![]() |
Sarah Palin, With Bear
|
The two mothers become inseparable companions, travelling and feeding together throughout the summer and fall seasons as they share in the parenting of their cubs.. ……. A bonded pair jointly defends their food, and the two females also protect one another and their offspring (including protecting them from attack by grizzly males). The cubs regard both females as their parents, following and responding to either mother equally; bonded females occasionally also nurse each other’s cubs. If one female dies, her companion usually adopts her cubs and rears them as her own.
Bagemihl is careful to point out that there are no observations to suggest that these relationships are sexual, but that is not my point. Rather, I want to draw attention to the abundant evidence from history, anthropology and zoology that “natural” sexual and family relationships are far more varied than the simplistic formulations of “traditional family” propagandists would ever like to admit.
Related Posts on Animal Sexuality:
- The Wildlife Rainbow
- Flirty fish may solve riddle of gay animals
- New Scientist: Fish that change sex – and back again
- Penguin (Gay) Parenting: Lessons for Gay Adoption
- The Saga of the Toronto Gay Penguins
- Tough Survivors: Gender Fluid Eels.
- Bisexual squid ‘can’t tell mates apart’ in dark waters – Telegraph
- A Lesson in Couple Stability From Homosexual Zebra Finches
- Breaking Up Is Hard To Do….. Also For Vultures
- The Real Mama Grizzlies: Lesbian Moms?
- Our Queer Primate Cousins
- Albatross Same- sex Parents
- Bisexual Snails
- Same-Sex Parents, Furred and Feathered.
- Queer Bonobos: Sex As Conflict Resolution
- Animals Use Sex Toys, Too
- Bighorn Rams: Macho Homos, Wimpish Heteros
- Lesbian Lizards
- Sarah Palin’s Top 10 Tea Party Mamma Grizzlies (middletownmike.blogspot.com)
- New Sarah Palin Ad Welcomes Grizzlies Of All Genders (As Long As They’re Not “Politicos!”) (mediaite.com)
- The Gay Side of Nature (time.com)
- Why It’s OK for Birds to Be Gay (livescience.com)
- Sexual Fluidity Is Natural in Animals (gayrights.change.org)
- Parental care linked to homosexuality (nature.com)
- Same-Sex Parents, Furred and Feathered. (It’s a Queer World)
Books:
Bagemihl, Bruce: Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity (Stonewall Inn Editions)
Crompton, Louis: Homosexuality and Civilization
Naphy, William G: Born to be Gay: A History of Homosexuality (Revealing History)
Roughgarden, Joan: Evolution’s Rainbow: Diversity, Gender, and Sexuality in Nature and People