stability. Although climate change 

may lead to some benefits to tribal economies, these benefits are unlikely to compensate for the negative impacts. In describing climate change projections for the 

Great Plains, Shafer et al. (2014) stated:

These increases in extreme heat will have many negative consequences, 

including increases in surface water losses, heat stress, and demand for 

In a climate change 

context, strong 

indigenous economies 

may make indigenous 

communities more 

resilient. At the same 

time, some of these 

industries may be 

susceptible to climate 

change impacts, 

threatening economic 

stability.
41

Climate Change Through an Intersectional Lens: Gendered Vulnerability and Resilience in Indigenous Communities

air conditioning. These negative consequences will more than offset the 

benefits of warmer winters, such as lower winter heating demand, less cold 

stress on humans and animals, and a longer growing season, which will be 

extended by mid-century an average of 24 days relative to the 1971–2000 

average. More overwintering insect populations are also expected.

Some of the tribal industries affected by climate change may be gendered. If 

climate change impacts affect resources that are critical to a gendered industry, then 

the gender dominating that industry may face high rates of unemployment. 

Although international trends report that women are less likely to be educated 

and less likely to migrate, some indigenous communities in the United States are 

experiencing the opposite. Kleinfeld and Andrews (2006: 433) stated, “the gender 

gap favoring females in postsecondary education is both large and increasing 

among Alaska Natives.” This trend has implications for Alaska Native men, who 

are experiencing more unemployment, more social problems, lower rates of marriage, and lower rates of political participation (Kleinfeld and Andrews 2006). 

The traditional male role among Alaska Natives emphasized skills and 

virtues for which schooling is irrelevant, but which were vital to the community, making the difference between survival and starvation. These 

traditional skills remain important, partly in providing food from the land 

but also in providing a sense of cultural continuity and stability. At the 

same time that the transition to a mixed wage and subsistence economy is 

making hunting skills less vital to sheer survival, the communication and 

quantitative skills that schools provide are becoming more essential to the 

flourishing of indigenous communities (Kleinfeld and Andrews 2006: 432).

Alaska Native women seem to be migrating to urban centers more frequently, 

for economic reasons (Kukarenko 2011, Lee 2003).

In many parts of the Arctic, economic cutbacks by national governments 

have often negative impact on small, rural and remote places, reducing 

the standard of living and the quality of life in these areas through limited 

employment opportunities, low wages and poor infrastructure and social 

services. According to Hoogensen, this leads to increased feeling of insecurity among women for their own future and the future of their children 

in the current place of residence and becomes one of the factors forcing 

women to migrate (Kukarenko 2011).

Based on the above trends, Alaska Native men may find themselves socioeconomically vulnerable, a vulnerability that may be exacerbated if climate change 

further affects the resources and conditions necessary to carry out their traditional 
42

GENERAL TECHNICAL REPORT PNW-GTR-923

roles and livelihoods. Women too may face certain risks as they continue to 

migrate to urban centers in search of economic opportunities. As has been discussed throughout this paper, migration’s effects on one’s social network can make 

some genders more vulnerable to discrimination and violence (Nellemann et al. 

2011, UNPFA 2009). For this reason, it is particularly beneficial to indigenous 

women, children, and LGBTTQ people in urban settings to find or form organizations or groups that can provide a sense of community, as well as provide a platform for collective action. Organizations such as the Alaska Federation of Natives 

(AFN), the Menominee Community Center of Chicago, and BAAITS (discussed in 

the previous section) may become increasingly important resources if climate 

change reduces employment in tribal communities and leads indigenous peoples to 

move to urban centers in search of new economic opportunities. These and other 

similar organizations may serve not only as indigenous sociocultural nodes, but 

also as places where urban Indians can learn about employment and career development opportunities.

Culture: Impacts on Traditional Species, Places, and Relationships

Indigenous communities in the United States have fought to engage and practice 

indigenous culture and lifeways, despite the countless impacts of colonization. 

Prior to colonization, indigenous communities engaged in reciprocal relationships 

with plants, animals, and ecosystems (Anderson 2005, LaDuke 1999, Whyte 2013). 

These relationships were (and often still are) critical to indigenous communities’ 

cultural, spiritual, and social identities (Jacob 2013, LaDuke 1999, Whyte 2013). 

