Episode description

When Canadaland commissioned its new series “A Field Guide to Gay Animals” (listen to it here), the topic wasn’t really in the news. But since then, it’s started to take the world by storm. From rage on the extreme right, a documentary series on Peacock, to the first photos of humpback whale sex being male-male.

And the relevance is more important than ever, legislation across Canada and the United States regularly denies queer rights, sometimes based on old-school notions that sex is about reproduction and the animal kingdom proves it. Except it doesn’t… 25 years ago, one Canadian scientist wrote a book that detailed the history and science of gay animals: Biological Exuberance.

Today, podcast hosts Owen Ever and Laine Kaplan Levenson join Jesse to talk about the wonderful world of gay animals.

Host: Jesse Brown

Credits: Tristan Capacchione (Audio Editor and Technical Producer), Bruce Thorson (Senior Producer), Karyn Pugliese (Editor-in-Chief)

Additional music by Audio Network

Further reading:

• Biological Exuberance, by Bruce Bagemihl — Macmillan Publishers
• Humpback sex photographed for first time – and both whales were male — The Guardian
• Peacock’s ‘Queer Planet’ features lion ‘bromances,’ pansexual monkeys and more — NBC
• A Field Guide to Gay Animals — Canadaland

Sponsors: BetterHelp, Oxio, Article

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