Discover Queer Ecology

Happy Ode’imin Giizis (Strawberry Moon)! The Anishinaabe word for strawberry translates directly to “Heart berry”, and is named this because it is shaped like a heart, but also because it has medicinal properties that are good for your heart. Zhaawano Giizhik, an Anishinaabe artist and storyteller, writes about his grandmother’s teachings for the strawberry moon:

Summer solstice is also our national celebration honouring Indigenous Peoples, their contributions, culture and teachings. Kingston has a day of celebration planned. If you’re not in Kingston, here’s a list of celebrations across the country. Ayaa! Hanoi!

Let’s go for a Walk - next Thursday!

Last month we walked the Marshlands Trail and while it was an interesting walk it was quite short as the boardwalk is closed. So we’re searching for a great spot within the City limits on publicly accessible land for the third walk in our rotation. Love to hear your suggestions. Email Joanne at [email protected].

We’re moving our monthly walk from the fourth Thursday of the month to the third. So our next walk is on Thursday, June 19th at 4 pm and takes us back to the KP Trail. See below for our meeting spot. Hope to see you there.

Discover Queer Ecology in all its Colours!

Happy Pride Month! This month is a celebration of our friends, family members, colleagues, siblings, and all of the other important people in our lives who are part of the LGBTQIA2S+ community, as well as an acknowledgement of the work we still need to do to make our society inclusive of all gender identities, gender expressions, and sexualities. In this newsletter, we’d like to share just a few examples of the beautiful, diverse expressions of gender amongst our Earthly Kin that highlight how many different animals and plants break from heteronormativity and the gender binary.

Not-so-Peculiar Penguin Partnerships

In 1998, at the Central Park Zoo, a pair of male Chinstrap Penguins named Roy and Silo fell in love with each other and stayed together for six years. During that time, they demonstrated typical penguin couple behaviour, such as entwining their necks and mating with each other. Just as many human couples, they even wanted to have children, and their keeper, Rob Gramzay, even noticed them putting a rock in their nest and taking turns sitting on it, as though it were an egg. Later, the keeper gave them an egg that needed to be cared for so that it would hatch, and they diligently raised a female baby penguin, whom the zookeepers named Tango, and fed her in her early years until she was mature enough to venture out on her own.

This penguin couple was famous for what was initially considered unusual behaviour for penguins. So much so that there is even a children’s book about them. But soon after this, many more same-sex couples were observed in zoos around the world, and in 2019 the London Aquarium even decided not to assign a gender to a Gentoo Penguin chick who was raised by a same-sex couple.

Same-sex penguin couples have also been seen to regularly raise chicks, helping to incubate and nurture those that may have been abandoned by other penguins (since they often lay multiple eggs, but it is difficult to incubate all of them). These couples are not only a regular occurrence in their communities, but also have important roles in raising the young.

Classy Clownfish Cliques

Clownfish are well known for their orange colour, but they also form very interesting social groups. Clownfish typically live in small groups of up to 6 individuals, and they follow very strict hierarchies. Researchers have observed that clownfish groups always have a female leader and a male “second-in-command”. What makes these fish even more interesting is that when the female leader dies, the second-rank male becomes the top ranked member of the group and changes their sex from male to female!

As a matter of fact, it’s not just clownfish that demonstrate this kind of behaviour; scientists in New Zealand have found that there are more than 500 species of fish that change their sex in response to a variety of environmental and social cues. And there are many other species out there who can do this too - the extent of sex changes in nature could be much greater than we thought!

Beautiful Bi-Patterned Butterflies

Have you ever seen a butterfly with two different colour patterns on their wings? I haven’t. Apparently, it’s a one-in-10,000 occurrence for butterflies, and is known as gynandromorphism. Butterflies will take on the appearance of both a female and a male butterfly, and will show this colour split right down the middle, with everything from the legs to the antennae matching the characteristics of the gender of that side. It’s not just butterflies though, there are lots of other animals that show these characteristics, from insects, to rodents, and even birds (check out this video of a gynandromorph cardinal).

Gardens of Gender Diversity

Our beloved plants express their gender and sexuality in a wild array of forms. Some species have individuals with both female and male sexes (monoecious), while others have one or the other (dioecious plants). Oaks are monoecious, and their flowers are bisexual, although other monoecious plants have unisexual flowers. The beautiful Striped Maple can switch genders from year to year, and a variety of studies have found that their gender may change based on environmental factors or the age of the tree. Red Mulberries can be male, female, or bisexual, depending on the individual. 

But things get even more interesting than that! Andromonoecious and gynomonoecious plants have male or female monosexual flowers, respectively, as well as bisexual flowers, and some plants are trimonoecious, meaning that they have male, female, and bisexual flowers, all on a single plant.

Humans of Many Hues

Just like the many different animal and plant species we’ve already discussed, we humans also have a vast diversity of genders and sexualities, which are ours to explore and discover. In the same way that biodiversity creates a more beautiful and resilient ecosystem, human diversity, whether that be in gender, sexuality, or something else, creates a vibrant society that is made all the more splendid by the unique people who live in it.

To all of the 2SLGBTQIA+ folks in our community and beyond, we wish you a very happy pride month! You are beautiful, you are loved, and you are part of what makes our world special 🌈