Hello everyone! I brought up creating an LGBTQ+ project on iNat and it got some interest so I created one. Feel free to join :) https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/lgbtq-naturalists
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I respect all people not judge you by your sexual orientation, caste, creed. In the end, we are all equal. But why this arises in the first place
As a boy educated in our schools I never knew about LGBTQIA+ you may wonder why, itās simply because nobody told me, there are many things I learned in animated movies like about science, adventure, and much more and all the main characters much likely were of different race colors but none of the movies showed LGBTQIA+ people. So it was fated for me to feel a little bit weird to first encounter transgender people, I was a little afraid as a child, but situation become more worse when I was staring at her/him then him/her tried to grab my collar.
I know what you are thinking, itās just the circumstances that made this incident happen as in our place these people are totally discriminated and often beaten up by some boys trying feeling superior, but that is all non sense, I oppose that,
My point of saying is that haters were once innocent little kids, it is our system which makes education system and never teached us about LGBTQIA+.
I hope one day this sytem will change their will be romantic movies about gay and lesbian love waiting for animated once to make my little brother watch them and teach him about respecting them all. I believe that we will make this world a better place.
Thank you
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Blueās Clues had an episode where they talked about Pride Month. Blues Clues is an animated show for kids ā I used to watch it growing up. Maybe youāll like this video: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=d4vHegf3WPU
I also grew up with no education on LGBT+ matters, having grown up Orthodox/religious. But the more I learned, the more I appreciated the humanity and dignity of all peopleā¦ eventually including myself. I was in denial for a while.
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I agree. It was very similar for me too. As I am from India and LGBTQIA+ is mostly considered immoral and they are discriminated. But luckily a lot have changed for good at least in my state through movies and other awareness measures. There is a lot to change and hopefully does. I became aware of these issues recently only and Iām learning a lot and my views changed a lot from what I knew earlier. Even this thread here helped me become aware too.
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today I presented presentation in school which support LGBTQIA people and it gone well.
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Iām proud of you ;)
It takes a lot of bravery to do something like that. We support you. How did it go? Did anyone respond?
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Yeah, it was a topic about women empowerment and my presentation was on what will happen if women empowerment take place I said that not all gender issues will be solve we should also support LGBTQIA people. It gone well, mam said āwell doneā and thatās all. Main thing is that this topic come in focus
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what a nice topic! i am a bit late to the party, but here we go:
I am a cis female queer pansexual. A while ago a trans friend told me maybe I am greygendered, which means i donāt care about acting as a woman, although I still feel I am one. Since childhood I felt better hanging out with the boys, but I never felt I was one. Boys had better games and activities, and girls interests felt not for me. I joke that my gender identity is AVguy, but the truth is I felt always at home with the nerds. Like the Saffire song:
Ever since the day I was born
I knew I was not the same
as the other little girls in the nehgborhood
who laughed and called me names
You know I didnāt liked dolls
I didnāt liked dresses
My shame turned into fear
But now all is gone and I love
I love being queer
You know Iām here now
and Iām queer now
You better get over it
You know Iām here now
and Iām queer now
You better get over it!
I want to show that we are all around, we queers. The ones they call devious. And we have given lots to humanity since long. From computers to botany. But during history, and also right now in many places, we were forced to hide that part of us, and that is so sad.
I want to send a big hug to all the people in the world that is not allowed to express their gender or sexual orientation, and say that we think of you, we 
you, and you are not alone.
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same thoughts 
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I took another look at the LGBTQ+ Naturalists project, and there are now one thousand five hundred and twenty-one users. New people join every single day. Thatās fucking incredible. It makes me feel like Iām surrounded by peers who get me and what I live through daily :3
and these are all at least somewhat active users too, people who took the initiative to join a project. yay!
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I saw that just the other day, very exciting :)
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As of now, at least one thousand five hundred and twenty-two. But I unchecked the box for being swamped with notifications.
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Wow, I am finding this thread very late, but it is an interesting read.
Itās funny, the naturalist community has always been a place where I have felt more at home than the rest of society. Iām nonbinary (more specifically agenderflux for the real nb gender nerds out there), even from before I had a word for it, and much of my life Iāve felt a frustration and tension with gender, and a dislike for being categorized by others or having people treat me in gendered ways. There are a lot of settings where I feel somewhere between mildly uncomfortable and profoundly uncomfortable because things are so strictly gendered, and I feel like I donāt fit in.
But Iāve tended to feel this way less when Iām in nature-oriented communities and activities. I show up on a bird walk, hawk watch, or a plant walk, an educational program at a nature center, or some activity doing invasive plant control or riparian restoration, and no one really cares what gender I or anyone is, people are just wearing comfortable, practical clothing and focusing on nature, science, and the task at hand, and it helps me to feel more comfortable and at home and like I can be more of myself and people are seeing and interacting with me more for who I am than what I present as or what role I am playing and how well I play it. Itās refreshing.
Interestingly, one of the areas Iāve struggled most with in life, due to gender, is dating. It has always seemed puzzling and difficult. But Iāve found that when I have dated ānature peopleā it has often gone better. So even there, nature and nature-oriented subcultures save the day again.
I sometimes feel insecure about being open and āoutā about being nonbinary. Like I now present more āin-betweenā than I used to when I was younger, and Iām open about preferring they/them pronouns, I put it on iNaturalist and also on bplant and most of my professional profiles these days. Although all of this makes me feel more comfortable, like Iām finally self-actualizing and being myself, I have a fear that this will be off-putting to people, that it will hinder my professional life, that it will cause some people to close off to me who would otherwise be open, and also that it will cause some people to misread or misunderstand me. A big one I get a lot (including from more āliberalā people who usually try to support LGBTQ+ people) is the assumption that being nonbinary means I must necessarily be super left wing, and/or agree with everything that comes out of every LGBTQ+ group. I assure you this is not the case! We are not a hive mind and we do not all think alike!!!
