Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity

The term transgender, when it is applied to people, has two uses: as a cover term that refers to a wide variety of gender-crossing or gender-mixing phenomena, including transsexuality (with various degrees of hormonal and/or surgical transformation), transvestism (including cross-dressers, drag queens and kings, and female and male impersonators), intersexuality (including various forms of hermaphroditism), and even extremes of butch-femme presentation. It is also used as a designation for a specific form of gender mixing in which an individual lives full-time in the gender opposite to his or her anatomy (e.g., a man who passes for a woman without undergoing the full physical transitioning of a transsexual). For more discussion and exemplification see Feinberg, L. (1996) Transgender Warriors: Making History from Joan of Arc to RuPaul (Boston: Beacon Press).

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Foltz, D. W, H. Ochman, J. S. Jones, S. M. Evangelisti, and R. K. Selander (1982) “Genetic Population Structure and Breeding Systems in Arionid Slugs (Mollusca: Pulmonata),” Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 17:225-41.

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Of course, the term transvestism, when applied to people, refers primarily the wearing clothing of the opposite sex (and all of the attendant social and cultural repercussions). In its zoological usage, however, it simply refers to physical or behavioral attributes that are typical of the opposite sex in that species. For scientific use of this term, see the references in the notes for this section, as well as Weinrich, J. D. (1980) “Homosexual Behavior in Animals: (A New Review of Observations from the Wild, and Their Relationship to Human Sexuality,” in R. Forleo and W. Pasini, eds., Medical Sexology: The Third International Congress, pp. 288-95. (Littleton, Mass.: PSG Publishing).

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Owen, D. F. (1988) “Mimicry and Transvestism in Papilio phorcas (Lepidoptera: Papilionidae),” Journal of the Entomological Society of Southern Africa 51:294-96; Weldon, P. J., and G. M. Burghardt (1984) “Deception Divergence and Sexual Selection,” Zeitschrift für Tierpsychologie 65:89-102.

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Rohwer, S., S. D. Fretwell, and D. M. Niles (1980) “Delayed Maturation in Passerine Plumages and the Deceptive Acquistion of Resources,” American Naturalist 115:400-437.

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Estes, R. D. (1991) “The Significance of Horns and Other Male Secondary Sexual Characters in Female Bovids,” Applied Animal Behavior Science 29:403-51; Guthrie, R. D., and R. G. Petocz (1970) “Weapon Au-tomimicry Among Mammals,” American Naturalist 104:585-88.

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Kirwan, G. M. (1996) “Rostratulidae (Painted-Snipes),” p. 297, in J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott, and J. Sargatal, eds., Handbook of the Birds of the World, vol. 3, Hoatzin to Auks, pp. 292-301 (Barcelona: Lynx Edicións). Examples such as these are often termed sex-role reversal by biologists.

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See the discussion of homosexual gender roles and interpretations of homosexuality as “pseudoheterosexuality” in chapter 4.

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Bighorn Sheep (Berger 1985). See also chapter 2 for further discussion of human and animal comparisons.

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Policansky, D. (1982) “Sex Change in Plants and Animals,” Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 13:471—95; Forsyth, A. (1986) A Natural History of Sex: The Ecology and Evolution of Mating Behavior, chapter 13. (New York: Scribner’s).

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