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00:15The Pacific Ocean, home to unparalleled natural diversity.
00:26Beneath the waves, a ballet of grace and power unfolds.
00:31It's a courtship dance, choreographed by the southern resident orcas.
00:39Following their long courtship rituals, robust penises unsheath to reveal.
00:46Wait, oh wait, penises. Oh, rub together to reveal.
00:54Two males are courting. Oh my God.
00:58Rubbing and nuzzling each other. Is anyone else seeing this? This is amazing.
01:13I'm Conal. I'm a naturalist, a science educator and a huge birder.
01:18And I'm, well, very gay.
01:22I've been mad about nature all my life.
01:25As a young researcher, I saw queer behaviour between male orcas.
01:30And it blew my mind.
01:33But in all the science I've studied, the nature shows I've seen, they don't talk about queer nature.
01:39How can humans be gay, but animals supposedly aren't?
01:43I mean, I saw those two male orca rubbing up against each other.
01:48I just think we're not looking.
01:50Am I the only gay animal?
01:54Is being queer natural?
02:15We've all heard the rhetoric that being queer isn't natural.
02:19So we're about to take a journey.
02:23Just how queer is the natural world?
02:26This is nature's coming out story.
02:45I first moved to Canada ten years ago and fell in love with the West Coast.
02:53We don't tend to think of cities as places where animals congregate.
02:57But some of my favourite wildlife moments happen right here, where I live.
03:06As a queer scientist, I never really thought about how my work and queerness could intercept.
03:11But my friend Jalen does a pretty great job at it.
03:14So, let's go meet a queen.
03:21You're looking at one of Vancouver's only queer urban ecologists!
03:37Always the dazzler, we see the elusive performer in their natural habitat.
03:42The drag show.
04:10One more round of applause.
04:12Here is Batsy B. Banks!
04:19When they're not lighting up the stage as Batsy Banks, Jalen is an urban wildlife ecologist.
04:25And they run queer nature walks in Vancouver.
04:29Look at us!
04:30I know, a couple of the queers out hiking.
04:33Walking about in nature.
04:35There is this stereotype that queers are such like indoor cats.
04:38We don't like going out very much, we're not outside that often.
04:42What do you think about that?
04:43Okay, like, there's some truth to it.
04:45We have been excluded in some ways from the natural world.
04:48But, we also have to realise that queerness is actually reflected all around us in nature.
04:53Queerness is intrinsically a part of the natural world.
04:57Like, look here!
05:01Girl, you gotta take a look at these!
05:04What are they though?
05:04They're the mushrooms!
05:06They're a nature's perfect example of how we just can live and survive outside of this gender binary.
05:14So, can you explain what that means though?
05:18I know that they have a whole variety of different, like, mating types and sexes.
05:23Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
05:24But I've never considered that being queer.
05:26No, of course it's queer! Like, let's bring it back to the basics.
05:29Yes.
05:30Mushrooms have more than just two biological sexes.
05:34How many do they have though?
05:35Fungi can have thousands of sexes.
05:38Take the words of Erika Koch, right?
05:40She found that within one species of mushrooms, there were over 23,000 gender expressions.
05:48Uh-huh! Uh-huh!
05:49Mushrooms are incredibly queer, Connell!
05:52And is that, like, an advantage? Is that good for them? Does it help them in any way?
05:56Having thousands of sexes was actually incredibly helpful if you're a fun guy.
06:00Because it gives you really high mating reproductive success.
06:03And that's essentially saying that if you're a fun guy, you can mate with anything you come across.
06:08You can mate with anything you come across.
06:12You can mate with anything you come across.
06:16You can mate with anything you come across.
06:17You can mate with anything you come across.
06:19You can mate with anything you come across.
06:20You can mate with anything you come across.
06:24Thousands of sexes.
06:26Thousands of thousands of anything.
06:28Thousands of thousands of thousands of sexes.
06:31Humans have X and Y chromosomes that determine sex,
06:34but fungi have entire DNA sequences to do this.
06:39So thousands of different combinations are possible.
06:45Look at all these birds, Connell.
06:48So many of them.
06:49I know, and would you imagine that more than 94 species
06:53of birds are actually queer?
06:5594.
06:56And it includes Canada geese.
06:58Yeah, they've all exhibited either examples
07:01of same-sex parenting, same-sex pair bonding,
07:04or sexual behavior.
