Celebrating Diversity: Neurodivergence and Queerness

What if forests don't teach us what to be— but how to belong?

As Pride Month ends, I've found myself thinking less about human labels and more about forests.

The more I read about forests and its effect (or acceptance) of our identities- the more I am amazed to discover what it feels like to belong-- of being who I am.

I've been reading Forest Euphoria, a great read on the queerness of nature and it emphasizes that we need diversity to survive in the world.

[ID: A book cover with title: Forest Euphoria shows a snake climbing up a golden sketched tree. There are mushrooms growing out of one leaf and a black raven in the other leaf]

As a Forest Therapy guide, people often ask me what nature teaches us. One lesson I keep returning to is this: nature is astonishingly diverse.

Human Communities, Like Forests, Thrive On Diversity - Association of Nature and Forest Therapy

In school, many of us were taught a simplified version of biology—a world neatly divided into male and female, predator and prey, competition and survival. But the closer scientists look, the more complexity they find. Fungi can have thousands of mating types. Some fish change sex during their lifetime. Many species form same-sex pair bonds. Parenting takes countless forms. Cooperation often proves just as important as competition.

Nature isn't chaotic because of this diversity. It's resilient because of it.

As a queer and polyamorous person, I don't look to nature for permission to exist. I don't need a mushroom or a bird to justify my identity. But I do find comfort knowing that life has always been more creative than the boxes humans have tried to place it in.

Forest Therapy has taught me something even deeper.

The forest doesn't ask us to become someone else. It asks us to become more present. More honest. More relational.

A healthy forest isn't built on sameness. It's built on countless relationships—between fungi and trees, insects and flowers, decay and renewal, sun and shade.

Diversity isn't a flaw in the ecosystem; it's part of what allows it to thrive.

Perhaps that's what Pride invites us to remember, too.

Not that everyone should be the same.

Not even that everyone should agree.

But that belonging doesn't require uniformity.

When I walk beneath the canopy, I don't see a world obsessed with fitting in. I see a world woven together through difference, reciprocity, and relationship.

When I walk through the crowds of San Francisco during Pride last weekend, I witness that moment where everyone shows up in their own way, diverse in all their identities, and they all fit in-- the environement of acceptance. It was affirming for me to witness my place in all this.

Maybe the forest has been celebrating Pride all along.

ID: Summer, seated in a meditation pose on a trail that has rainbow colored strips painted on it. There are hummingbirds and colorful flowers along the trail and a forest behind Summer.]