The book is motivated by compassion, as Schrefer explains: “I think care for animals leads to greater care for humans, too, since we all share the natural world, and the same systems of power that endanger animals also endanger humans.” This regard extends to young people, as Schrefer writes a love letter to his 11-year-old self, who needed to know that queer people are indeed a part of nature. Do nonhuman animals have sex purely for pleasure? Are they ever polyamorous? Are there trans animals? Intersex ones? Intercut with delightful comics, memoirlike vignettes, queer theory, and interviews with experts including a primatologist, evolutionary biologist, science historian, and wildlife ecologist (to name a few), Schrefer takes seriously the desires and pleasures of animals’ lives, revealing how gender and sexuality are experienced as social and not just biological constructs. An entertaining, informative tour through the sexual diversity of animal life.įrom bonobos to fruit flies, wrasse fish to bottlenose dolphins, Schrefer, who is part of New York University’s animal studies master’s program, explores nonhuman animals’ lives in the contexts of sex and gender.
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