A Rhetorical Analysis Of How To Queer Ecology By Alex Johnson

In today’s modern world people are quick to come up with the idea of what is natural and what is unnatural. In “How to Queer Ecology” Johnson uses his own personal experience of being queer and articles to provide an informative essay of why modern life and nature should not be divided. Johnson uses various details by going into the articles and breaking apart the statements given. After he breaks apart these statements he also compares himself or one being queer to the nature aspect of the situation.

The Essay, How to Queer Ecology: One Goose at a Time, A Lesson Plan by Alex Johnson is in a sense a guide to readers. It allows readers to get an insight into Johnson’s personal life while informing a “how to guide” on the how not to separate

This author brings into light the observation of nonheteronormative sexual behaviors amongst different kinds of animals. Johnson explains how before this published work, it was assumed that every animal only expressed heterosexual behavior because it was much easier to do. He expresses his own personal experience of this idea as well, “it was easy to assume I was straight too; I did so for the first eighteen years of my life” (582). Johnson includes himself in his essay to break this idea of what is natural and what is unnatural, because so far as one can see everything is changing and new things are always being discovered. Furthermore, Johnson’s use of various articles allows him to disprove ideas or “facts” stated in the articles. For example, in “The Miracle of Geese” the author, David Quammen, states these geese, the Branta Canadensis are monogamous that they, “… need one another, male and female” (581). Johnson disproves this statement with another article written ten years later. “Biological Exuberance” is a writing that explains the non-heterosexual behavior amongst animals where it clearly states, “Researchers have observed that up to 12 percent of pairs were homosexual in populations of Branta Canadensis” (582). Johnson does not do this to speak ill of the writer of “The Miracle of Geese” but it is done more to show the reader than within a few years things can change, new things can be discovered. These Articles are to show one how society has created their own standard of what is “Natural”. For instance the information of these geese and how twelve percent of the pairs are homosexual are considered unnatural to some when they themselves or nature. They are deemed unnatural because it is not the normality in today’s society. Johnson takes statements by Richard White from a