As described earlier, colonizers greatly disrupted these critical relationships by 

killing and displacing indigenous peoples, settling indigenous territories, exploiting natural resources, and developing government programs and policies aimed 

• The economic impacts of climate change will be felt most by those already 

socioeconomically marginalized because of race, gender, and class.

• Tribal economies (e.g., fishing, timber, gaming) may be a source of 

resilience, yet also face potential impacts from climate change. 

• Some tribal industries may be gendered, potentially leading to gendered impacts if climate change affects resources specific to a gendered 

industry.

• Indigenous people living in urban areas face unique risks, and may 

benefit from organizing and collaborating with other indigenous 

city dwellers. 
43

Climate Change Through an Intersectional Lens: Gendered Vulnerability and Resilience in Indigenous Communities

at forcing indigenous peoples to assimilate into a Euro-centric society (Anderson 

2005, Merchant 2007, Smith 2005, Wilkinson 2005). Reo and Parker (2013) 

describe some of the impacts of colonization in New England:

Within a few hundred years of colonization, the exploitation of forests to 

support Atlantic trade and the expansion of colonial settlements irrevocably 

altered the New England landscape. New England was transformed from a 

heterogeneous patchwork of ecosystems supporting diverse food systems 

into a comparatively depauperate hash of fields and forests susceptible 

to pest outbreaks and erosion. The cascading effects of the initial human 

depopulation, biotic invasions, loss of key species and deforestation, driven 

by a new extractive economy, created political, cultural, and environmental 

chaos for Native peoples.

Today, the lingering impacts of colonization continue to challenge the ability of 

indigenous communities to carry out the cultural practices that are critical to their 

identities and well-being. Additionally, the ability of indigenous communities to 

carry out their relationships with traditional species and places often hinges on the 

federal government’s ability and willingness to carry out its trust responsibilities 

toward federally recognized tribes. “Federal laws obstruct expanding or transferring tribal jurisdiction and few tribes have the economic means to buy new land” 

(Maldonado et al. 2013). Therefore, many tribes are forced to rely on federal trust 

lands as places to carry out traditional activities and relationships. The federal government has a responsibility to look out for federally recognized tribes’ best interests when managing federal lands and developing policies. Nevertheless, there are 

many instances in which tribal interests are misunderstood, severely compromised, 

or denied outright, creating additional hurdles for indigenous communities seeking 

to protect the species and places that are vital to their cultures. State-recognized and 

unrecognized indigenous communities may face even more hurdles. Huntington 

and Watson (2012: 64–65) describe how wildlife policies have hindered indigenous 

cultural practices in Alaska:

The aim of wildlife regimes for many Native tribes is primarily to limit 

human interaction with nonhuman animals through creating “enforceable” 

regulations, such as bag limits and season dates. These regulations effectively police Natives’ interactions with their kin. Unless wildlife managers 

can begin to create regulations based on Native wisdom, such as not shooting the first caribou that go by, or instructing hunters and wildlife resource 

managers on ways to increase genetic diversity, wildlife regulations are 

merely another tool for Native oppression.

Today, the lingering 

impacts of colonization 

continue to challenge 

the ability of indigenous 

communities to 

carry out the cultural 

practices that are 

critical to their identities 

and well-being.
44

GENERAL TECHNICAL REPORT PNW-GTR-923

Climate change may further challenge indigenous cultural relationships to 

species and places by producing drastic environmental changes that may parallel 

the ecological impacts of colonization (Reo and Parker 2013). In their article “Rethinking colonialism to prepare for the impacts of rapid environmental change,” 

Reo and Parker (2013) make a case for analyzing colonial history and its ecological 

implications, in order to “identify important interactions between human and natural 

systems useful for contemporary societies adjusting to environmental change.” 

This has both negative and positive implications for indigenous communities in the 

United States. On the one hand, climate change has the potential to intersect with the 

impacts of colonization to further alter the environments that are critical to indigenous cultures. On the other hand, indigenous communities are incredibly resilient, 

and possess traditional knowledge, practical experience, and adaptability that can 

serve these communities when preparing for the potential impacts of climate change 

(Grossman and Parker 2012, Huntington and Watson 2012, Wildcat 2009). 

