Animal Behavior - Same-sex and Gender-variant members of the Animal Kingdom

[Nat]

I heard today on a "Stuff to Blow Your Mind" podcast called, "Can animals be gay?" that researcher Lindsey C. Young discovered 30% of a Hawaiian Albatross colony's coupled birds were female-female pairings. This colony also had unattached male birds.

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2009/6/17/1245252894338/Same-sex-pair-of-albatros-001.jpg

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2009/jun/17/same-sex-relationships-gay-animals

[Electrocell]

Wow yes I believe there are homosexual/gay animals too. Grew up on a farm cows would hump other cows when they were in heat .

[EnderD_503]

Of course same-sex relations (not "gay" or "homosexual," since the one is a 19th/early 20th century pathologisation of same-sex sex practices, and the other a social response to that pathologisation) are pretty normal within the majority of animal species. And "opposite-sex" sex. And any kind of sex you can imagine. Some sub-species of whiptail lizards are entirely "female" (another reason why the insistence on the "sex-binary" is bullshit), meaning it's pretty much impossible for "opposite sex" sex to even happen in their species.

People have invested so much into defining "heterosexual sex" as "natural sex" as though there could ever possibly be "unnatural sex."

[Corkey]

Back when DDT was wildly used the California seagulls were ALL same sex, that being females. It is not rare in nature for same sexed animals and unsexed animals, and plants. We are the exception in nature, that being human.

[macele]

i had a short-haired collie, never "fixed". she never had a desire to be with a boy dog, at least none that i know of lol. we had another girl dog that she protected, loved very much. i don't know if she was a lesbian dog lol, but she surely reserved her love for only one, ... that one love was a she. i like to tell the story that i once had a lesbian dog lol.

[Softhearted]

Communication during sex among female bonobos: effects of dominance, solicitation and audience

"Bonobo females frequently form close bonds, which give them social power over other group members. One potential mechanism to facilitate female bonding is the performance of sexual interactions. Using naturalistic observations and experiments, we found various patterns that determined female-female sexual interactions. First, while low-ranked females interacted with all females, sexual interactions between high-ranked females were rare. Second, during genital contacts, females sometimes produced ‘copulation calls’, which were significantly affected by the rank of the caller and partner, as well as the solicitation direction. Third, there was a significant effect of the alpha female as a bystander, while variables relating to physical experience had no effects. Overall, results highlight the importance of sexual interactions for bonobo female social relations. Copulation calls are an important tool during this process, suggesting that they have become ritualised, beyond their reproductive function, to serve as broader social signals in flexible and potentially strategic ways."
sources:
Clay, Z. and Zuberbühler, K. (2012). Communication during sex among female bonobos: effects of dominance, solicitation and audience. Scientific Reports, 2:291.

http://www.nature.com/srep/2012/1203...srep00291.html

[boobookitty]

I have lived with animals through out my life, they have an honest reaction /expression of what hormones do. There are certain 'female' behaviors and certain 'male' behaviors. But take the male out of the group, and most of the time the alpha female steps up to fill his role... in every way she can. In most (running loose) animal populations, the males are expendable.

(humor) ..give me a baby... ok now stay between me and that predator.

[Leigh]

I've heard that animals can also be homosexual and I'm not surprised, not just humans can be gay :)