07:06But geese nest and are together for, like, decades.
07:09Is it the same for the same-sex pairs?
07:11It's the exact same for the same-sex pairs.
07:13Wow. Raccoons.
07:15Really? Mm-hmm.
07:16Like, you wouldn't imagine it, but raccoons are so queer.
07:19Think of your typical nuclear family, you know,
07:22you've got the one parent, the second parent,
07:24that structured binary, turn it on its head.
07:27Raccoons are out here redesigning and reshaping the way
07:31that they're parenting and raising their young.
07:32And it's only happening in these urban landscapes.
07:35We see these sort of same-sex parenting,
07:38these sort of cohort parenting strategies
07:40that are happening across urban raccoon populations.
07:43And it's so funny because we can see that kind of parallel also with, like,
07:46us and people in cities, right?
07:48Cities, like, allow us the space to kind of connect
07:51and be with one another in community
07:52and try out these sort of different strategies for our own success.
07:56It's incredible to look around and wonder now
08:00what parts of nature are not as straight as I thought they were.
08:03Oh, honey, nature is so queer.
08:07I mean, just look around.
08:08Now we got trans clownfish down in the tropics.
08:11We've got little brown bats forming homosexual relationships.
08:15Some seagulls are lesbians.
08:17All kinds of dogs do gay stuff.
08:20I mean, haven't you ever had a dog?
08:24Baboons, dragonflies, graylings, barn owls,
08:28king penguins, swans, common garter stinks, tons of monkeys,
08:33whales and dolphins, ducks and geese, lions, ostriches and goats,
08:39giraffes, caribous, elephants, emus, earwigs,
08:43bisons, bonobos, horses, butterflies.
08:45Oh, my God.
08:46Nature is cursed.
09:11Slugs are hermaphrodites.
09:13That means they have both male and female sexual organs.
09:19After intercourse, one slug may chew off his partner's penis.
09:25So you see, nature is not as simplistic as we may think.
09:31Here, near Tofino, BC, over four meters of rain can fall every year.
09:37The perfect place to find slugs.
09:40Dr. Christina Avaska is a world-leading gastropod researcher.
09:45So it's kind of the perfect place for her, too.
09:49Oh, wow, look over there.
09:51Oh, that's a nice one.
09:54Have you ever seen that before?
09:56Two slugs examining each other's slime trails like that?
10:06I have never seen two slugs examining each other's slime trails.
10:11I...
10:12Does it mean they like each other?
10:14They may.
10:15They still try to decide whether they like each other or not.
10:19There's like a giant dating network of slug slime and the trails on the ground here.
10:28And that's how slugs find each other.
10:32One follows the other one's slime trail very closely and starts nibbling and tasting the
10:40slime.
10:41Just to see?
10:42See what's going on?
10:42Oh, this is really good slime.
10:44I like this slime.
10:47So how do banana slugs have sex?
10:50Okay.
10:51Slug penises are unique structures and they can be really bizarre.
10:57I kind of believe it, but how bizarre are we talking?
11:00Okay.
11:01Well, they're huge for one thing.
11:03Oh.
11:04They're inside out in the slug and they just everted during the courtship and copulation.
11:10Goodness.
11:11And they're not just one structure.
11:13They have all kinds of...
11:14You wouldn't even recognize them as a penis.
11:17Some of them...
11:17Really?
11:17All kinds of lobes and grooves and finger-like accessory structures that they slap onto the
11:26backs of their partners.
11:29Right here, just behind the tentacles on the head there, this is where the penis comes out
11:38and goes in.
11:41Banana slugs are simultaneous hermaphrodites, so they function as both males and females at
11:48the same time.
11:49So they really go beyond the sort of male-female binary that we might see in a lot of other
11:55species?
11:56Yeah, they certainly do.
11:57And they're not the only organisms.
11:59There are a lot of others.
12:00So they can then impregnate each other?
12:04Yes, that's the idea.
12:06Or they may use sperm from other previous partners, so there's still drama even after the fertilization.
12:16And then each goes off and finds a good place to lay eggs.
12:21But to get to that point is actually rather complicated and with some bizarre twists and
12:31turns.
12:33So, this is time I wanna go all night.
12:36Boom, boom.
12:37This is time I wanna go all night.
12:38This time I wanna be alone with you.
12:40This is time I wanna go all night.
12:43Boom, boom.
12:44Tell me, baby, what you wanna do.
