Queer iNatter here also muting this whole topic.
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Coolio. Have fun. Weâll be here fighting for equal rights.
Edit: once again, everyone, no oneâs stopping you from talking about other topics relating to being Queer / LGBTQIA+ and iNaturalist. You can talk about anything you want. Have at it. Go wild. Talk about cargo pants. Make puns about lizards. No oneâs stopping you.
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Fun gay nature fact: Mourning geckos are almost entirely female and reproduce via parthenogenisis
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Sorry if I caused any misunderstandings or confusion. I wasnât talking about people who might be quietly reading! I was referring to people who frame trans usersâ complaints about misgendering as âcausing conflictâ or similar.
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This is the best fact. I love mourning geckos and their lesbian ways 
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Like Iâm not generally that into herptology, outside of watching like, clintâs reptiles on youtube.
But man, i wouldnt mind having a mourning gecko army
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those are the exact lizards I was thinking about but I can never remember what theyâre called lol
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I could never forget these iconic reptiles!
I love reptiles in general though. Iâm definitely the stereotype of the queer person who loves reptiles, bugs, and of course frogs.
(I think thatâs an interesting trend, jokes aside. Iâve noticed a lot of LGBTQ* content embracing animals that are often overlooked or considered gross, and Iâm happy to see some appreciation for them 
)
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I get unreasonably excited whenever i manage to find an amphibian in the wild man. I dont know why, but oh man, frogs and salamanders just hit different.
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Most of the species of whiptail lizard (Aspidoscelis) in my state (New Mexico) are all-female parthenogenetic lineages. All are diploid or triploud hybrids of other species. Individuals engage in pseudocopulation to stimulate ovulation. Fascinating group,
I just photoâd a Mourning Gecko in our kitchen where we are staying in Hawaii. Didnât know that about their biology.
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Fun Fact! Crocodiles can also reproduce through parthenogenesis!
https://phys.org/news/2023-06-crocodile-virgin-birth-science-history.html
And female Bearded Dragons have been known to lay eggs even without ever having met a male, but itâs very rare (but not unheard of!) for them to be fertile and develope into proper embryos; I remember seeing it on a forum somewhere that someonesâ had successfully hatched baby bearded dragons without ever mating.
Oh, and then thereâs this: https://nationalzoo.si.edu/news/scientists-confirm-facultative-parthenogenesis-smithsonians-national-zoos-asian-water-dragon
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I wonder why reptiles are so much better at parthenogenesis than mammals. I mean, i cant say Iâm mad, the thought od being randomly pregnant without choosing it is hell, but still, its interesting to think about
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I havenât seen them, but we have 2 happy frogs singing in our pond 
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Anyways if anyone wasnât aware, Iâd created projects for Trans Naturalists, Nonbinary Naturalists, and Xenogender Naturalists that you can feel free to join :)
You can join all of them, one of them, two of them, thereâs no rules! If you identify as trans, or want to be trans, or think you might be? You can join the trans naturalistâs project. Same with the nonbinary and xenogender :)
And for those who donât want to scroll up again to read the summary of what xenogender means:
The prefix âxeno-â means âotherâ âforeignâ âalienâ, things like that. Think of the word xenophobia/xenomisia - hatred of foreigners. Or in scifi, xenobiology, the study of alien life.
[Edit: And I canât believe I forgot the xenomorph. Literally the perfect example lol]
So xeno + gender = other gender.
Xenogenders are any genders that are described in ways other than 100% purely male, man, or masculine, or 100% female, woman, or feminine. AKA, genders outside the white western gender binary.
Some xenogenders are culturally exclusive, some are only for people with specific disabilities or mental illnesses, some are for otherkin, and then some are for anyone who wants to use them!
There are as many xenogenders under the sun as there are people who choose to describe them, and many are given names and flags. Some people who hate fun (and just in general hate nonbinary people) think this is âtoo muchâ, but literally no one is expecting or demanding everyone to memorize what these mean lofl, people who use them will be happy to explain if you ask, just like with neopronouns.
