Table of Contents
Title Page
Snow
Introduction
Part 1 - A Polysexual, Polygendered World
Chapter 1 - The Birds and the Bees
The Many Forms of Animal Homosexuality
What’s Good for the Goose … : Comparisons of Male and Female Homosexuality
A Hundred and One Lesbian Acts: Calculating the Frequency of Homosexual Behavior
Within Genders, Without Genders, Across Genders
Chapter 2 - Humanistic Animals, Animalistic Humans
From Pederasty to Butch-Femme: Uniquely Human?
Primate (Homo)Sexuality and the Origins of Culture
Unnatural Nature
Chapter 3 - Two Hundred Years of Looking at Homosexual Wildlife
A Brief History of the Study of Animal Homosexuality
“A Lowering of Moral Standards Among Butterflies”: Homophobia in Zoology
Anything but Sex
Chapter 4 - Explaining (Away) Animal Homosexuality
“Which One Plays the Female Role?”—Homosexuality as Pseudoheterosexuality
“The Lengths to Which Deprived Creatures Will Go”—Homosexuality as Substitute Heterosexuality
“The Errors of Their Ways”—Homosexuality as Mistaken Sex Identification
“Gross Abnormalities of Behavior”—Homosexuality as Pathology
Chapter 5 - Not for Breeding Only: Reproduction on the Periphery of Life
The Evolutionary “Value” of Homosexuality
Homosexuality in the Service of Heterosexuality
Nonreproductive and Alternative Heterosexualities in Animals
Chapter 6 - A New Paradigm: Biological Exuberance
Left-Handed Bears and Androgynous Cassowaries: Informing Biology with Indigenous Knowledge
A Revolution Under Way: Contemporary Scientific and Philosophical Perspectives - We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals … . They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendor and travail of the earth.
Returning to the Source: Indigenous Cosmologies and Fractal Sexualities
The Magnificent Overabundance of Reality
Part II - A Wondrous Bestiary Portraits of Homosexual, Bisexual, and Transgendered Wildlife
Introduction
Mammals
Primates
Marine Mammals
Hoofed Mammals
Other Mammals
Birds
Waterfowl and Other Aquatic Birds
Shore Birds
Perching Birds and Songbirds
Other Birds
Acknowledgments
STONEWALL INN EDITIONS KEITH KAHLA, GENERAL EDITOR
Praise
Appendix: Other Species
Notes to Part I
Credits and Permissions
Animal Index
Subject Index
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Copyright Page
Snow
The room was suddenly rich and the great bay-window was
Spawning snow and pink roses against it
Soundlessly collateral and incompatible:
World is suddener than we fancy it.
World is crazier and more of it than we think,
Incorrigibly plural. I peel and portion
A tangerine and spit the pips and feel
The drunkenness of things being various.
And the fire flames with a bubbling sound for world
Is more spiteful and gay than one supposes—
On the tongue on the eyes on the ears in the palms of one’s hands—
There is more than glass between the snow and the huge roses.
—LOUIS MACNEICE
… hugest whole creation may be less
incalculable than a single kiss
—E. E. CUMMINGS
Introduction
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.
It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this
emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and
stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.
—ALBERT EINSTEIN1
Any book on homosexuality and transgender in animals is necessarily unfinished, a work in progress. The subject is so vast, the types of behaviors so varied, and the number of species involved so large, as to defy any attempt at comprehensiveness. And the scientific research in this area is only in its infancy: new developments and discoveries are continually being made, and the extent of uncharted and as yet unknowable terrain is so great as to render any attempt at completeness hopelessly premature.
Notwithstanding such formidable challenges, this book endeavors to present a reasonably extensive and up-to-date account of the subject. To help narrow the field, certain parameters have been chosen: only examples of homosexual behavior or transgender that have been scientifically documented, for example, are covered in this book (such documentation includes published reports in scientific journals and monographs, and/or firsthand observations by zoologists, wildlife biologists, and other trained animal observers, corroborated by multiple sources whenever possible). Not only does this limit the number of species to be included (many more cases undoubtedly occur but have not been so documented), it establishes a uniform and verifiable platform of data on which to base further discussion. In addition, the book focuses primarily on mammals and birds—not because other types of animals are somehow less interesting or “important,” but simply because space and time limitations necessitate that not all species can be covered. These two groups are considered to be sufficiently representative and to have a broad enough appeal to warrant their inclusion, however arbitrary the exclusion of others may be.