In fact it’s partially true, society forces people to play that role, e.g. men shouldn’t cry, women should look pretty, etc. Plus, people are lying a lot about quite serious things, so it also “helps” them create that image of themselves. Another thing is how much person behaves depending on hormonal level or their intellectual part, so to say, the more you rely on first more macho-like you’ll be behaving (especially if testosterone level is quite high).
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Yay for Pride at iNaturalist! And may I just say that some of us don’t just love biodiversity in wildlife, we love the bio-diverse. 
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It’s kind of hard to explain but unfortunately the lesbian community where I live is rather closed, discriminatory and (this one is a big deal for me) gossipy and incestuous. My interest in nature and even being an outdoors kinda gal is seen as rather strange. Actually, the men in the LGBT+ community love me, as they are always welcome on my hikes, and have asked me about the closed mentality of the lesbian community. Could only respond, “Yep.” Best wishes to us all, in all of our interests and desires! Your (old! ha ha!) Canadian friend, Rose
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Greetings to all iNatters! And Happy Pride!
I’m proud to be a member of both iNaturalist and LGBTQIA+. Btw, this is my first forum post. So I will consider it my little coming out.
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Welcome! And welcome to the many new people here. I hope to continue seeing you on the forum.
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@rkuzina, Oh no. That sounds really sad, I’m sorry to hear you’re not fully accepted in your local lesbian community. I would feel uncomfortable in a gossipy kind of group too, regardless of whether they liked to hike enough. Sending you sympathy and a friendly invitation to come hike in the Washington DC area someday, I know there are definitely bi and lesbian women here who like hiking and/or nature! (There might also be gossipy bunches, but some that are not.)
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I am still thinking about it quite a lot several months after realizing it :) I still am not sure what it really means to me in practice, but i suspect as with my discovery that i am autistic, over time i will realize it is a lot more relevant than it first appeared.
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i think this makes sense in terms of the actions of individuals, but i think it’s also really important that people are aware at least on an impersonal scale that gender and sexuality are very very much less concrete and ‘straightforward’ than what is taught to us as kids. Of course, if we just did away with discrete ideas of gender entirely and let people did whatever they wanted and just coordinated the biological part if they wanted kids i think we’d be way better off, but of course i would say that cuz i am agender :)
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Hey all, just a reminder that we would like to do a second Pride blog post at the end of the month and feature more stories from iNat users who are members of the LGBTQIA+ community. So far we’ve received just one email of interest and were hoping for a few more. If you’re interested, please email help+pride@inaturalist.org in the next two days. It’s not necessary to share your name or a photo in the public blog post if that’s something you’re not comfortable with.
Did you end up making a project?
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this reminds me of the chapter of Delusions of Gender where transgender men report their academic works were cited more and valued more by their colleagues when their post-transition male name was used as opposed to their former name - biases absolutely impact science and if none of the men felt comfortable sharing their experiences because queerness is inappropriate for science, the verifiable proof of academic sexism would be less well-known. Admittedly they were mostly psychologists but the same general principle applies - the more open one is about their identity, the more easily other people can learn from their experiences and the more easily sociologists and other human sciences can study and work to change biases within academic spaces
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Normally some of the letters are supposed to stand for multiple things, like I usually view the Q as meaning both Queer (if someone identifies that way rather than a specific label) and Questioning. One of my friends and I have been writing a gay dictionary for the past 8 years and one term I definitely think should be reclaimed and used more is the alphabet mafia to refer to the community as a whole.
Meanwhile I think I know the letters the BBC used meant
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Questioning, Intersex, Pansexual, 2 Spirit (I think? I don’t know if that’s a British identity?) Asexual/Aromantic/Agender & Allies
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There’s no “British identity” in LGBTQ+, 2 spirit is a Native American-related identity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-spirit
Also, the “A” doesn’t mean allies, it’s specifically just asexual, aromatic, and agender. Allies aren’t literally part of the community, they are allied with it. That’s how the definition of the word should be used, but I know some disagree.
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I didn’t know why BBC would be referring to a Native American specific identity I was just confused
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No problem; it’s not necessarily specific to them anymore, that’s just where the term originated.
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wondering if we should start a project here to record all queerness in nature. Just few time ago I came across “queer ecology” and I’m sure there are some, if not many, interesting observations in need to be highlighted. Just hit me up if you are into this idea.
also,
Love to everyone!!
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Not all of it will be noticeable. If a female bird “abnormally” had male plumage (transvestism), how would you know she was female? If a bilateral gynandromorph butterfly was of a species where the sexes look alike, how would you spot it? Or an intersex fish, without dissecting it to see the gonads?
On the other hand, straightforward same-sex pairs should be fairly simple to document. There is a really thick book, Biological Exuberance by Bruce Bagemihl, which documents homosexuality in 190 mammal and bird species.
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Just noting that a few more folks (including @diegoalmendras) contacted us about the end-of-the-month blog post. Here it is! https://www.inaturalist.org/blog/53791-pride-month-2021-wrap-up
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I wouldn’t call first case transvestism, but we already have enough cases of intersex ducks https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/intersex-ducks
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I’m not disagreeing with you, but will offer another explanation. A person named Q gets known in the circles, but if they change their name to R they are often an unknown. It’s one (of many) reasons why women will often keep their unmarried name. Again, not a debate or refutation, but just one other perspective.
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