Transcending Gender Boundaries with Lessons from the Wild

What can Nature teach us about gender identity?

Could nature hold the key to understanding our own gender identities? Season 2’s Episode 7 of Give a F*k, brought to you by Spark Consciousness, delves into the captivating world of gender fluidity within the animal kingdom. The journey through this episode promises to enlighten you on the innate ability of species like oysters and clownfish to adapt their gender – a phenomenon that might just illuminate the complexities of human gender transition. Prepare to have your perspectives challenged and your knowledge expanded as we tackle these profound questions, inviting you to consider the normalcy of gender change both in nature and in human experience.

Resources:

• https://www.treehugger.com/animals-can-change-their-sex-4869361
• https://www.newsweek.com/animals-change-sex-hermaphrodite-evolution-1793036
• https://www.worldwildlife.org/stories/are-there-queer-animals-clownfish-that-change-sex-and-other-species-that-demonstrate-queer-behavior
• https://www.science.org/content/article/knowing-when-change-sex https://www.onekindplanet.org/animal-biology/can-animals-change-their-sex/

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Is gender dysphoria a thing in the animal world? What can nature and the natural world teach us about gender identity? If you've ever wondered about any of that, or just started to because I asked, this episode is for you. In Season 2, episode 7 of Give a Fuck, presented by Spark Consciousness, we're talking about animals who can change their gender. Join us to learn more about why they do this and why it means it's normal for some humans to change their gender. Join us to learn more about why they do this and why it means it's normal for some humans to change their gender too.

Speaker 1: 0:40

Welcome to Season 2, episode 7 of Give a Fuck, presented by Spark Consciousness. We're dropping knowledge bombs and answering your burning questions about nature, animals, spirituality, mental health, women's empowerment and other profound topics. This podcast probably won't change your life, but hopefully it will give you some food for thought, some guidance on this twisted path we call human existence. My role as an award-winning story keeper and catalyst for healing humanity and Mother Earth is to help you reawaken to your own connection with nature and, through this reconnection, reacquaint you with your intuition. What you do with it, how you incorporate that into your life, is up to you. I hope you'll make changes that benefit both you personally and Mother Earth as a whole. I hope you'll share what you learn here with others and that they'll make different, more compassionate and enlightened choices too. Either way, take what works for you, leave the rest. Always work to be the best version of yourself and try to leave the world a little better than it was when you arrived. As a bit of a reminder, in this slot is where I would normally answer questions from listeners and or guests, if we have a guest for that particular week. In order to submit your question, you do need to be a member of my Patreon community, and there is information about that in the show notes. Please do take a minute to check that out, because I really do want to answer your burning questions, and I don't know what those are unless you tell me.

Speaker 1: 2:26

So in the meantime, I'm going to hop over to the seitan of our show and talk about is oysters. Now I know for a lot of people they're just an aphrodisiac or whatever. For me, being vegan, they are not anything that we eat. For me, being vegan, they are not anything that we eat. They are fascinating creatures with intelligence and value and worth, and one of the reasons for that is that oysters can change their gender at will. To me, and I don't know what drives their will other than, potentially, the same thing that drives humans to change their gender. It's just they feel they need to. But to me, we're all made from the same stuff, right? And I don't mean star stuff the way that you know some spiritual woo-woo type of people mean. I mean we are literally all made from the same carbon-based building blocks. Therefore, if it's normal for an oyster that is fewer building blocks than humans to change their gender at will, why would it not be normal for humans to desire to do the same thing Because we have more building blocks and are more complicated? To do the same thing Because we have more building blocks and are more complicated, we need science and doctors to help facilitate that change, whereas oysters have fewer blocks to change, so they can just kind of snap their fingers, if they had fingers, and do it.

Speaker 1: 4:19

The next one I want to talk about is clownfish. Now, if you saw Finding Nemo, finding Nemo was a clownfish Bright, orange, very happy fish. They can go from male to female. Now clownfish live in groups where only two members are sexually mature a large male and an even larger female, and the rest are smaller and sexually immature males. Smaller and sexually immature males. But if something happens to the female in that breeding pair, her male mate transforms into a female and selects the next biggest male in the group to become her new partner. Now, for obvious reasons, they need to be able to do this in order to continue procreating and furthering their species. But it again brings me back to we're all made from the same building blocks and their trigger for changing their gender is perhaps procreationally driven, but it exists in them. Why wouldn't it exist in humans?

