Nonfiction by Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian, reviewed by Lara Boyle
FOREST EUPHORIA: THE ABOUNDING QUEERNESS OF NATURE (Spiegel & Grau)
Many people who oppose LGBTQ+ rights argue that queerness is somehow unnatural, but in the essay collection, Forest Euphoria: The Abounding Queerness of Nature, Dr. Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian argues the opposite is true: our existence has always been natural. We thrive in every species. Human biases have taught us to view differences as wrong. “Throughout the book,” she says, “I explore how nature is queer.”
Dr. Kaishian combines research about queer ecology with forest euporia coverher own observations to show how our personal lives can be better understood through science. “Queer ecology,” suggests that human biases erase or exclude evidence of queerness in nature, not a lack of evidence. With clean, gripping prose and a scientist’s eye, Kaishian returns to the culvert near her childhood home, where she found freedom in Upstate, New York. “I felt safest when I was unwitnessed by other people,” Dr.Kaishian writes.
In the company of Jesus bugs and rattlesnakes, she frees herself from the societal expectations and social rules around gender. The environment invites her to reckon with her Armenian heritage through a lens of newfound resilience. She turns to specifics which may be considered ugly or otherwise overlooked in order to embrace the parts of herself society has othered for defying the norm.
I would follow the author into any unknown forest. Her sentences wash over you like a stream. Each word has been placed for precision and lyricism, welcoming us with an accessible voice.
In the essay “Interspecies Dens,” the writer connects the dots between her interest in biodiversity and the isolation she experienced as a child, writing that she enjoys
Blurring the lines between human and nature because I believe we, as a species, have become self-imposed in our isolation. And it’s because of this that the planet is spinning through a devastating loss in biodiversity. (11)
She finds similarities among animals feared by people and queerness since both are misunderstood due to harmful myths. Biblical narratives introduce the snake as the devil incarnate, yet ignore their purpose in their own ecosystems. Similarly, religion has been weaponized against queer people.
She turns to her culture’s folklore to challenge dominant Western narratives about animals. In Armenian folklore, for instance, snakes are magical protectors and guardians. By re-examining our perception of creatures we have been taught to hate, Kaishian urges us to realize we are more similar than we think. Only labels divide us. In doing so, we might attempt to protect all forms of life amidst environmental collapse.
In the essay “Slugs, Snails, And Other Ways Of Being,” a child’s fascination with slugs leads to an adult unlearning shame around her body and sexuality. In the documentary, Microcosmos, she learns about the “queerness of snails”: their genders are obscured, however they are “both, and, in a way, neither” (29). Labels then lose their relevance. Love is just love.
This fact helps validate Kaishian’s own uncertainty around her gender identity, permission to reject the binary while still benign “complete” (29). Creatures like the snail, slug, and the cassowary become gateways for the author to arrive at a euphoric conclusion: “Queerness is common throughout the tree of life” (30). She questions how we are taught about sexuality and biology. What information is being omitted to uphold the prejudices of scientists? She even finds refuge in the “the culvert, the forest, and the swamp” after an assault, since the shame she felt didn’t impact the “queer and maligned beings” in these murky spaces.
In “Fungal Personhood,” Dr. Kaishian describes how environmental writers inspired her to follow her passion for mycology, the study of fungi – like the poet Mary Oliver or Robin Wall Kimmerer, the naturalist best known for her book, Braiding Sweetgrass.
Continuing the legacy of her literary predecessors, Dr. Kaishian has written an intimate, beautiful book that combines scientific research and the essay to educate and illuminate her audience about the diversity of our interconnected ecosystems while advocating for us to fight for a better future.
To queer readers like me, she also says: I see you. You belong here. You are as natural as a forest or a crow.
Forest Euphoria: The Abounding Queerness of Nature by Dr. Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian was published by Spiegel & Grau in May 2025.
Lara Boyle is a writer and cartoonist who holds an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from The University of North Carolina at Wilmington, where she made a graphic memoir thesis and received an Alfred and Anita Schnog Travel Award for Holocaust Studies to support her research. Her essays have appeared in White Wall Review, QU Lit Mag, and more. Her book reviews and interviews have appeared in The Southern Review of Books, Solrad Online Literary Magazine for Comics, and The Broken Frontier, among others. She’s currently working on a graphic memoir.
