For anyone who only sees gender and sex in black and white, here’s proof by the lovely humon that nature is just as fluid with representations of gender and sex as we are.
you guys, you guys nature is so beautiful, i don’t even have words you guys
ah, this is really cool
THANK YOU, YES.
Also: clownfish hang out in groups of a few males and one dominant female. If the female dies, the biggest and toughest male transitions to being a female, and takes over egg laying. Also: lady giraffes are in heat seasonally. Outside of their time, the male giraffes just hang around screwing each other, which constitutes the majority of their sexual encounters. Also, bighorn sheep have been known to have gay sex just to say hello. Also: Bedbugs are born pregnant, as the male fetus they carry impregnates the other female fetuses inside them. When the now pregnant unborn bedbugs are old enough, they simply chew their way out of their mother and wander off. Also: snow monkeys have tons of lesbian sex to establish dominance hierarchies, with the monkeys that are best at giving head getting a pass up to the top of the lady ladder.
Also: bonobos. Just… bonobos.
Movies that cram animals into our culture’s idealized heteronormative nuclear family paradigm — who ignore reality to try and propagate an unrealistic ideal that doesn’t even hold true across our own species— make me SO MAD.
Yes all of this. Also: parrotfish, snails, and some frogs can all transform their sex. Virtually all male parrotfish were female in adolescence, and are bigger and more brightly colored after becoming male. Many birds have been observed in female-female mating pairs.