Kew Gardens, yes, *Kew Gardens*, says plants have "gender" not "sex"

A gay friend suggested a date at one of the queer events. I declined. I'm not queer, just an old-fashioned bisexual.

@Truthlikeness according to Kew, old-fashioned bisexuals have both male and female parts.

(It's possible there's a scientific meaning of "bisexual" that does mean "has both male and female parts", but Kew is perfectly aware that's not how their intended audience will read it, which I feel is rather dishonest of them.)

Some are, like kidney beans for example.

Also groan to the idea of a trranswoman who's a kinda fungi

Groan!

I'd really like to know what some of the academic botanists really think about this. I suspect they're keeping their heads below the parapet, sadly.

None of that has anything whatsoever to do with "gender".

We've known about all the different forms of sexual and asexual reproduction for a very long time. They have nothing to do with humans or human perceptions of being "queer". The current champions of everything LGBTQIA+ seem to genuinely believe they are telling the world something new about nature, and that it's somehow relevant to human life and society.

Self pollinating flowers are not queer for Pete's sake. It's just a normal form of sexual reproduction in some plants. And there are no self-fertilising humans. Despite what angry young people tell me on Twitter.

Indeed.
Mycologists of questionable morels.

So transplants are plants...right?

Sometimes the flowers are pink and feminine, but sometimes blue and masculine.
Is that how it goes?

That has to be the most ridiculous response any institute captured by this nonsense has ever given. I can't quite believe it's a scientific organisation of the standing of Kew which has authored it.

But does the average toadstool use a nitcomb? (thread passim re Mary Rose!)

Labels are applied through a cognitive process. I can choose to call myself queer (though I don't) and other people can choose to call me queer (though they don't, and I'd rather they didn't). Some men can choose to call themselves women (though they'd be wrong). These are all choices based on a cognitive process with which other people may or may not agree.

Now, there are more things In Heaven and Earth than we can comprehend and all that. And I could be wrong, but I don't think that the average fungus is applying any sort of cognitive process to itself or to its vegetational neighbours. It's not choosing to define itself as queer, or indeed any other aspect of the polysexual alphabet soup.

So who are we to call them queer? Are we misgendering them?

(TFIC!)

"From plants and fungi living outside orthodoxies" What orthodoxies? The plants are just doing what they've evolved to do.

A gay friend suggested a date at one of the queer events. I declined. I'm not queer, just an old-fashioned bisexual.

Or men who say they are women are actually fungi.

Yes I think I would be worried... she was brought up in such a homophobic family though that I hope I'd listen to anything that made her feel better about loving women. This was not 100 years ago or anything but she has a brother who has cut off contact with her purely because of her sexuality and another who will just about tolerate seeing her for short periods.

I mean, I can't imagine that this sort of shit from Kew is the slightest bit helpful, either for her or them. But I suppose it's just possible that if you are rabidly homophobic and believe nonsense , this sort of opposite nonsense could somehow crack your carapace.

Ok, but if your friend said that, wouldn't you be a bit worried about her, psychologically?

In reality probably no one really thinks that way, but even the way people are talking now about representation in human endevours seems over the top a lot of the time, as if it is creating limits that weren't there before, and as if people cannot be inspired by those who don't share all of their political identity characteristics.

fungi don't really have a sex, therefore men who say they are women are always right, impeccable logic.

It's dumbing down innit?

What a load of absolute bollocks, queer nature my arse.

Plants are amazing and fascinating but they’re not mammals and human sexuality/behaviour/foibles are irrelevant to them.

I don’t know why you would need to always refer things back to humans to find it incredible or worth knowing about.

So Kew Garden’s response to the twin crises of climate change and biodiversity loss is …… Queer Nature.

Erm….

I’m not quite sure how that’s going to help…..

Happily the building wasn’t festooned in pride flags and there was some children entertainers outside and they were plant and animals costumes not drag queens thank goodness.

I'm sure your lesbian friend understands as well as anyone that if she wants to reproduce she will need a sperm donor and that no amount of inclusiveness in human society or symbolic representation in the plant world will change that.

I was there today and popped into the temperate house to take a look and it’s really quite meh and a bit rubbish. The central hanging display is rather bland , most people were barely looking at it. Last year they had a Mexico festival which was vibrant, colourful, fun with a live band at weekends. This year was very disappointing!
I personally think they should stick to celebrating countries rather than politics. They’ve done Japan prior to Mexico which was beautiful.

I'd write back saying, "All that is absolutely fascinating but has nothing to do with "queer people", who can only reproduce by combining a male's small gamete with a female's large one. This is the same in all mammals. I realise plants are your specialism and not animals, but this is fairly basic scientific knowledge."

I can't help feeling that if I started explaining to a friend who's a lesbian that I see her sexuality as comparable to that of a fungus, she'd never speak to me again.

If she explained to me that seeing the range of reproductive strategies in nature made her feel more included in society, I guess I would listen, so maybe thats the way to take it. I'd be pretty cast down that something as disconnected as that really felt like it helped though.

It's absolutely not a joke, they've had a month long festival on at Kew called Queer Nature which ends next week:

www.kew.org/kew-gardens/whats-on/queer-nature

I was at Kew last week (although not for this), and saw lots of posters/signs/billboards around the place about it.