Hereâs the pastel version of the xenogender flag:
[ID: the pastel version of the xenogender flag, with pastel stripes of red, pink, orange, yellow, blue, dark blue, and purple. End ID.]
And the dark version:
[ID: The dark version of the xenogender flag, with deep, dark stripes of purple, dark blue, teal, gold, burnt orange, red, and very dark red. End ID.]
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Yeah, this ^ Sweeping problems under the rug doesnât make them go away, it just means itâll be worse next time, and more people will get hurt.
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Speaking of parthenogenesis, I think Komodo dragons can do it too? Sadly, I donât think they engage in mating-like behaviour between females the way mourning geckos do.
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Oh and just to make thinks exceedingly clear for everyone, one of my posts that was hidden for âAttacking other usersâ said this:
You do not get to demand that others also be okay with letting ourselves be misgendered. You can compromise all you want. Itâs not going to stop them from targeting you, too, when theyâve decided youâve crossed a line and are now Too Trans To Deserve Respectâ˘.
âWe can never throw enough people overboard to win approval from our enemies.â
-Leslie Feinberg, Transgender Warriors: making history from Joan of Arc to Dennis Rodman
Stop throwing me overboard by demanding I compromise on my identity and start actually sticking up for trans people.
Actually listen to what your trans and ally users or saying or stop pretending you care about us and our rights. If your response to this post is to further double down and defend blatant exorsexism, transmisia, tone policing, and victim blaming, youâll be proving to everyone that iNaturalistâs âcommitmentâ to inclusivity is just as shallow and performative as any other corporationâs.â
According to the cis staff members, telling a trans person who is being transmisic to stop literally speaking over you and slandering you and demanding that you allow yourself to be misgendered, telling this person to stop doing that is considered a personal attack.
But itâs perfectly fine for that person to continuously paint me as irrational and overemotional and purposefully misprepresent me asking âhey can you not misgender meâ as demanding âeveryone be perfect all the timeâ and literally telling me that I have to be okay with being misgendered.
This is the kind of thing that is now hard-coded into the rules of the site as being a bannable offense, and considered a personal attack. Defending yourself from blatant bigotry. Asking people not to be bigoted towards you.
This is the kind of stuff the staffâs âapologyâ is still continuing to defend.
They still literally consider defending yourself from bigotry and asking people not to be bigoted towards you a âpersonal attack against other usersâ, but the bigotry itself? No, thatâs perfectly fine. Sarcasm: Nothing wrong with a little hate speech between users, amiright? /sarcasm. But God help you if you say âhey you need to stop thatâ
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Well, from what Iâve read, I feel the opposite. @astra_the_dragon pointed out that a person can listen and yet still disagree. Well, the flipside of that is that explaining a decision again and again does not make it the right decision. At the end of the day, whether we are talking about a nation-state, a corporation, an academy, or any other established institution, the default is for the institution to define itself as being always in the right. The constitution, charter, bylaws, or whatever, will be written in such a way as to define the writers and the institution they represent as being always in the right. And that is why many of us cannot believe that anything will ever really change.
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I just saw this in the news:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/20/us/arkansas-transgender-care-ban.html
And here is the 80-page opinion:
https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/39/60/c0ca02924b6cb8443da60f6c1ce3/ruling.pdf
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Hereâs that same article on the NYT without the payway lol
So thereâs one bright spot in the news!
Oh and I donât think the links were ever posted here, but here is where you can get a free PDF copy of Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinburg (She/zie/hir pronouns), the queer activist who wanted the updated 20th anniversary edition to be publicly available for free after hir death, and if youâre more of a physical book reader, thereâs a link on hir website of where you can order a print copy at-cost from Lulu :)
If anyone is interested in reading hir essays on queer activism and gender, Someone has collected them all together on the web archive here, and you can either read them in your internet browser, or if you have an ereader app I think they went through the trouble of converting the PDF by hand into an accessible EPUB for anyone with low vision that needs to be able to adjust the font sizes or use text-to-speech.
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