GEORGE HUNT: The females will mate with each other. (Zhao, 2021)

The example of same-sex bird pairs raising families challenges human assumptions about relationships and reflects how nature often mirrors and reshapes what we think we know. For a long time, people assumed that animals, like humans, should follow certain patterns, like only male and female animals mating. However, in nature, things don’t always work that way. The discovery of same-sex bird pairs shows us that relationships in the animal world can be more complex than we think. By bringing in perspectives from religion and environmental science, I see this as a way to explore how our beliefs, shaped by religion and culture, and the natural world influence each other. Religion, for example, has often taught that same-sex relationships are unnatural, but nature itself shows us different examples. It’s about understanding our place in a larger system and finding ways to approach both nature and each other with more care and openness. By embracing these new understandings, we can open our minds to the diversity of life around us and be more accepting of what we once considered outside the norm.

This highlights the urgency and vulnerability faced by species like the polar bear as their survival depends on a delicate ecological balance. The need for the bear to consume the majority of its annual food supply before the ice melts reflects how deeply interconnected life is with the environment. It illustrates how climate change disrupts these systems, as the loss of sea ice, a critical hunting platform, threatens not just the polar bear’s survival but the entire ecosystem it is part of. This moment underscores the cascading effects of environmental changes and emphasizes the need for a greater understanding of and responsibility toward our planet’s interconnected systems.

Kathryn Savage's quote from Groundglass captures the profound interconnectedness between nature, human health, and environmental contamination. The imagery of "the zinc smelter... inside my mouth" illustrates how industrial activity, once external, becomes internalized within the human body, blurring the lines between the environment and personal health. This entanglement emphasizes how changes in the natural world, such as pollution, directly affect human well-being, demonstrating that we are inseparably linked to the ecosystems around us. Savage’s reflection on these small but impactful exchanges invites a deeper awareness of how environmental harm reverberates through both natural and human systems.

This part of the podcast sets the stage for how long such prevalent ideas on homosexuality effect what we perceive is natural and what is not in both human and non-human species. Thomas Aquinas, a thirteenth-century Italian priest and theologian, who fostered scholarly thinking on philosophy, Christianity, and theology was the originator of the infamous "crimes against nature" phrase. In his text Summa Theologica II-II (154, 12) He asserts his religious view on homosexuality as crime against god's law, referencing Sodom as proof that unnatural behavior must be punished and loathed. Approximately 800+ years ago and his religious views are still commonplace to this day across the entire globe. Religious authority figures such as priests, popes, and pastors shape what people perceive as normal and not normal through the lens of religious beliefs, rather than scientific information and personal thought forming our ideas, long-held religious sentiments instill specific imagery of damnation and anguish once we stray from these beliefs. Over 2.4 billion Christians (and other Abrahamic religions) fear of incurring God's wrath and the fire-and-brimstone torment awaiting in Hell if the 'unnatural' is permitted to exist. This ultimately creates homophobic thinking and bigoted/inaccurate explorations in wildlife sciences where rationality should be.

Although the dominant religious narrative of homosexuality being unnatural persists in certain scientific areas, enough progress has been made for that sentiment to become scientifically baseless and rooted in personal judgement rather than actually observed logistics and meticulous research. Due to the wide-scale global discovery and publishing of homosexual behavior across nearly every species on earth, the space for LGBT scientists and their perspectives, along with the academic research of sex and gender within nature has expanded. I believe if we keep moving forward, our relationship with our environment will be an honest and healthy one. Environmentally, we can broaden our scientific fields by openly publishing this kind of work to the public. Research that proves homosexually paired animals can raise young just as well as the heterosexually paired animals has a heartening impact. This is a net positive as the continuation of that species is guaranteed to carry on and disproves that sex is only for procreation within the animal kingdom. Socially, we can dismantle our preconceived ideas around sex that are informed by religion or other upbringings while making the world safer and completely accepting towards LGBT people; especially LGBT youth who are raised to be believe their inherent sexuality isn't natural.

I think as learned more about these lizards I had to reevaluate my perspective on nature and animals. Growing up, I believed animals mimicked human relationships rather than having their own complex social and reproductive systems to their respective species. This ultimately led me to stifling my own curiosity as I assumed I knew how most animals worked. So, it's important to learn more about other animals that stray far from my preconceived notions of what's "normal" for an animal to do and what is "not normal" based on a human-centric lens. Just because animals like the New Mexico whiptail lizard doesn't adhere to our normative standards of reproduction doesn't mean they are any less natural than the grass that grows beneath us. In fact, it much more fascinating to learn about the biodiversity the world has to offer instead of every creature working similarly to one another. The parthenogenesis reproductive system can be found in more that 80 vertebrate species, mainly throughout reptiles and fish but also in some insects as well. So, while it may not be the 'standard' were used to it is just as natural as another observable fact within wildlife.

Radiolab. "Seagulls." Radiolab, WNYC Studios, 6 Dec. 2019, www.radiolab.org/podcast/seagulls.

Barry Yeoman. “Same-Sex Behavior among Animals Isn’t New. Science Is Finally Catching Up.” National Wildlife Federation, 4 July 2023, www.nwf.org/Magazines/National-Wildlife/2023/Summer/Conservation/Same-Sex-Behavior-Animals-Science.

“Frozen Planet II - Filming Locations, Wildlife and behind the Scenes Secrets - Media Centre.” BBC News, BBC, 6 Sept. 2022, www.bbc.com/mediacentre/mediapacks/frozen-planet-2.

“Medieval Sourcebook: Aquinas on Unnatural Sex.” Internet History Sourcebooks: Medieval Sourcebook, 26AD, origin.web.fordham.edu/halsall/source/aquinas-homo.asp#:~:text=iii%2C%208)%3A%20%22Those%20foul,they%20should%20so%20abuse%20one.

Savage, Kathryn. Groundglass. Coffee House Press, 2022.

Schechter, Greg. “New Mexico Whiptail.” New Mexico Whiptail - Facts, Diet, Habitat & Pictures on Animalia.Bio, animalia.bio/new-mexico-whiptail. Accessed 3 Dec. 2024.

“World Religions.” Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology, 18 Oct. 2022, fore.yale.edu/World-Religions.

y Donald I. Bleiwas and Carl DiFrancesco. “Historical Zinc Smelting in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia ...” Historical Zinc Smelting in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, and Washington, D.C., with Estimates of Atmospheric Zinc Emissions and Other Materials, pubs.usgs.gov/of/2010/1131/pdf/OF10-1131.pdf. Accessed 3 Dec. 2024.

Zhao, Qilin. “How Lesbian Seagulls Changed the Gay Rights Movement?” Medium, Medium, 13 Feb. 2021, qzhao-97546.medium.com/how-lesbian-seagulls-changed-the-gay-rights-movement-f6c409362113.

“Ecosystems.” Accenture, www.accenture.com/co-es/services/technology/ecosystem-services. Accessed 4 Dec. 2024.

Together, we hope to discuss the following important objectives:

• Discuss ways that our relationship to the environment is represented and influenced by language and literature. 

• Recognize representations of the environment in literary forms and practices. 

• Explain how human relationships with our environments have changed and continue to change. 

• Acknowledge and reflect on your own relationship to the environment. 

By Victoria Dudus and Teja Johnson

ENGL 2635E

Professor Choffel