Climate change is affecting the range and abundance of culturally vital species, 

and is rapidly altering critical landscapes and waterscapes (Grossman and Parker 

2012, Lynn et al. 2013, Voggesser et al. 2013). “Many tribes are concerned about 

how climate change will affect their relationship with culturally significant species 

and ecosystems” (Voggesser et al. 2013). Compromising indigenous people’s relationship with traditional cultural species and places also compromises the formation and continued application of traditional ecological knowledge (Hoover 2013, 

Voggesser et al. 2013). Hoover (2013: 5) describes the impacts that pollution-related 

fish advisories have had on Mohawk culture and knowledge transmission:

A cessation in fishing gradually diminished Mohawk culture in several 

ways. As Henry Lickers describes, the language and culture around tying 

knots in nets as well as the social interactions that occurred around the 

process of creating these nets are lost when there is no longer a use for 

those nets: “People forget, in their own culture, what you call the knot that 

you tie in a net. And so, a whole section of your language and culture is lost 

because no one is tying those nets anymore. The interrelation between men 

and women, when they tied nets, the relationship between adults or elders 

and young people, as they tied nets together, the stories...that whole social 

infrastructure that was around the fabrication of that net disappeared.” 

Given that traditional responsibilities toward and knowledge about plants, animals, land, and water are often gendered, cultural vulnerability and resilience in the 

face of climate change impacts may also be gendered. An example of a gendered 

relationship with a cultural resource is that of Wabanaki women with berry plants. 

Natalie Michelle describes this relationship in Lynn et al. (2013): 

Given that traditional 

responsibilities toward 

and knowledge about 

plants, animals, land, 

and water are often 

gendered, cultural 

vulnerability and 

resilience in the face of 

climate change impacts 

may also be gendered.
45

Climate Change Through an Intersectional Lens: Gendered Vulnerability and Resilience in Indigenous Communities

The native women are returning to the traditional uses of berry plants for 

health, well-being, and spirituality. The strawberry represents a primary 

nutrient source for female reproductive development and the psycho-social 

behavior of the young adolescent female. The “Strawberry Ceremony” or 

“berry fast” is still used for female adolescents’ initiation into womanhood.

Michelle’s research reveals that climate change is bringing about changes to 

the quality and availability of berry plants in Wabanaki territory (Lynn et al. 2013). 

This poses particular challenges to Wabanaki women for whom berry plants play 

health-related and sociocultural roles.

Women from many indigenous communities have a strong cultural relationship 

with water (Bruce and Harries 2010, McGregor 2005, McNutt 2012, Whyte 2014). 

Weather extremes associated with climate change may affect the quantity and quality of waters throughout the country, potentially compromising indigenous women’s 

cultural responsibilities toward water. Whyte (2014) describes:

Climate change impacts in the Great Lakes are projected to affect the ecological contexts needed for some Anishinaabe women and water to carry 

out their responsibilities to each other. Climate change impacts that degrade 

water in different ways will affect some of the core dimensions of Anishinaabe women’s identities, contributions within their communities, and will 

make their responsibilities to water more time consuming and harder (if not 

impossible) to carry out.

Indigenous women have used their special relationship with and knowledge 

of water resources to propel activism. In their article, Bruce and Harries (2010) 

describe an activist initiative led by women of Ontario’s Beausoleil First Nation 

in which they protested the construction of a dumpsite that would have repercussions on the region’s water quality. “They called themselves the Anishinabe Kweag 

(kweag means ‘women’). In a letter to Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty (although 

this was a Simcoe County project, the province is responsible for environmental 

approvals) the five [women] served notice that, as Indigenous women, they were 

there to protect the water for future generations” (Bruce and Harries 2010: 6). Their 

peaceful, alliance-forming protests eventually led Simcoe County councilors to 

reverse county approval and cease construction of the dump. In a climate change 

context, indigenous women’s initiatives to protect the waters that are critical to their 

communities may be an important source of community resilience. 