12:48Ride it tonight, I'm picking up your energy.
12:52Go slow, I love the way you look at me.
12:56Hand on your thigh when I drive to the game.
12:59Tell me with your eyes
13:01When we reach the highway
13:04Your body's speaking to me
13:12Your hands are influently
13:16This night wanna be alone with you
13:20This night wanna go all night
13:23Tell me baby what you wanna do
13:30Okay, I get it
13:32Nature can be pretty gender fluid
13:34But are some animals actually gay?
13:53I'm in Hawaii
13:55To visit one of the largest albatross colonies in the world
13:59And I've heard that some of them are kinda gay
14:03I have like dreamed of seeing these birds
14:07Basically since I was a kid
14:08This is an iconic species
14:10With a wingspan as wide as I am tall
14:15Built to soar the length of the Pacific Ocean
14:18I honestly can't picture a better bird
14:20What could be better?
14:21I see one, I see one, I see one, I see one
14:27Oh my god
14:30Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa
14:32Look at it flying over
14:34That wingspan
14:34You can really see the wingspan as it flew over
14:38That is unbelievable
14:39I am, that's a dream
14:40That just then is a dream come true
15:05That just then is a dream come true
15:06See that guy coming in
15:08So he's probably coming back from Alaska
15:10Where they go and feed and come back
15:12If we keep an eye on them
15:13You'll probably see him going to a nest
15:22So as they come back every year
15:24They tend to go back to the same nest
15:26And they mate for life
15:28And they'll raise the chick together
15:31Wow
15:31Yeah
15:32I mean, looking at that kind of courtship over there
15:35It just looks so tender
15:38It is, they're very lovable
15:44Lace and albatross have the most amazing courtship dances
16:01Pairs dance together multiple times a day
16:05They seem so loving and expressive
16:18Since albatross all look alike
16:21We can't actually tell which are females and which are males
16:26So scientists just assumed they're all heterosexual couples
16:33But one scientist looked a little closer
16:37So we band the birds
16:39And that tells us who's who
16:40From any given day or any given year
16:42You know, who is mating with whom
16:44Who's raising chicks with whom
16:46Because that might be a different thing
16:47Right
16:47And then who all of the non-paired birds are
16:50Where they came from
16:51How old they are
16:51So the complete demographic picture of what's going on
17:03Dr. Young has been studying this colony for over 20 years
17:09Recently, she started using DNA to determine the sex of all the birds
17:16So this is what we use and will kind of be its permanent identity
17:20And then we follow them not just each year but every time we're out here
17:23So every week we're recording who's here, who's not
17:26And then we take a blood sample which is what we are about to do
17:29Yeah
17:29And that will determine the bird's gender
17:32So we can't really reliably tell males from females
17:36Males are a little bit bigger than females but not by a lot
17:40Right
17:40And so this is the way we do it
17:41We'll take it back into the lab
17:48So just a tiny drop is all we need
17:50And then we finally take a feather
17:52So this one did his three-minute donation to science
17:56And after that these bands will stay on for 20 plus years
18:00We don't ever have to touch this bird again
18:02We can just watch it
18:07Dr. Young discovered something amazing
18:09There are female-female pairs in the colony
18:14And not just a couple
18:16Fully one-third of pairs are same-sex
18:20Displaying the same deep bonds
18:23And raising a chick together
18:28We saw all of these two-egg nests
18:31And they don't lay
18:32They can't physiologically lay two eggs
18:33So we knew that two females had to have laid it
18:36But a few of us were like
18:37Well that doesn't make any sense
18:38Why are there so many of these?
18:41And so because we had these blood samples
18:43We did the testing and determined
18:45That it was actually two females on the nest
18:47And at first I thought I'd really screwed it up
18:50Because I think there's no way that
18:51A third of these nests are two females
18:53Like how is that possible?
