The oceans are queer now.

[HidingBehindTheWallpaper]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001q0sk?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile

Potentially interesting program made tedious by being told about how all these interesting creatures and habitats are like being queer.

It’s getting like thought for the day, ‘this thing is a bit like Jesus’ now it’s ’this thing is like being queer’.

🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️

I turned it off too. Bloody idiots

Reminds me of reading Zoe Schlanger's The Light Eaters, about plants, when she embarrassingly rhapsodizes about how "delightfully queer" the sex life of plants seems. That's... just how they reproduce. They aren't trying to seem cool to you.

Queen botany for seed savers.

Seeds, which comes from male pollen fertilising female parts of flowers. Sexual reproduction.

Bloody idiots.

https://vimeo.com/799456517

https://www.kew.org/read-and-watch/queer-nature

Kew Gardens did a spot of queering not too long ago too.

Drag queens were involved, of course:

British artist and designer Adam Nathaniel Furman will design an immersive space to house a film-based installation, featuring interviews with over a dozen horticulturists, scientists, authors, drag artists and activists as they explore what Queer Nature means to them.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4926008-kew-gardens-yes-kew-gardens-says-plants-have-gender-not-sex

It is like a state religion being imposed on everything. So fucking dull.

But it identifies as something that you must take terribly, terribly seriously.

Do we all have to wear rainbow swimsuits now so the ocean knows we are an ally and doesn’t deliberately drown us?

I’m not surprised the ocean is queer. It is blue after all.

They aren't trying to seem cool to you.
That's why they're cool!!! Duh, its their natural insoucience and the fact they don't care what you or anyone else thinks😎

Sounds like one of the Grievance Studies Hoax papers dog rapists in the park?

I'm sure I read somewhere that the young woman queering everything at Kew was one of the Westminster EDI bullies in the Rachel Meade case.

Sorry, can't remember where I saw it.

Reminds me of my spiritual guru.

Inspirational. I have seen the light.

Is it because clownfish can actually change sex and platyhelminthes are generally true hermaphrodites? Or because male sharks and conger eels all go to saunas and leather bars?

Closer to the latter!

I swear I could hear all the Radio 4 listeners switching off.

I was one of them! I gave it a few minutes as the presenter was introduced as being an adventurer or similar and I thought it might be interesting science/exploration. As soon as I heard the ocean was a queer space I yelled Oh fuck off! And switched off.

This is where I'm at now - as a long time feminist and supporter of gay rights I have no issue at all with homosexuality or gay/lesbian culture or whatever being discussed or programmes about it. But as soon as you hear "queer" you know there's probably going to be no actual meaningful content and it's all about box-ticking and forcing "queerness" onto some unrelated topic in order to get smug points and/or funding for something. I just can't stand things that make no sense and being expected to go along with unevidenced wibble.

It's very odd that we don't get this with other "marginalised" or protected categories. Can't remember the last time I heard some totally unrelated topic or concept being described as "disabled" or "elderly" or "female" with no evidence whatsoever. No it has to be "queer" and if it's not queer it must be "queered"!

Is it because clownfish can actually change sex and platyhelminthes are generally true hermaphrodites? Or because male sharks and conger eels all go to saunas and leather bars?

There are gay lizards and magpies, hermaphroditic land snails etc and of course badgers and elks are known to frequent drag shows and wear birkenstocks. The land is just as queer as the sea, where's my production budget?

Good lord!

Drops monocle...

Is this new? because I heard a radio 4 program about how queer the oceans are last year. I remember it because I was in the car with my (uni student) brother, his girlfriend, and my guardian-reading parents, and all of them were making very bemused comments. So that’s heartening (I cba to discuss this stuff with my parents in real life because it’s all so far off their radar usually that I start to sound unhinged).

I’ve just checked the show details which say it was from last year and this was a repeat.

oh, and here is the show description:

Writer and adventurer Blair Braverman dives deep under the surface of the ocean, in search of a more fluid, expansive and communal way to live. In short, she discovers that the ocean is queer.

In Animal, writer and adventurer Blair Braverman presents stories exploring the curious and fascinating ways humans relate to other animals - from magpies to spiders to creatures of the deepest oceans.

In this episode, Blair hears from Sabrina Imbler, author of the book How Far The Light Reaches. Sabrina takes us on a journey into the depths, where shapeshifters stretch the limits of our imaginations, tiny creatures teach us how to live in community, and where we can uncover new possibilities for how life can work on our planet.