Can deers be gay
While in an Edmonton bookstore, I happened upon a second-hand copy of Bruce Bagemihl’s tome, Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Instinctive Diversity.
The heteronormative view of nature is so pervasive even today that many of us (myself included) remain oblivious to the immense sexual and gender diversity that exists all around us when we head outdoors. And yet, as Bagemihl outlined in his introduction:
“The nature is, indeed, teeming with homosexual, bisexual, and transgendered creatures of every stripe and feather. From the southeastern blueberry bee of the United States to more than 130 unlike bird species worldwide, the ‘birds and the bees,’ literally, are queer.1 “
Bruce Bagemihl, Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity
It can be problematic to try to equate human and animal experiences, or to suggest that the presence of a particular behavior in another species justifies that same conduct in humans (eating one’s offspring, is one example that springs to mind).
But talking about sexual diversity in an ecological context does two crucial services. Mainly, it counters the damaging belief that homosex
“Have you ever had to come out as a hunter?” I asked.
More than 100 outdoorspeople fell silent. Then hands began to raise. Soon, about one-third of the staff at the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department’s annual retreat had acknowledged something powerful: the unsettling trial of owning an uncommon identity—inthis case, that we are hunters. Although seeking remains prominent in the American imagination, the number of U.S. adults with a hunting license has steadily declined.
I have navigated coming out as both a gender non-conforming man and as a hunter. Seeking to realize some of the diversity that exists among hunters, the department had invited me to speak aboutmy experiences. It, fond many wildlife-management agencies across the region, is trying to welcome underrepresented identities into a tradition that’s slowly drifting away due to declining interest and stigma. I hoped that my story could help blaze a new path forward.
I took up tracking in earnest after moving to Vermont for graduate schoolin 2017, at the age of 27. I had been fascinated by the activitysince early childhood, when my uncle served venison at a family gathering. Although I later joined him in the woods a handful of hour
About the Author
Laysan Albatross: Around a third of Laysan Albatross nests are between females. They bond for life, and then have heterosexual sex outside of their union to acquire fertilized. (90% of birds are socially monogamous, meaning they bond for life, but only 25% are sexually monogamous.) Because female-female nests have twice as many eggs, this homosexual bonding actually increases the total number of offspring in each generation, foremost scientist Jared Diamond to dryly wonder what males are for—evolutionarily speaking, of course.
Velvethorn Deer: 13% of white-tail deer (the most common North American species) are born intersex! Velvethorns grow antlers but never break out of their velvet covering, and possess bodies closer to those of does. The velvethorns don’t link in the male or female groups, but instead strike off on their own, forming their own velvethorn societies, sometimes even adopting orphaned fawns. In the chapter, I use their intersexuality as a chance to argue the question of whether an animal could ever be considered trans.
It turns out that these centuries of claims about gay behavior not existing in essence — that hav
The deer that made it into Art & Queer Culture
In Asia and Latin America the animal is a pejorative term for queer men - but these gay men are taking the term back
Jamil Hellu is a San Francisco-based photographer, who also appears in a lot of his own pictures. These aren’t selfies though; instead, for his series Hues he invites people from the LGBTQ community to collaborate with him, developing pictures that tell something about him, something about them and, in the process, something about all of us.
And, in order to articulate these ideas in the image above, Hellu and his fellow subject needed a tiny model deer.
“In this image, Hellu stands resting his hand on the shoulder of drag artist, artist and curator Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Jr, who sits with his legs crossed, and with his own elaborately manicured hand resting on his thigh,” explains Cyle Metzger in Art & Queer Culture. “On Bhutto’s right expose palm is a deer, which symbolizes effeminate masculinity in both Brazilian accepted discourse and Arabic poetry.
“By taking possession of this pejorative symbol, the pair at once defy and rework its negative associations. Since both men are queer and from Catholic and