18:55So I ran it four times
18:56And then actually resampled most of the birds
19:00Just to be extra cautious
19:03And yeah, there it was a third of them
19:05And they still mate with a male
19:07And have fertile eggs
19:08They do everything exactly the same
19:11And that's why it took so long
19:13To figure it out
19:14Amazing
19:17Just kind of
19:18Team Leslie do it
19:19Elbows down so the wings stay up
19:20Yeah
19:20And then you're good
19:21Okay
19:27Okay, so you're gonna get band 157
19:30I'm having the best day
19:34That's how I'm feeling
19:36I can't believe I'm holding an albatross
19:44Dr. Young faced huge pushback for her discovery
19:47All good
19:49She was even accused of having a lesbian agenda
19:53But the facts were there
19:55She triple checked
19:56Her discovery has opened the floodgates
19:59On similar research for other seabirds
20:03Same-sex pairs have been here all along
20:06We just never thought to look
20:12When we look at the ua'u bird
20:14Here in Hawaii, my people understand the concept that we call aikane
20:27And aikane speaks to a very close
20:30Possibly even an intimate friend of the same sex
20:34Having an intimate relationship that is sexual in nature is not necessarily required
20:42An aikane is someone that you enjoy spending all your days with
20:48Someone you can trust your life with
20:50That in traditional times prior to contact with foreigners
20:54Hawaiians understood this
20:56So what it really boils down to is
21:00Who you vibe with
21:03Right
21:03Who you click with
21:06Here in the islands, you don't necessarily have to come out
21:09Right
21:10You don't come out, you just exist
21:12Not unlike the story of the ua'u
21:15You know
21:16So how appropriate that we are here at the sunset of a most beautiful day
21:20And we are looking at the ua'u bird as it soars
21:25We see them courting and mating and supporting each other in their daily life
21:30Not unlike Hawaiian society
21:33It's great
21:38Same sex pairs were right in front of us
21:43What other queerness are we missing?
21:45Right in front of our eyes
22:01Ah shit
22:07I'm in the Rocky Mountains checking out some bighorn sheep as they gear up for the rut
22:15But where are all the mature males?
22:18Turns out the rams live most of their lives separate from the ewes and lambs
22:23In what zoologists have described as homosocial societies
22:28Virtually all of them participate in same-sex courtship
22:34It's pretty wild that I've never seen this on a nature show before
22:38Especially when this is what their lives are like 10 months of the year
22:55So nature does some pretty gay stuff
22:58But is it natural?
23:01What about the birds and the bees?
23:04I learned that sex exists to have babies
23:07Pass on your genes
23:10So when it comes to homosexual sex
23:13What gives?
23:14Yeah, good question
23:16What is natural sex?
23:18I mean if we really want to look at what takes place in nature
23:22We're talking about everything from hermaphroditic organisms
23:27That have both eggs and sperm
23:29To, you know, scabby penises
23:31And all kinds of crazy dynamics
23:33Sex is wild
23:36If we are thinking about human sex
23:38It is just so boring by comparison
23:47Evolution creates all kinds of needs for wacky sex
23:51Homosexual, heterosexual, non-procreative, procreative
23:55You name it, it's there
23:56In fact, I want to go show you
23:58Come on, let's go check some mail
24:05Dr. Bondar literally wrote the book on wild sex
24:10In fact, it's been pulled off shelves in some North American libraries
24:14Even though it's ironclad biology
24:18Turns out, nature's dating scene is a lot more diverse than even mine
24:25Connell, there's so much queer sex happening in this Thai pool
24:30What we're looking at with these anemones is something called hermaphrodite
24:35So the kind of animals that have both male and female parts
24:39Check out this guy here, this anemone
24:41Yes
24:41You see how it's kind of like splitting?
24:43Yeah, it's like crippled in like an eight
24:44Yeah, it's exactly, instead of a circle, it's like an eight
24:47And that's actually splitting itself into two
24:50So this is asexual reproduction
24:52It's reproducing itself, but it's doing so without sex
24:55So if you're an anemone and you can basically do both asexual and sexual reproduction
25:00Why bother?
25:01Why would you bother having sex at all?
25:04In this case, sex is for diversity
25:06You actually intermingle genes
25:09And that is really important for evolution
25:11We've got to keep the gene pool nice and diverse
25:14So then for same-sex behavior
25:16My sort of understanding of natural selection, and we hear a lot
25:18Is that animals have sex to reproduce
25:21And that's it
25:22So is same-sex behavior an affront to natural selection?
25:27Why do they do it?
25:28We know they do it
25:29Yeah
25:29So why?
25:30Is it just for reproduction?
25:31Because I personally don't want to have sex to reproduce
25:34Right?
25:35You know what?
25:36I think it's so arrogant of humans to assume that all sex in the animal kingdom is for reproduction
25:43That's ridiculous
25:44Sex is far from being something that a male and a female do to create an offspring
25:49I mean, that's one part
25:49But that's a really tiny part
25:51There's a lot of evolutionary reasons for the existence of homosexuality
25:56And one of the leading hypotheses is something called the social glue hypothesis
26:01And so what social glue means?