For the men of many indigenous communities in the United States, wildlife is 

vital to traditional cultural responsibilities (Colombi 2012, Marshall 2006). For the 

Nez Perce Tribe, salmon are critical to the lives of all tribal members, but they are 

In a climate change 

context, indigenous 

women’s initiatives 

to protect the waters 

that are critical to their 

communities may be 

an important source of 

community resilience.
46

GENERAL TECHNICAL REPORT PNW-GTR-923

especially critical to men’s traditional cultural roles (Marshall 2006). When describing the importance of salmon fishing for Nez Perce men and boys, Marshall (2006: 

773) describes:

Task groups devoted to fishing are composed primarily of males and are 

important for developing gender identity and demonstrating a man’s ability 

to contribute to the community. Task groups are significant for teaching 

young men basic Nez Perce values and world views; socializing them into 

adult male roles; teaching them many practical arts; and educating them in 

family, community, and tribal history.

Salmon are among the species that are particularly vulnerable to climate 

change, given that they are cold-water fish. Climate change threatens to raise water 

temperatures in waterways, thereby affecting cold-water species like salmon and 

trout. Tribes in the Pacific Northwest have already had to cope with reduced salmon 

availability as a result of hydroelectric dams, pollution, and overharvesting (Hanna 

2007, Johnsen 2009, Norgaard 2004). Climate change may further challenge tribal 

access to these critical species, compromising men’s traditional roles, knowledge, 

and activities. 

Men’s traditional relationships and activities may also be particularly vulnerable in the face of climate-driven migration and displacement. Lee (2003) describes 

that while Alaska Native women can still carry out gathering activities even in 

semiurban settings, it is much more difficult for men to continue their hunting and 

fishing practices away from their traditional territories. For indigenous men being 

displaced or migrating away from their tribal lands, exercising traditional cultural 

practices may be particularly difficult. This in turn may challenge the continued 

use, adaptation, and transmittance of gendered traditional knowledge that accompanies continued relationships with culturally vital species (Lee 2003). 

In preparation for climate change, some tribes may choose to encourage tribal 

members, particularly of the younger generations, to step outside traditional gendered responsibilities and learn skills and knowledge that would have traditionally 

been the responsibility of other genders. For example, the Confederated Tribes of 

the Umatilla Indian Reservation (CTUIR) are working to preserve cultural practices 

and skills surrounding traditional foods, by encouraging men and women to learn 

each other’s traditional responsibilities:

“We manage our foods to have the foods into the future and preserve our 

culture.” Historically, the men harvested and presented the salmon and 

the deer. The women collected and presented the roots and berries. Today, 

because climate change is already affecting the availability of foods, some 
47

Climate Change Through an Intersectional Lens: Gendered Vulnerability and Resilience in Indigenous Communities

Umatilla tribal members teach their sons and daughters to collect both 

foods. “We don’t know what foods will be available [to tribal members] in 

the future or who they will marry,” said Farrow. “We want them to be able 

to identify these foods and know how to prepare them. It’s central to who 

we are” (Teara Farrow Ferman, Cultural Resources Protection Program 

Manager for the CTUIR as quoted in Swinomish 2010: 25).

Similarly, Jacob (2013) describes how Xwayamamí Ishích, a grassroots organization seeking to revitalize Yakama cultural practices, chooses not to confine 

cultural practices to specific genders. “Although fish drying and root gathering 

are traditionally women’s activities within Plateau cultures, it is important to offer 

the traditional foods workshops to all community members, to fill the persistent 

cultural knowledge gaps among Yakama peoples” (Jacob 2013: 93).

Present-day indigenous LGBTTQ traditional cultural responsibilities and activities are little documented in the literature. “In many cases the traditions of gender 

variance have been forgotten or repressed. Most of the data indicate that very few 

individuals who live in the role of the opposite sex and who other members of their 

community classify as belonging to an alternative gender still live on reservations” 

(Lang 1997: 108). And yet indigenous LGBTTQ identities are being progressively 

re-asserted and strengthened, as is illustrated by the rise of organizations such 

as BAAITS. Indigenous LGBTTQ people who continue to practice traditional 

cultural activities and responsibilities know what species and places are important 

to them. Indigenous communities can ensure the fostering of indigenous LGBTTQ 

traditional cultural activities and ways of knowing by making a place for two-spirit 

peoples in climate change and other initiatives. 

