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Same-Sex Sexual Behavior is Common in the Animal Kingdom
Same-sex sexual behaviors are found far and wide across the animal kingdom. Now, researchers are trying to figure out why.
I was in high school when my home state first legalized same-sex marriages. Even then, I remember thinking how bizarre it was that it wasn’t already allowed and was something that required a vote at all. Members of the LGBTQ+ community have always been part of my life, many of which I count among my closest relationships. My logic was (and still is) that the LGBTQ+ community are people, just like you and me, so why wouldn’t they be able to get married?
Still, the debate raged across the nation, and some impressionable part of me formed the idea that homosexuality is unique (but not wrong) among the human species compared to the rest of the “natural world,” which I assumed at the time meant the animal kingdom. I learned later on how flawed this assumption was, and now, with the publication of a new paper, I thought I’d write a bit about just how common homosexual behavior actually is in the natural world.
A Plethora of Examples
So, just how common are same-sex sexual behaviors (as scientists call it) in the wild? Well, so far, researchers have identified…