26:04Homosexual sex
26:05It means, let's get together, let's copulate
26:08As a way to say we're okay with each other
26:12I'm okay with you, you're okay with me
26:13Now, have you seen any dolphins in your travels thus far?
26:17I have seen many a dolphin in my time
26:18All right
26:18Dolphins are sexual creatures
26:21And they're something that we call hypersexual
26:24A bunch of males will generally get together to court and keep a female
26:29And that male group has got to be tight as bros, you know?
26:34Yeah
26:35And how do you think, Connell?
26:37How do you think they stay so tight with each other?
26:39You know, I can only imagine
26:41I'll be so tight
26:43I'll give you one guess
26:45Yep, it's copulation
26:47It's copulation
26:47And repeated copulations
26:49Right
26:49Many times a day
26:51Essentially, Connell, homosexuality is absolutely everywhere
26:55It plays such a huge role in every landscape on the planet
26:59Have you ever seen homophobia in another species?
27:03Humans are definitely not the only species to exhibit homosexuality
27:07But we are the only species to exhibit homophobia
27:12And that's sad
27:14That is sad
27:15You know, all this new research about queer nature
27:18Is really changing how I see the natural world
27:22You know what?
27:23It's not even new research
27:25Biologists have known about homosexuality in the animal kingdom
27:28Since we started looking at animals
27:30A lot of this information has been hidden
27:33Of course it has
27:50So much of our Western understanding about animal biology
27:54Comes from Britain in the past
27:55Which is about as colonial as you can get
27:57I'm back in the UK
27:59Home to some of the earliest scientific writings on animal behaviour
28:15These days London is a really queer friendly city
28:18But that wasn't always the case
28:20When I was in elementary school
28:22It would have been illegal for my teachers to tell me
28:25That being gay was normal or natural
28:27Or to promote homosexuality in any way
28:31And that wasn't even that long ago
28:35Our scientific foundations
28:37Like Darwin's theory of evolution
28:39Come from a very homophobic time in history
28:42But London's Natural History Museum
28:45Holds some pretty interesting secrets
28:48It has one of the world's largest natural history collections
28:52So where's all the gay stuff?
28:55It's in the closet
28:58So these are a series of what we call study skins
29:03Collected 1910, 1911
29:05On the second of Captain Scott's expeditions to Antarctica
29:09And these were all collected by George Murray Levick
29:18So the knowledge that penguins will undertake same-sex sexual behaviours
29:24Really sort of started to come out in 1910, 1911
29:29Wow
29:29And that was because the first person to really spend an entire season
29:36Watching the Adelaide penguins was George Murray Levick
29:40He left us two very detailed notebooks
29:42And it was those notebooks that he used to write the expedition report
29:47On Adelaide penguins
29:54I was working on a separate project
29:56And I just happened to be looking through the reprints
29:59That we have filed at the Natural History Museum
30:02And under L
30:04I found this paper
30:12It immediately got my attention
30:16Because of the fact that it has in bold
30:20The sexual habits of the Adelaide penguins
30:22And not for publication
30:27And if two things are going to get your attention
30:30It's not for publication and sexual habits
30:33So wait
30:34So these pages weren't included in the original publication?
30:37No
30:37So he submitted it to the expedition reports for publication
30:41And then the committee considered it
30:44And decided not to publish it
30:46Certainly if something is rejected
30:48It normally just disappears
30:51And it never sees the light of day at all
30:53And that's why it says not for publication on it
30:55Wow
30:56So Levick recorded this
30:57But why do you think these papers were never published?