As the impacts of climate change continue to affect the cultural traditions 

of indigenous peoples and shape indigenous experiences, it will be as critical as 

ever for the voices of indigenous women, men, and LGBTTQ people to be a vital 

part of academic and socio-political institutions. Calhoun et al. (2007) describe 

the importance of giving American Indian scholars and authors precedence when 

it comes to researching, writing about, and teaching topics related to American 

Indians. Miranda (2002) describes how underappreciated and underrepresented 

American Indian women writers and poets are in university literature courses. 

Goeman (2013) describes the importance of Native women’s literature as storyand memory-bound narratives that redefine the geographic and historic presence 

and sovereignty of Native peoples, and highlights how this redefinition, or “(re)

mapping,” has taken place in the works of Mohawk writer Pauline Johnson, Muscogee Diné poet Esther Belin, Creek poet Joy Harjo, and Laguna Pueblo writer 

Leslie Marmon Silko.
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There has been a historical tendency within Western academic institutions to 

either disregard or exploit indigenous peoples and their knowledge. Many 

Western scholars have benefitted from entering indigenous communities with 

little or no consent, documenting indigenous knowledge, and incorporating it 

into their research, without crediting or returning any benefits to the indigenous 

individuals or communities that contributed to the study. In addition, Western 

institutions are structured to reflect colonial values that often exclude or challenge indigenous knowledge and culture. These institutional barriers make it 

difficult for scholars, indigenous or otherwise, to carry out research that is 

culturally sensitive and beneficial for indigenous communities. In response to 

these tendencies, indigenous scholars and communities are developing research 

methods, often referred to as “decolonized methods” or “decolonized research,” 

that advocate for indigenous control over research that relates to indigenous 

peoples (ANSC 2011, Bishop 2005, Calhoun et al. 2007, Driskill 2010, Jacob 

2013, Smith L. 2005). Decolonized methods promote direct and continuous 

involvement of indigenous peoples in shaping research objectives and processes 

within their communities, indigenous control over indigenous knowledge, and 

research that is culturally appropriate and that results in benefits to indigenous 

communities whenever possible. Decolonized methods may serve as an important tool for indigenous peoples of all genders wanting to lead or contribute to 

climate change research in their communities and beyond. Only when gendered 

indigenous knowledge is fostered, protected, and applied in culturally appropriate ways can climate change initiatives promote justice for indigenous women, 

men, and LGBTTQ people.

• Indigenous control over production and dissemination of gendered 

traditional knowledge is critical to protecting indigenous cultures, and 

promoting justice for people of all genders in face of climate change.

• Climate change disrupts knowledge transmission, including gendered knowledge transmission. Tribes are adopting novel strategies to 

ensure that knowledge is passed down in their communities.

• Gender-based indigenous activism may serve to protect the lands, 

waters, plants, and animals that are critical to indigenous cultures.
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Climate Change Through an Intersectional Lens: Gendered Vulnerability and Resilience in Indigenous Communities

Conclusion 

Gender plays an important role in defining climate change vulnerability and resilience. International literature has begun to analyze the ways in which climate change 

impacts and solutions may differ by gender. For indigenous communities in the United 

States, gender, race, and other social factors may intersect to create unique vulnerabilities and strengths. This literature synthesis illustrates some of the ways in which 

gender and indigeneity may intersect to make indigenous men, women, and LGBTTQ 

people vulnerable or resilient in the face of particular impacts of climate change. 

For many indigenous communities, traditional gendered responsibilities and 

knowledge have been vital to community health and survival for millennia. Colonization has profoundly affected and continues to affect these gendered responsibilities and knowledge by disrupting (and in some cases destroying) the sociocultural 

fabric that sustained gender diversity and gender egalitarianism within many tribes, 

and by affecting the plants, animals, lands, and waters that are critical to gendered 

responsibilities and knowledge. Gender rights are a critical component without 

which indigenous rights cannot be adequately asserted. As such, it is important for 

gender to form a vital part of indigenous climate change initiatives. 

By taking gender into account, indigenous communities and their allies can 

ensure that climate change initiatives alleviate, not exacerbate, gender-based 

oppression. Policymakers and program directors must foster the long-term presence 

and active participation of all genders, particularly underrepresented genders such 

as women and LGBTTQ people, in the development of climate change policies and 

programs. Additionally, by incorporating gendered knowledge and gender-based 

institutions and organizations into tribal climate change initiatives, tribes and 

partnering entities can make these initiatives more effective and resilient while 

simultaneously re-empowering community members who have been silenced by the 

social, cultural, and political impacts of colonization. 

