Andrew Barron and Mark Brown suggest that journalists, by merging animal and human behaviour, promote the myth that minority sexual preferences are an 'illness' (Nature 488, 151–152; 2012). They include one of my articles among their examples — 'Bat bugs turn transsexual to avoid stabbing penises' (see go.nature.com/9iwdpb) — presumably because it uses 'transsexual' to describe insect behaviour. I contend that this term is valid shorthand for what the insects are doing, as well as catching the reader's attention.
Reporting of same-sex behaviour in animals can stray into troubling territory. In one example given by Barron and Brown, The Sunday Times wrote in 2006 that a study of male-oriented behaviour in sheep “could pave the way for breeding out homosexuality in humans”. However, the problem here is not the terms used to describe animals' sex lives, but the leverage of the research paper to make a political point.
Homosexual behaviour is condemned as unnatural in some places around the world. By describing the huge variation in sexual behaviour across the animal kingdom, the media may be helping to destroy forever the idea that gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people represent some kind of aberration.
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Hooper, R. Animal variants in sexual behaviour. Nature 489, 208 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/489208c
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/489208c