31:00I think they weren't published
31:01Because it was very challenging and graphic content
31:04And it's a wide range of sexual behaviours
31:07That society in the early 1900s
31:09Would have perhaps found difficult
31:11What they're doing is projecting
31:12Human morals and standards of the time
31:16Onto these birds
31:18Some of the words that I saw him
31:21Describing the penguins as
31:23Included things like hooligans
31:25And deviant behaviour
31:27He's looked at things
31:28And he's drawn conclusions
31:30And he's projected human morals onto it
31:32But actually what he's also given us
31:35Is a complete understanding
31:38That this is the behaviour that happens
31:42In a normal Adelie penguin colony
31:46And he recorded it
31:48And he tried to tell the world
31:50That's what they do
31:51And that, if he had published it
31:54Would have changed our way of looking
31:57At how an Adelie penguin colony is
32:01So here he writes
32:02Here on one occasion
32:04I saw what I took to be a cock
32:07Copulating with a hen
32:08When he had finished, however
32:10And got off
32:11The apparent hen
32:13Turned out to be a cock
32:14And the act was again performed
32:16With their positions reversed
32:18The original hen
32:19Climbing on the back of the original cock
32:22Whereupon the nature
32:23Of their proceeding
32:24Was disclosed
32:26And that's same-sex behaviour
32:30Precisely
32:31Over a hundred years ago
32:33Yeah
32:34This was a pivotal moment
32:36In the history of science
32:38And this was never published
32:39No
32:40No
32:41Well, until we published it in 2012
32:43Until you published it in 2012
32:44Yeah
32:45What an extraordinary thing you found
32:49We rediscovered
33:01Western science has defined to this day
33:04How we think of animals
33:08We measure them
33:10Against ourselves
33:14I thought we were breaking new ground
33:17With queer science
33:17But we were here
33:20A hundred years ago
33:22It says
33:23Not for publication
33:24And it was hidden
33:25Yeah
33:26I'm like
33:26I don't know what to think of that
33:28It's blown my mind
33:29In a terrible way
33:30In a terrible way
33:31Because we have just discovered this
33:34But this has been known
33:35And hidden
33:36You know
33:37They've been doing that
33:38To queer
33:39Or LGBTQ
33:40Humans
33:41For over the same hundred years
33:43Why wouldn't do the same to animals?
33:50That is the real thing that pains me
33:52Is that we have been lied to
33:53Because the people
33:54That have come before us
33:56Have been told
33:57Oh, that's wrong
33:58And I'm going to try to hide this
34:00From these youngsters
34:01So they never become like that
34:03Is it so bad
34:04That gay penguins exist?
34:06Why is it so bad?
34:07What happened is that
34:08There came a moral code
34:09A Victorian moral code
34:11Where only one thing was accepted
34:13And the rest was hidden
34:14And now
34:15We all have internalised homophobia
34:17Because we all have grown
34:19In a homophobic society
34:21I'm a queer scientist
34:22And even I have a heteronormative bias
34:24Of course
34:25I mean
34:25The amount of internalised
34:27LGBTQ phobia
34:28That you get
34:30Even as a queer person
34:31It's not science
34:32It's bigger than that
34:33It's bigger than paper
34:34It's a societal thing
34:35We live in a heteronormative society
34:37Totally
34:37That is the problem
34:39But you think
34:40How much more has been missed?
34:42Where are the rest
34:44Of these kind of
34:45Papers, observations
34:46Because there must be more
34:47And what are we missing today?
34:50There is going to be behaviour out there
34:51That we don't even know is happening
34:53Yes, totally
34:54And we will not find it out
34:56Or find it out again
34:57If it has been hidden
34:59Unless we look with an open eye
35:01The nice thing is
35:03I'm hopeful
35:04I do think the tide is turning
35:05I do think that this is happening now
35:08You know, look at us
35:09You know, like
35:09Two queer scientists
35:11Chatting over a beer
35:12In one of the best universities in the world
35:16I'm so glad you said this
35:17Because I needed this today
35:20Conor, I think you should see how we're doing things now
35:23I think you should see some Antarctic research in first person
35:27What do you think of coming with me to Antarctica, if you can?
35:30I think you will benefit a lot from seeing what actual penguin research looks like
35:34Do you want to come?
35:35I would love to come to Antarctica
35:36Let's go
35:37What do I wear?
35:41So many layers
35:42You're going to look like an onion
35:45Or like a penguin
35:46Or like a penguin
35:57Gay penguins, Darwin
35:58Did you ever think of that?
36:26Oh my god
36:32That's outrageous
36:33It's outrageous
36:35It's incredible
36:37One does not get tired of it, right?
36:39Oh, how could you get tired?
36:40It's the most beautiful place I think I've ever been
36:43Oh my god
36:54We're out studying penguin colonies
36:56Just as Levick did in 1910
36:58When he first witnessed same-sex behaviour
37:02So we're going to a colony just around the corner
37:05It's a colony that we've been monitoring for more than 10 years now
37:08And what have you been seeing over the last 10 years?