Indigenous communities can begin to assess gendered vulnerabilities and 

resilience as they pertain to public health, social networks, economic livelihood, 

and culture in a climate change context by considering the following questions:

Public Health

• What strategies might ensure that men, women, and LGBTTQ people have 

access to the traditional foods that are vital to health and well-being? Are 

the impacts of climate change on these traditional foods being researched 

in ways that are sensitive to gender? How can ecosystem management 

practices make management priorities for adaptation of traditional foods in 

ways that are sensitive to gender? 
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GENERAL TECHNICAL REPORT PNW-GTR-923

• How can current programs and resources be strengthened to better deal 

with the effects of climate change on mental health and community violence? For example, are there programs in place to help indigenous men, 

women, children, and LGBTTQ people heal from historical trauma and 

reduce and recover from gender violence that might also begin to consider 

the impacts of climate change? 

• How might climate change exacerbate the health-related and economic 

challenges faced by indigenous women, men, LGBTTQ people, and minors 

who have been imprisoned? What programs are in place to support incarcerated indigenous peoples and their families? How can these programs 

take climate change impacts into account?

• How are urban indigenous populations connected with their tribal communities, and how can these connections be strengthened to promote health 

and well-being in the face of climate change? Are there programs that can 

serve as models?

• Is gender considered in disaster management plans that address public 

health and preparedness in indigenous communities in the event of climaterelated (or other) disasters? How can tribal communities prepare for the 

impacts of extreme weather?

Migration, Displacement, and Altered Social Networks 

• How might support and social networking opportunities be extended from 

tribal communities to indigenous men, women, children, and LGBTTQ 

people living in urban settings? 

• In the event of climate-induced displacement, how might the unique relocation needs of indigenous men, women, children, and LGBTTQ people be 

accounted for? 

• How might climate-related immigration into indigenous communities and 

regions affect the health and safety of indigenous men, women, children, 

and LGBTTQ people?

• How might existing gendered social networks in indigenous communities 

strengthen community resilience in the face of climate change?

Unemployment, Poverty, and Impacts on Tribal Economies

• How might subsistence activities, local businesses, and industries that sustain indigenous communities be vulnerable to climate change in ways that 

intersect with how gender operates in these communities? Are there heavily 

gendered industries that may be affected or strengthened by climate change? 
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Climate Change Through an Intersectional Lens: Gendered Vulnerability and Resilience in Indigenous Communities

• What strategies are indigenous communities pursuing to ensure economic 

resilience in a climate change context? How is gender playing a role in 

these strategies? 

Culture: Impacts on Traditional Species, Places, and Relationships

• What traditional cultural resources are particularly vulnerable to climate 

change? What relationships do indigenous men, women, and LGBTTQ people have with these traditional cultural resources? How might impacts on 

these resources have gendered repercussions? How might these resources 

be protected in the face of climate change?

• How are traditional gendered responsibilities and knowledge being fostered 

and protected? How might traditional gendered responsibilities and knowledge be incorporated into strategies to protect traditional cultural resources 

in the face of climate change?

• How are the voices, scholarship, and actions of indigenous leaders, scholars, and activists of all genders being fostered within (and outside of) 

indigenous communities? What role can decolonized methodologies play in 

indigenous climate change research and initiatives?

There are gaps in the literature at the intersection of indigenous peoples, gender, and climate change. There is limited research on the gendered vulnerabilities 

of indigenous peoples to climate change in the United States. Even less research 

has explored the vulnerabilities and potential contributions of LGBTTQ communities, indigenous or otherwise, in a climate change context. There has also been 

little exploration into the roles that gendered knowledge, gendered responsibilities, 

and gender-based activism, scholarship, and leadership may play in enhancing 

climate change resilience. Indigenous communities seeking to meaningfully incorporate gender into climate change initiatives can benefit from culturally appropriate research further exploring these topics. Decolonized research methodologies, 

in which indigenous women, men, and LGBTTQ researchers or communities drive 

the research process, can ensure that research is culturally appropriate and beneficial to the indigenous communities it intends to serve. Furthermore, to address 

these gaps in the literature, federal funds for climate change research involving 

indigenous communities should support research proposals that include gender 

and LGBTTQ issues. 

