Publications
Peer-Reviewed
‘Intersectional Vulnerabilities to Extreme Weather Among Transgender, Nonbinary, and Genderqueer Respondents in Ohio, USA’ by Brandon Anthony Rothrock, Sandy Wong, Kelsea Best, and Smitha Rao
International Journal of Transgender Health
Transgender, nonbinary, and genderqueer individuals face heightened disaster vulnerability due to systemic marginalization, including discriminatory policies, poverty, and limited health care access. Despite increasing climate impacts, transgender communities around the world remain largely invisible in disaster planning and response. People with disabilities also face disproportionate vulnerability during disasters, encountering barriers to evacuation, shelter access, and recovery efforts. Grounded in the minority stress framework and informed by intersectional approaches to climate justice, this study examines how gender identity and disability status intersect to shape disaster vulnerability. Drawing on survey data from transgender, nonbinary, and genderqueer respondents (n = 198) within a larger study of LGBTQIA+ participants, conducted in Fall 2024 in Ohio, United States, we examined the intersection of disability and gender identity during flooding and extreme heat events. Using Firth’s bias-reduced logistic regression models, we quantified the odds of experiencing mental and physical health impacts and anticipated barriers to disaster services. Disabled transgender individuals were associated with elevated likelihood of adverse outcomes compared to nondisabled, nonbinary respondents, including 5.7 times greater odds of flood-related mental health stress (p < 0.001), 3.0 times higher odds of heat-related mental health stress (p = 0.02), 3.2 times higher odds of heat stress (p = 0.02), and 6.0 times greater odds of heat stroke (p < 0.001). Disabled transgender respondents also had 14.2 times greater odds of anticipating limited access to disaster recovery services due to fear of discrimination or violence (p < 0.001). Findings support prioritizing the continuity of gender-affirming care during climate disasters with practice considerations for emergency health care providers. Intersecting marginalized identities are associated with increased vulnerabilities during disasters, with implications for regions where restrictive gender policies intersect with climate threats. These findings contribute foundational quantitative evidence to support more equitable climate adaptation and emergency preparedness policies.
‘Flooding and Extreme Heat Experiences among Ohio’s Queer Communities’ by Sandy Wong, Cyenna Ulrich-Cech, Kelsea Best, Brandon Anthony Rothrock, Catherine Adams, Smitha Rao, and Christine Happel
Population and Environment
This research advances scholarship on climate justice and its gendered dimensions by producing original evidence on environmental health disparities among queer populations. The study objectives include (1) describing the distribution of experiences with flooding and extreme heat; and (2) quantifying the odds of experiencing flooding, extreme heat, and negative health experiences along multiple dimensions of social identity and geographic locations. Survey data (n = 882) administered in Fall 2024 among queer residents in Ohio were analyzed. The distributions of experiences with flooding, extreme heat, and negative health consequences are summarized by gender identity, sexual orientation, race, age, household income, disability, and geographic residence. Results from logistic regression models indicate that transgender respondents were particularly vulnerable to flooding and extreme heat. Compared to cisgender men, transgender respondents had 2.2 times the odds of experiencing displacement or damage to their home or property due to flooding, 3.5 times the odds of having a negative health experience due to flooding, 2.1 times the odds of experiencing extreme heat that they were unable to find relief from, and 3.8 times the odds of having a negative health experience due to extreme heat. Additionally, respondents with a disability and those living in an urban location had greater odds of experiencing extreme heat and its negative health impacts compared to non-disabled and rural respondents, respectively. The findings expand our knowledge on distributional justice and the multiple social and geographic factors linked to climate change vulnerability among queer communities, which are an important yet understudied and marginalized population.