Another stereotype I get a lot is that I am a āspecial snowflakeā and that I am ādemandingā and will freak out and judge you if you slip up and use the wrong pronouns or refer to me as a āwomanā or āmanā. I also assure you this is not the case! As people who know me will testify, I am more likely to freak out during a heated discussion about image licensing, fundraising or web design practices, whether itās okay to plant a particular non-native plant in your garden, or any number of other topics! I pick and choose my battles in life, and believe me, Iām a cantankerous person and have plenty of things to quibble about and I am usually not wanting to argue about anything related to gender because I am saving my energy for something else.
My main thing with gender is that I wish people wouldnāt think of it very much. The whole reason I prefer they/them pronouns is that I would rather people not be thinking of binary genders when thinking about me, it is not that I want them to be actively thinking about me having a āweirdā gender, if that makes sense?
So again, this is one reason I feel so much safer in ānaturalistā settings than, say, the typical LGBTQ āsafe spaceā these days. Nowadays a lot of LGBTQ āsafe spaceā are dominated by a particular brand of left-wing ideology, and part of that is a particular type of āfeminismā that often makes a lot of generalizations about men, women, and gender in general, and I find that sort of atmosphere to be particularly toxic. So this is why naturalist settings are my āsafe spaceā.
And at least so far, iNaturalist has felt very safe in this regard! I donāt think anyone has ever bothered me or even launched into a tangential discussion that pushed my buttons about this stuff. And Iām grateful for that and hope it stays that way!!!
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I wanted to respond to this, I appreciate your frankness about this topic.
I donāt know if you yourself are a member of any sort of LGBTQIA+ groups yourself, but for the most part, in my experience, people voicing the perspective you have voiced here, have been people who were not negatively affected by the dominant views or treatments of LGBTQIA+ people.
For example, back in 2002 I attended a Lutheran church, ELCA, and the pastor would sometimes preach about the need for acceptance of gay people and equal treatment of them in society. Back then, gay marriage was not legal, and furthermore, openly displaying affection in a gay relationship was not socially acceptable especially in most Christian circles. When he started preaching about this, people in the congregation said something a lot like what you did, that his sermons were ādivisiveā and that they were off-topic to the message of the church.
The pastor was eventually forced out by the congregation, and they got a new pastor. I stopped going to the church, and evidently others did too because the church dwindled in numbers and closed some year after. It was frustrating to me, because I thought the points he brought up were relevant. To me, the pastor was describing aspects of the dominant culture in which people, including some people in the congregation, were acting in ways that were not in harmony with the overall teachings of the church. And by him bringing these issues into the open, I felt more comfortable in the congregation. I wanted to hash out the tough issues so that we could build a consensus and get better at living out our values. The idea of the topic being ādivisiveā was one I interpreted as defending the status quo, and the status quo was discriminatory. And it frustrated me that people couldnāt come out and say: āI donāt support gay people, I think being gay is bad and wrong.ā and then discuss that, instead they hid behind this view that it was ādivisiveā to talk about the inclusion of gay people in the church. It was indirect and people werenāt taking responsibility for their viewpoints and werenāt discussing them openly, instead using signals and codewords to communicate it indirectly, and the people that indirect communication ended up dominating the dialogue and no issues were ever discussed openly and nothing was ever resolved, and the church died as a result. So ironically, the whole rhetoric of about the discussion being ādivisiveā turned out to be more divisive than the original topic.
I havenāt had any negative experiences regarding my gender identity or expression, in the naturalist community, not on iNaturalist or anywhere, and Iām grateful for that. But some people have. The problem with things like heteronormativity and cisnormativity is that theyāre not only pervasive, theyāre ubiquitious. It is hard to escape them. And as such, unless you allow people to have conversations about them anywhere, some people are going to feel stifled.
Although Iāve never had a need to bring up concerns about being LGBTQ in naturalist communities, other people have, and I think itās important we listen to their voices. To me, it seems parallel to the way black naturalists in the US and other countries with a problem of institutional racism against dark-skinned people have talked about the additional problems and barriers and precautions necessary for black naturalists, things like how there is a much higher risk of people being reported to police, and people need to be much more sensitive about how they conduct themselves while interacting with police, and it places constraints on them in terms of how they dress, how they act, etc. because their safety is at risk. And because Iām white, Iāve never experienced this. But I want to listen to black people and other dark-skinned people who talk about these issues. Yet another parallel is ableism and accessibility, which can be a particular issue for people whose mobility or health restraints limits their ability to get out in nature.
I donāt know if that makes sense? Itās like, I want everyone to be included. I personally feel very welcome and included in naturalist communities, but I know not all LGBTQ people do and I think itās important to listen to those people and work to address the concerns they raise, just as it is important to address the concerns of racism raised by people who experience it, of ableism, and all sorts of other issues.
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Yeah, same. For a while I hesitated on joining the LGBTQ+ Naturalists project as some people close to me arenāt very accepting of me (Iām asexual). Recently I just bit the bullet and decided to join the project anyway.
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It always brings a smile to my face to see an observation in that project. I almost always take a look at the user profile. And Iāll admit, on rare occasion Iāll specifically ID observations from that project as a way of very, very subtly saying Hi, I care about you.
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i considered making a separate neurodiversity project except i feel like given how many neurodivergent people on here there wasnāt much point. 
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