Ensuring adequate gender justice in climate change programs, policies, and 

initiatives is critical to all communities, particularly for communities in which 

gender roles, gendered knowledge, and gendered responsibilities have been 

compromised by colonization. As climate change advances, indigenous peoples 
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GENERAL TECHNICAL REPORT PNW-GTR-923

can strengthen climate change initiatives by addressing gendered impacts and 

harnessing gendered resilience within their communities. In this way, community 

responses to the extraordinary challenges ahead can be a platform for re-empowerment and resilience. 

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Linda Kruger, research social scientist, U.S. Department of 

Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station, for her support 

throughout the development of this publication. We also thank our three expert 

reviewers for their invaluable critiques and contributions: Elaine Enarson, independent scholar, Disaster Studies; Mark Carey, Robert D. Clark Honors College, 

University of Oregon; and Mishuana Goeman, vice chair and associate professor of 

Gender Studies, University of California–Los Angeles. 

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Glossary

Biological sex—The physical structure of one’s reproductive organs that is used to 

assign sex at birth (Gender Spectrum 2014).

Gender—Socially constructed system of classification that ascribes qualities of 

masculinity and femininity to people, often based on their biological sex. Gender 

characteristics can change over time and are different between cultures (Gender 

Spectrum 2014).

Gender binary—Socially constructed notion of gender that accepts or recognizes 

only two genders: man and woman. 

Gender diversity—Term that recognizes that many peoples’ preferences and selfexpression fall outside commonly understood gender norms. Gender diversity is a 

normal part of human expression, documented across cultures and recorded history 

(Gender Spectrum 2014).

Gender nonconforming (also referred to as gender variant)—An individual who 

does not conform to their culture’s dominant notions of gender and gender roles, be 

it because of their appearance, their behavior, or their role in society. 

Gender roles—Set of roles, activities, expectations, and behaviors assigned to females 

and males by society. The dominant Western culture in the United States recognizes 

two basic gender roles: masculine (having the qualities attributed to males) and feminine (having the qualities attributed to females). People who step out of their socially 

assigned gender roles are sometimes referred to as transgender. Throughout history, 

other cultures including various indigenous cultures prior to the colonization of presentday United States, have recognized three or more gender roles (Gender Spectrum 2014).

Gender variant—See Gender nonconforming.

Gendered knowledge—In many cultures, gender roles divide social responsibilities, 

activities and work based on gender. As such, knowledge related to these responsibilities, activities, and work is also gendered. Gendered knowledge refers to knowledge and 

experiences that are associated with the responsibilities, activities, and roles of a given 

gender. In Western cultures, knowledge attributed to masculine responsibilities, activities, and work has often been valued over knowledge attributed to feminine responsibilities, activities, and work. This has led to a lack of representation of women’s knowledge 

in social, political, and cultural initiatives. Gender activists working on climate change 

initiatives often seek to close this gendered knowledge gap by making space for underrepresented gendered knowledge in climate change planning and decisionmaking.
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Gynocracy—A social system in which females have central socio-political roles, 

are figures of moral authority, and/or have control over property. Prior to colonization, this social system was characteristic of various indigenous cultures in the present-day United States. Today some of these indigenous cultures retain a gynocratic 

system, while others have been profoundly affected by the patriarchal forces of 

colonization. There are a number of indigenous communities and activists embarking on initiatives to restore power to indigenous women and reverse the impact of 

patriarchy on their communities.

Indigenous—Definitions of indigenous and what constitutes an indigenous community vary. For the purpose of this document, we use the definition put forth by 

Jose R. Martínez Cobo for the United Nations. It defines indigenous communities as 

“those which, having a historical continuity with pre-invasion and pre-colonial societies that developed on their territories, consider themselves distinct from other sectors of the societies now prevailing on those territories, or parts of them. They form 

at present non-dominant sectors of society and are determined to preserve, develop 

and transmit to future generations their ancestral territories, and their ethnic identity, as the basis of their continued existence as peoples, in accordance with their 

own cultural patterns, social institutions and legal system” (UN and Martínez Cobo 

1987). When we refer to indigenous communities in the United States, we refer 

to peoples forming part of American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian 

populations, be they federally recognized, state-recognized, or unrecognized.