‘Exploring Climate Change Perspectives. An Analysis of Undergraduate Students’ Place-Based Attachment in Appalachia, USA’ by Martina Angela Caretta, Brandon Anthony Rothrock, and Nicolas P. Zegre
Rural Sociology
Despite global scientific consensus, climate change is a highly controversial and politicized issue in the United States. Grounded in two quantitative survey iterations with approximately 446 responses, 28 semi-structured interviews, and 4 focus groups with 60 undergraduate students from six state universities in the Appalachian region, this five-year study explores the role of place-based attachment and emotions in framing undergraduate students' climate change perspectives. Results show that the rural, socioeconomic status of Appalachia affects students' perspectives toward climate change and the barrage of information they are exposed to—whether scientific or media or from family—triggers uncertainty and inaction in them. They, in fact, think that climate change is happening elsewhere and will not necessarily affect them. We consider the importance, particularly in natural resource, extraction-dependent areas of the US, to better understand students' perspectives of climate change, given their role as current and future voters and policymakers. We argue that an emotional and place-based analysis of students' identities helps to frame climate change as an issue impacting themselves and their communities, prompting students to better articulate their perspectives on climate change.
‘Water and Gender’ by Martina Angela Caretta and Brandon Anthony Rothrock
Oxford Encyclopedia of Education
Water relations are gendered, and there are various, differential socio-ecological and power dynamics that reify those relations at different spatial scales. There are multiple examples across the Global North and Global South that pinpoint the diverse productive and reproductive uses of water by men and women. Women, for instance, are more likely to be excluded from water management and decision making, while men are in control of water for agricultural production. Neoliberal framings of water in economic terms may exacerbate gender inequalities as neoliberal policies are often blind to the complex politics and power embedded in gender relations and water. Emerging literature on embodiment and waterscapes confronts neoliberal framings of water by theorizing the everyday lived experience of disenfranchised groups excluded from water management. Gendered studies of water relations focus largely on women, with limited attention to men. Male usage of water is often presented in relation to their role in water infrastructure management and design and water for leisure. As climate change becomes a more pressing issue in general society, existing uneven gendered relations of water resource use will be further exacerbated. . .
Book Reviews
Review of ‘Second World, Second Sex: Socialist women’s activism and global solidarity during the Cold War’ by Kristen Ghodsee
Progress in Development Studies
Kristen Ghodsee’s Second World, Second Sex: Socialist Women’s Activism and Global Solidarity during the Cold War sheds light on the forgotten history of leftist women’s activism of the ‘Second World’, a bloc of state socialist countries in Eastern Europe. Ghodsee offers an alternate historiography of global women’s movements, one in which state socialist activism is at the forefront of international debates on women’s rights. The book serves as an important window into the communist and socialist women’s movements, taking the time to shed light on important and necessary information to deconstruct the neoliberal, Eurocentric viewpoint that dominates modern history and feminist theory. Utilizing case studies from Bulgaria and Zambia, Ghodsee examines feminist networks that developed between the Second and Third Worlds, and how alliances between state socialist and non- aligned, but socialist-leaning, countries formed to challenge Western leadership in the global women’s movement. . .
Review of ‘Revolutionary Feminisms: Conversations on collective action and radical thought’ edited by Brenna Bhandar and Rafeer Ziadeh
Gender, Place & Culture
Revolutionary feminisms: conversations on collective action and radical thought catalogs interviews with key revolutionary scholars and traces the ways in which scholars devise anti-capitalist, anti-imperialistic and anti-racist feminist frameworks of thought and analysis (1). Central to present-day events and happenings in global politics, such as the rise of authoritarianism, rampant and unchecked neoliberal capitalism, and climate change, this edited volume provides conversations with ten scholars who share a belief that freedom requires revolutionary transformation within each facet of society and across multiple scales. Dialogue with scholars such as Angela Y. Davis, Gary Kinsman, and Gail Lewis produce what editors Bhandar and Ziadeh call a ‘collective memory of struggle’ (3) in which the interviewees examine the histories, archives, and written works of feminists and their contributions to analyses of con- temporary struggle through the formation of new conceptual tools and praxis. . .
Review of ‘After repeal: Rethinking abortion politics’ edited by Kath Browne and Sydney Calkin
Gender, Place & Culture
After Repeal: rethinking abortion politics sheds light on the May 25, 2018 Irish referendum to ‘Repeal the 8th’, a constitutional amendment passed in 1983 that restricted legal abortion. After the referendum results resoundingly voted to repeal the amend- ment, abortion legislation was debated and then passed, prompting legal abortion services to be instituted in Ireland in the following year. This edited volume provides an analysis of the ‘culture war’ of abortion politics that ensued, both nationally and internationally, following the vote. The volume is separated into three main parts. . .