Anti-trans violence threatens the lives of trans environmentalists — and potentially the success of climate action

A transgender woman pursuing a degree in atmospheric and climate science was killed two months ago, on May 10, in the laundry room of her off-campus housing near the University of Washington in Seattle. 

Juniper Blessing, who was just 19, graduated from the New Mexico School of Arts high school in 2024 before enrolling at the university. The Seattle Times remembered her as a "caring friend, a budding climate scientist, and a talented singer with a voice that moved many people."

Blessing's mother, Monica, described her to Kevin Bowen, executive director of the Human Rights Alliance Santa Fe and spokesperson for the family, as "pure love," according to Them. The publication also highlighted the 19-year-old's skill with languages and her remarkable five-octave range.

Bowen told Fox 13 Seattle about Blessing's love for nature. She helped her mother to appreciate insects and buried a hummingbird beneath a flower so the bird "would always have something to eat," Bowen said.

Memorials were held to honor Blessing in both Santa Fe and Seattle in May and during Pride Month events in June. 

Later that month, Christopher Leahy, the 31-year-old man accused of the fatal stabbing, was found incompetent to stand trial after being charged with first-degree murder.

The tragedy recalls violence too often experienced by trans people, who are more than four times as likely as cisgender people to be the victims of violent crime, according to a 2021 study of U.S. data conducted by the Williams Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Law. Research has also found violence to be a "highly prevalent" threat for transgender and gender-diverse people globally. 

The murder of future climate scientist Blessing most tragically ended her life and ripped her away from her loved ones. It also ripped her away from a planet she may have helped to save.

And while it's important to note that Blessing does not appear to have been targeted for her climate studies or environmental interests, the case also brings to mind the violence faced by environmental defenders around the world. An analysis from Global Witness found that, from 2012 to 2024, "at least 146 land and environmental defenders were killed or disappeared."

"Being a queer [or] trans activist and an environmental activist puts you in a greater sense of danger because both agendas are heavily under attack," Diego De Leon, Advocacy Chair at Out for Sustainability, told CG in a video call.

What De Leon characterized as a "double stigma" or "double risk" for LGBTQ+ people who also work in climate action and environmental justice points to potentially compounded threats across daily life and policy. Similar "double risks" exist for Indigenous people, people of color, immigrants, disabled people, and women and girls involved in climate and environment work.

LGBTQ+ people may increasingly face this "double" threat, as there has been some research to suggest higher rates of climate justice alignment among these individuals, largely attributed to their understanding that they stand to be disproportionately impacted by the climate and environmental crises. For example, queer and trans people may face additional extreme heat risks when kicked out of or excluded from housing, or they may experience discrimination or violence when attempting to access emergency shelter in the wake of extreme weather disasters. 

On the one hand, sensitivity to such vulnerabilities may prompt LGBTQ+ people to get involved in climate and environment action — or even mean they have unique information about how to navigate these climate impacts on their communities. On the other hand, LGBTQ+ people already face life-threatening gender-based violence and may choose to avoid work that brings additional risks to environmental defenders. 

Taken all together, we may be seeing anti-LGBTQ+ violence having a direct impact on climate and environment action, with some people understandably declining to get involved and others taken too soon from their communities. It's an overlap that De Leon likened to how the oppression of Indigenous communities has jeopardized traditional knowledge-keeping about ecosystems and land stewardship.

"The loss of knowledge is something that happens particularly in Indigenous communities," he said. "That's very well documented … you know, the loss of traditional knowledge because of discrimination and violence."

Threats to LGBTQ+ communities could jeopardize collective knowledge about how to stay safe amid climate disasters too.

In a recent paper examining the milestones and shortcomings of the Belém Gender Action Plan adopted at the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change in Brazil last year to help guide gender-responsive climate action, the Women and Gender Constituency wrote that "'Queer resilience' — the long-standing capacity of LGBTIQ+ communities to build networks of care, mutual aid, and collective resistance — is a vital but undervalued resource for climate adaptation."

De Leon confirmed that this capacity could be vulnerable to anti-LGBTQ+ violence. 

"We've documented ways in which those communities have actually adapted and found ways to deal with climate change, and because of the lack of protections to those communities, that knowledge is indeed lost," he said.

More research to guide solutions for protecting marginalized groups from climate disaster could help to protect the most vulnerable people as temperatures continue to rise — and as attacks on climate science, LGBTQ+ advocacy, and cross-cutting funding persist. (A working paper from ODI Global published in April described "backlash against both gender equality and action on the climate crisis" as "increasingly converging in Global Majority countries.")

Meanwhile, De Leon and others already have a number of key solutions in mind, including inclusive climate policy and financing.

Inclusive climate financing, De Leon told CG, "can have a transformational impact in ensuring that LGBTQ+ communities, who are among those that are most affected by climate change, are properly represented, are protected, and are part of the decision-making process" about where and how funding is deployed.

De Leon went on to underscore the importance of "making sure that climate policy is inclusive of LGBTQ+ voices through a proper process of consultation" that guarantees that "inputs and insight are provided directly by the LGBTQ+ community and not a proxy" and that any related commitments to the community are then "implemented and evaluated."

The Women and Gender Constituency's recent evaluation of the Belém Gender Action Plan through an LGBTQ+ lens characterized the plan's use of the phrase "multidimensional factors" — in place of specific recognition of groups like trans and queer people — as overly vague. In response, the group — also known as the WGC — has called on stakeholders to be more specific in advancing the plan to ensure that data, laws, and funding meet real needs across intersectional identities, including gender, sexual orientation, race, disability, and more.

The WGC analysis also called for the "[recognition and inclusion of] climate activists and environmental defenders working on LGBTIQ+ issues." This would build on the Gender Action Plan's important recognition of the need to protect and support the safety of women environmental defenders.

Meanwhile, protecting the safety and well-being of trans and queer people more broadly has long been a priority among community members and advocates. According to a press release last year, the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation — or GLAAD — "tracked 932 anti-LGBTQ incidents" from May 2024 to May 2025 in the U.S. alone, with 52% of the cases "targeting transgender and gender non-conforming people." 

In 2024, the Human Rights Campaign Foundation published a report that called for "Dismantling a Culture of Violence," a comprehensive approach intended to lower the rates of hate crimes against trans people through changes across education, health care, the workplace, and the law. 

Addressing how anti-trans policies can normalize stigma and discrimination could also play a part in de-escalating violence and strengthening public safety. In 2019, Josa Alvarez — then working with QLatinx — told Them that another important step is to invest in community-led programs that address poverty and improve access to safe housing, especially for trans women of color. 

Questions of safe housing also came up as University of Washington students processed the murder of Juniper Blessing in what local news outlet KUOW called "a university-sponsored apartment building near campus." 

Anna Hull, editor of the school newspaper, told KUOW that multiple building residents had "reported existing maintenance issues that could potentially be intertwined with the tragic death." These reportedly included a broken lock on the laundry room where Blessing was killed as well as "a dimly lit stairwell and challenging ways of exiting and entering the building."

Last month, Juniper's father, Craig, spoke with Hull about the loss of his child, what she had accomplished in life, and what she had still hoped to achieve.

Hull reported that while many in Juniper's orbit had expected the talented musician to pursue the arts in college, Craig relayed that his child had always been interested in the weather and wanted her research to have an impact.

"When something was on the weather channel –– at age 5, age 6 –– she would grab a soup ladle and go back out on the patio and give a weather forecast," Craig told Hull.

Kirsten Krueger contributed to the editing of this article.