Meaningless Involvement: How Traditional Modes of Involvement Exclude Transgender People from Environmental Justice

Environmental justice is a promise for the meaningful involvement of people
unjustly harmed by environmental hazards—a promise that is unfulfilled for
transgender Americans. Transgender individuals face unique, life-threatening
health and environmental disparities while being excluded by the Environmental
Protection Agency and community groups tasked with alleviating those
injustices. This Article details how the marginalization of transgender people
aggravates the environmental harms that they experience, thus demanding the
proactive, facilitated involvement of the transgender community in
environmental outreach and response. While transgender rights continue to
achieve public acknowledgment, transgender people remain almost forgotten in
scientific, policy, and legal literature concerning environmental inequities. This
Article thus proposes a foundation of policy and practice to adopt a more queer and
transgender-inclusive perspective for meaningful involvement in
environmental law in order to safeguard the lives of transgender people that
hang in the balance.