Speaker 1: 5:21

And the next one I want to talk about is another fish called the hawkfish, and they can go female to male or back again. They are harem dwellers and, much like you might expect from the word, harem's male leader takes on too many females, and that prompts the largest male to turn into a male and split away with half of the harem. But that's not their only trick. Unlike most other what they call sequential hermaphrodites that make this switch and stick with it, hawkfish can switch back again and this female turned male hawkfish may revert to a female if, for example, the new harem loses too many females or if a larger male challenges them, harem loses too many females, or if a larger male challenges them, and a sea bass again another fish can go from female to male based on supply and demand. Now I find this one particularly fascinating because, as we know, the humans are overpopulating the earth and there's a body of study that I'm not going to get into a ton right now because it's kind of a separate podcast, a separate topic, but there's a body of study that is saying that even humans, at a genetic level, recognize that the earth is too crowded and that is driving some of the reasons why it's harder for women to become pregnant, why more males are having issues with fertility and all of this. And so I find the fact that the CBAS can change based on supply and demand very interesting, because it makes me curious as to whether or not there is more transgender happening now, or is it just we're hearing about it more now? I don't know the answer to that. It makes me curious. It's something I would like to investigate.

Speaker 1: 7:14

Another fish that can change is the humphead I think it's pronounced race W-R-A-S-S-E, and they are endangered, but they can go from female to male. No one knows why and it's hard to study because they're endangered. Moving on from fish banana slugs, they are what's called a simultaneous hermaphrodite, which means they can use their male and female reproductive organs at the same time. And although they are capable of self-fertilization, most banana slugs prefer to find a partner, and so, when it comes time to mate, the two slugs curl around one another and engage in a reciprocal exchange of sperm that fertilizes each slug's eggs. So for one sexual encounter, they wind up with two fertilized eggs.

Speaker 1: 8:02

Now, again, in terms of maintaining their species, this could be very valuable, right? And perhaps this is the reason that some humans are born with both sex organs. I don't know, but again, we're all built from the same carbon-based atoms, so potentially that's why, maybe it's not a genetic mutation, maybe there's actually a reason for this. Butterflies, they have what's called I'm going to probably mispronounce this but gynanadromorphism, and that can cause male and female traits to be arranged either haphazardly or bilaterally, with one male side and the other equally female side, and this also occurs in crustaceans and insects and birds like cardinals. Now, again, I'm not sure how this is beneficial, other than the fact that this, this is not like a freak of nature, this is nature, this is normal nature.

Speaker 1: 9:12

Frogs can completely change their sex, complete with functioning reproductive organs, and it's actually fairly commonplace among green frog populations. Now, initially, research indicated that the sex reversal in frogs might be related to pollution which was introduced by humans. Research now suggests that the change may be a natural occurrence. Again, we are built from the same atoms as frogs. If it's natural for them to change, for potentially no reason other than they feel like it, or they feel called to, or they feel they just need to because, whatever reasons instinct why wouldn't that be normal for people? I say it is. I say nature has been telling us all along you are not locked in to whatever gender society has tried to assign to you.

Speaker 1: 10:08

Bearded dragons Now, if you've ever seen them, they're quite cool looking creatures and they can perform sex reversal in the egg. And studies have shown that when warm temperatures occur during egg incubation, males often reverse to become female, but it's not a complete switch. So they actually remain genetically male but act and reproduce like females. And what's more is these non-binary lizards lay twice as many eggs as normal females. This might be important for maintaining their species. Male bearded dragons are currently undergoing sex reversal at a rising rate and this is, of course, likely due to the spike in global temperatures. And then one last one is the California sheephead. They are all born female and their sex to change is dependent on their size.

Speaker 1: 11:05

So let's think about this. And these are just a few of the most what I consider the most fascinating examples. There are many other animals that do this. So let's think about this right. We're all made from the same stuff everything Rocks, minerals, plants, animals, earth herself, the stars, other planets. We're all carbon-based life forms, built from atoms and subatomic particles that are just mixed up and combined in different ways to make us appear on the surface different. But knowing that and knowing that sex change, gender change it's all completely normal and natural in every other species, except for our own, monkey agrees. How does that make any sense at all? It doesn't. So what I want to leave you with today is to think about your own attitudes towards intersex, transgender, and ask yourself does it really make sense in light of the fact that this is not a human phenomenon, this is not people saying, oh, I don't like my body and I want to change it. This is literally built into our makeup, into the makeup of every species on the planet and nature tells us that. The science, the data tells us that. So think about your attitudes. Think about how you can bring forth this information to other people to help change their attitudes, to help the world become more accepting of the fact that this is normal and it's okay.

Speaker 1: 12:41

Maybe you share this podcast. Maybe there's a personal story from your own life that you can get more comfortable sharing. Did you feel a glimmer, a spark, a light in the dark during this episode? You'll love my online course, the Soulful Seeker. Check it out at sparkconsciousnessnet slash TSS. You can also support the show as a Patreon member or episode sponsor, and you can learn about all of these opportunities and find additional resources about the topic we just discussed in today's episode. In the show notes, hang on to the word transgender to help jog your memory and remind you to hop on over to season two, episode seven of Give a Fuck, presented by Spark Consciousness, to find all of that awesome info. Monkey wants you to too, and I will see you next time.