Intersectionality—A concept first highlighted by Kimberle Crenshaw (1989), intersectionality aims to more effectively analyze systems of oppression by taking into account 

the way in which these various systems, including racism, sexism, classism, heterosexism, ableism, etc., interact to affect the lived experiences of people. For example, the 

experiences of a woman of color cannot be examined only through the lens of racism, 

or only through the lens of sexism, but through a lens in which these two systems of 

oppressions intersect to create a particular lived experience for that woman of color. 

LGBTQ—Acronym for “lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer.” In this publication, this acronym is used to refer to nonindigenous lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people. 

LGBTTQ—Acronym for “lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, two-spirit, queer.” In 

this publication, this acronym is used to represent a broad range of indigenous peoples and communities who in one or more ways do not conform to gender identities 

and roles, heteronormativity, or colonial concepts of gender and sexuality imposed 

by the dominant society. 
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Patriarchy—A social system in which men hold socio-political power and authority, control property, and dictate social organization. Patriarchal systems can have, 

and have had detrimental impacts on women and gender nonconforming people, 

through acts of disempowerment, discrimination, and violence. Patriarchy became 

the ruling social system in the United States as a result of European-American values, a fact that profoundly affected indigenous communities, especially those that 

are traditionally gynocratic. 

Resilience—In the context of climate change, resilience refers to the ability of people and communities to cope with and recover from climate change impacts. The 

physical, economic, socio-political and cultural conditions of a person or community often intersect to define that person or community’s resilience in the face of climate change. However, resilience is not static and can be strengthened or weakened 

as physical, economic, socio-political, and cultural changes unfold. Some characteristics may be a source of both vulnerability (see Vulnerability) and resilience. For 

example, indigenous communities are more vulnerable to climate change impacts 

because of their dependence on and deep reciprocal relationship with specific plant 

and animal species whose range and distribution may change with the changing 

climate. Simultaneously, this deep reciprocal relationship with the land results in 

the development of indigenous knowledge and experiences that can inform climate 

change adaptation strategies and thus enhance the resilience of indigenous communities (UNISDR 2009, Wildcat 2009)

Transgender—Sometimes used as an umbrella to describe anyone whose identity 

or behavior falls outside of stereotypical gender norms. More narrowly defined, it 

refers to an individual whose gender identity does not match their assigned birth 

gender. Being transgender does not imply any specific sexual orientation (attraction 

to people of a specific gender.) Therefore, transgender people may additionally identify as straight, gay, lesbian, or bisexual (Gender Spectrum 2014).

Two-spirit— “The term two-spirit was chosen as an intertribal term to be used 

in English as a way to communicate numerous tribal traditions and social categories of gender outside dominant European binaries,” explains Driskill (2010: 72). 

The Bay Area American Indian Two-Spirits (BAAITS 2014) explain, “Two-Spirit 

refers to the commonly shared notion among many Native American tribes that 

some individuals naturally possessed and manifested both masculine and feminine 

spiritual qualities. American society commonly identifies Two-Spirit People as Gay, 

Lesbian, Bisexual or Transgender.” Based on BAAITS’ definition, “two-spirit” may 

serve as an umbrella term to refer to indigenous people who do not conform to the 

Western gender binary or heterosexuality. 
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Vulnerability—In the context of climate change, vulnerability refers to a person 

or community’s likelihood of exposure, as well as sensitivity to climate change impacts. Smit and Wandel (2006: 286) state, “...the vulnerability of any system (at any 

scale) is reflective of (or a function of) the exposure and sensitivity of that system to 

hazardous conditions and the ability or capacity or resilience of the system to cope, 

adapt or recover from the effects of those conditions.” A person or community’s 

vulnerability to climate change impacts depends on a number of factors including that person or community’s physical, socio-political, and cultural resilience 

(see Resilience). While, in a given location, a number of people may be exposed to 

the same climatic changes, physical, socio-political, and cultural conditions such 

as poverty, intersectional oppression, health limitations, lack of decisionmaking 

power, etc., may make some people more vulnerable to these changes and their associated impacts (Lynn et al. 2011, UNISDR 2009). 
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