37:10Oh, it's so much change
37:11So we've been seeing changes in how much knowledge falls
37:14On when do penguins breed
37:17Or how many chicks they produce
37:23I'm with Ignacio and his team at Penguin Watch
37:25In Antarctica
37:28Their project uses remote cameras
37:30To study how penguin breeding and behaviour are changing
37:37Whether same-sex or opposite sex
37:40Penguins work together with their partner
37:42To incubate the egg
37:44And to gather the rocks they need
37:46To lift their eggs above the freezing meltwater below
37:50But climate change is bringing much warmer conditions to Antarctica
37:55And ironically, way more snow
37:59This is wreaking havoc on their breeding success
38:02And populations are plummeting
38:06How much has Antarctica changed?
38:08The measurements that we're doing in the penguin colonies
38:10Tells us that penguin colonies are warming 1.5 degrees every three years
38:16The rate of change is incredible in Antarctica
38:19Especially in the penguin colonies
38:21This is why it is so important to have baselines
38:24Past baselines to understand how this is affecting the penguins
38:28If we want to preserve them effectively
38:34Same-sex behaviour is hard to identify in penguins
38:37Because they all look alike
38:40That's why it was missed in albatross for so long
38:43But it wasn't missed in penguins
38:46It was hidden
38:50Back in 1910, George Murray Levick gave us
38:53The earliest baseline of a Delhi penguin behaviour
38:56That's still referenced today
39:00The fact that all of his research on sexuality was hidden
39:03Means that no other scientist followed up on this research
39:07For the next hundred years
39:14So Ignacio, why does the sex lives of penguins actually matter?
39:18It matters
39:19And it matters especially in a changing world
39:22Because we're seeing penguin populations decline
39:24And it is really important to understand every mechanism
39:28By which the species can produce more offspring
39:32Regarding homosexual behaviour
39:34Well, we have seen, for example, in the leys and albatrosses
39:37How, you know, big percentages of the populations are female-female couples
39:41That raise more chicks than they would have otherwise done
39:44Like, they're older than where we were
39:47That's incredible
39:48If that is what is happening, also in penguins
39:50That would be incredible to know
39:52Because that would change our population models
39:54Right
39:55We have no idea
39:57We have not had the research done for us
39:59So we will have to do it ourselves
40:02It might feel that understanding sexual behaviour
40:05Is very far from effectively preserving a species
40:09But it is fundamental for it
40:17What could it look like to really see the world
40:20With all its diversity and complexity
40:26How might we protect it differently
40:29And how might we see our own place within it
40:39I wonder how it would change if there was more queer voices within science
40:43I would love to see more queer voices in science
40:47More perspectives from different backgrounds
40:49From different ethnicities
40:51From different cultures
40:52Because this, it will not change on its own
40:55If we keep looking at things from just one viewpoint
40:58We are always going to keep seeing the same thing
41:00Both in science and in the society that we live in
41:03It's not a passive process
41:05It's not going to just change on its own
41:07You do need to make that effort
41:08And ruffle some feathers in the process
41:10It is not always an easy path for a scientist
41:13To bring forward same-sex research
41:15The same way that it's impossible for many people
41:18To bring it up in their workplaces
41:20Or their churches or their communities
41:23Because it is seen as a foreign thing
41:25And a natural thing
41:26When we just know that's not the case
41:28And that is really, really sad
41:30And I mean, it's more important now than ever
41:33Given everything that is going on in this changing world
41:37Like, we just don't have time
41:38Right now is the turning point
41:41For the conservation or loss of so many species
41:44And we need the broadest picture of their lives
41:47As clearly as possible
42:12Queer nature isn't just for queer people
42:15Queer nature is biodiversity
42:19That's it
42:20That's what we're talking about
42:25When I started this journey
42:27I thought that this would be about
42:29How as a gay man
42:30I didn't see myself represented in the natural world
42:33But actually, I've learned
42:35There's so much more than that
42:36That queerness is the rule
42:39Not the exception
42:40And that actually
42:42It's never been more important
42:44For us to see every species
42:46For what they really are
42:49And to help secure an environment
42:52In which they can thrive
42:54Not this idea of what we think they are
42:58Or how they should be
42:59But what they really are
43:04S
43:29That is relatively beautiful
43:29To our
43:29To our
43:29And
43:29To our
43:29To our
43:29By
43:32To our
43:32And
43:32To our
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