By Anna Fiesinger
Homophobia and many other forms of discrimination are on the rise. Queerphobia – an umbrella term for discrimination against members of the LGBTQIA+ community and those whose gender does not conform to strictly male or female – is still firmly anchored in our society. Many claim the church as a reason for this. Others cite biology. Yet, there are numerous counter-arguments to the premise that nature is purely heterosexual. This is not the case at all; it is too simplistic to cut it down solely to reproduction. More than 1,500 animal species are now known to exhibit non-heterosexual behavior. With his book “Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity”1 published in 1999, Canadian biologist Dr. Bruce Bagemihl was one of the first to want to dispel the ubiquitous “fact” that homosexuality is not found in nature and is therefore also something “abnormal” in humans. In a publication from 2019, Dr. Julia Monk2 and her colleagues found that it is much more likely that the initial state of natural sex drives is bisexuality, from which different species would have evolved in a variety of ways.
In order to understand our own behavior better, scientists have been looking to the animal kingdom for a long time. Today, I would like to take a look at queerness within and beyond coral reefs, because there is more queerness in the sea than a rainbow has colors! As avid readers of Reefbites will know, many coral species are hermaphrodites, they carry both sperm and eggs. They cannot fertilize themselves however, they have to wait for a synchronized spawning event, where many corals on the same reef release the sperm and/or egg into the water column to find a mate and create free-swimming larvae. It’s not just hermaphrodites though. Many corals can reproduce asexually, e.g., by brooding ready-to-be-released larvae in their tissue, which will carry exactly the same DNA as the mother colony. Of course, asexuality has a different meaning in humans, but this is just one example of non-heteronormative reproduction on the reef.
It’s all about sex, baby
There is, for example, the starfish. Very similar to our corals – the stars of our show – starfish really do display all the queer behaviors that echinoderms can exhibit. Dr. Julia Shaw even calls them the “mascots for queerness” in her book on bisexuality3. Many starfish species are also hermaphrodites, like many of our corals. It is therefore unsurprising that “bisexual” behavior can predominantly be observed in starfish, as they simply stretch out their arm to mate, regardless of who their partner is. Other starfish, on the other hand, change their sex in the course of their life cycle.
… or is it?
Let’s shift the discussion away from reproduction and onto other aspects of queerness. Take seahorses, for example. Anyone who has ever seen a seahorse will agree that they are the cutest thing the ocean has ever created. Among seahorses, the males carry the eggs and give birth to the young, defying our imposed gender roles with ease. Furthermore, almost all seahorses are bisexual and form relationships with both male and female partners. No wonder that these animals have also become symbols for queer people – in this case pregnant trans* males.
Queerness beyond the coral reef
You cannot say bisexuality and not talk about dolphins! Males of the common bottlenose dolphin like to mate with other males. In the anthology “Homosexual Behavior in Animals”4, Janet Mann points out that dolphins are not primarily concerned with sex in this type of partnership, but with social relationships. Homosexual couples usually find each other at a young age and then stay together in a close relationship for a long time. The males become companions, travel long distances in the ocean together, and defend each other. It has been observed that when one partner is sleeping, the other keeps watch and keeps an eye out for potential predators. Even during sexual maturity and reproduction with female dolphins, the males remain in their homosexual relationship. When a partner dies, the “widower” often remains alone for a long time. In this way, they promote social dynamics within entire dolphin groups by building, maintaining and strengthening relationships within the group. They are all behaviorally bisexual, as they enter into both same-sex and opposite-sex partnerships. However, this bisexual behavior is not observed in females.
Female-female pairs do exist in other animal species, though. In a study on the Laysan albatross in Hawai’i, more than 30% of female homosexual couples were found to enter into long-term relationships. The albatrosses, monogamous animals, build nests together in their female-female relationships, defend them and raise their young together. As with male dolphins, albatrosses also reproduce in their homosexual relationships, but always remain with their female partner.
Oh, Nemo!
And last but not least, let us dive back into the reef! Clownfish – the stars of the sea since “Finding Nemo” – live in small groups in their anemones in matriarchy, as you may well know from Rebecca’s article. A female, usually the largest fish in the group, sets the tone. The rest of the group is separated by size: in addition to the dominant female, there is a somewhat smaller male and several juveniles. However, if the (boss) female disappears – gets eaten, just wants some peace and quiet, etc. – all the subordinate fish take the opportunity to move up in rank. They grow, the male becomes the dominant female and takes her place. The largest of the juveniles becomes the male, forming a breeding pair with the new female that it is now rapidly becoming sexually mature. The advantage of this is that none of the fish have to look for a new group and thus enter the potentially dangerous reef full of predators. In the case of clownfish, this sex change is triggered by social changes, which in turn enable certain genes that trigger the transition process. In certain other fish, all males become females as soon as they reach a certain age or size.
As you can see, queerness is omnipresent, whether in humans or in the animal kingdom. My list does not claim to be exhaustive. If you are interested in the topic, it’s worth a few clicks in the search engine of your choice, and you will find numerous creatures – whether in the sea or on land – that are separating themselves from gender and sexuality norms. And like so many things in the sea, we haven’t researched this enough yet!
References
- Bagemihl B. (1999). Biological exuberance: Animal homosexual and natural diversity. New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press.
- Monk, J.D., Giglio, E., Kamath, A. et al. An alternative hypothesis for the evolution of same-sex sexual behaviour in animals. Nat Ecol Evol 3, 1622–1631 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-019-1019-7
- Shaw, J. (2022). Bi: The hidden culture, history and science of bisexuality. Canongate Books.
- Mann, Janet. “Establishing trust: socio-sexual behaviour and the development of male-male bonds among Indian Ocean bottlenose dolphins.” Homosexual behaviour in animals (2006): 107-130.
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