4 Ways Biology Can Make Your Teaching More Inclusive

When I switched to science teaching, I worried we weren’t preparing students for the diverse professional work environments I had left. Peers from different backgrounds often struggle to work together, and some curriculum can limit, not expand, the student conversation.

A student says…

• “You need a mom and dad to make a baby.”

• “Same-sex pairings or transgender behavior is unnatural because they don’t produce babies.”

• “My textbook says a characteristic ‘goal’ of life is to mate and have biological children.”

• “But I was taught that everyone is XX or XY. Is that wrong?”

What do we say?

Even in San Francisco, more experienced teachers asked me, a nonbinary immigrant biology teacher, whether science had any unbiased resources for talking to students in a gender-inclusive way. I’m passionate about creating a classroom where students can stay curious about new experiences and identities, but I still want to keep science at the center.

To get you started, I’m sharing four ways teachers at any level or subject can respond to common gender-related questions using the evidence-based model of actual scientific research. Click through to read the article on WeAreTeachers, which includes the infographic below. Feel free to print and/or share!

–RXS

Glossary resources, sports access, and new podcast appearances [Dec/Jan]

LGBTQ glossaries in non-English languages are a much-needed resource in many communities.  Check out these resources with LGBTQ vocabulary in Spanish w/English translations, and text and audio in Burmese, Cantonese, Vietnamese, Mandarin, and Korean.  If you have other resources in languages other than English that can support LGBTQ inclusion work, please email us so we can add them to our resource base!

Queering the animal kingdom: Kudos to River Suh for taking the beloved (but admittedly long and dense) book Evolution's Rainbow and producing useful tools that educators can use in the classroom! This spreadsheet details examples taken from the book of different non-normative sex, gonadal, and sexual selection-related behavior and streamlines them to be easily accessible.

Sports and athletics access for transgender students: Sports and athletics are often a fraught space for transgender and gender non-conforming students, but they don't have to be.  Transathlete has gathered data on athletics policies in all 50 states and promotes this standard, gender-inclusive policy for use in schools across the country. The Transgender Law and Policy Institute has their own succinct set of recommendations for children's participation in athletics, while On the Team provides a more in-depth look at creating equal opportunity for transgender athletes.

Recent media related to gender-inclusive biology:

• Being a Better Ally Podcast: Diversity is the Rule

• Ethical Schools Podcast: Gender Inclusivity: Where Science and Ethics Intersect

Upcoming conference appearances:

• Time to Thrive Conference, Washington, DC, February 14-16

• STAO Conference, Toronto, ON, March 26-27th

• NSTA National Conference, Boston, MA, April 2-5th

Have a great start to your new year!

Lewis, Sam, and River

Temperature of egg determines gonads that form in turtles. (Gender Showcase, 9-12)

Discussion questions:

1. How do changing temperatures affect a sea turtle egg’s development?

2. How will average global temperature changes affect a sea turtle egg’s development?

References

• M. Ewert, D. Jackson, and C. Nelson, 1994, Patterns of temperature-dependent sex determination in turtles, J. Exp. Zool. 270:3-15.

• Roughgarden p. 203.

The temperature of the nest determines the gonads that form in crocodile eggs. (Gender Showcase, 9-12)

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

1. How do changing temperatures affect a crocodile egg’s development?

2. How will average global temperature changes affect a crocodile egg’s development?

3. Predict an increase, decrease, or stable population change if average temperatures increase or decrease.

Book excerpt: Among reptiles, specifically turtles, crocodiles, and some lizards, gonadal identity is determined by the temperature at which eggs develop, not by chromosomes. The eggs are usually laid in the ground and covered with sand or moist dirt from which they absorb water, swelling in size as they age. Reptile embryos start developing within their egg, and after a while primordial germ cells form. When reptile primordial germ cells move to the genital ridges of their parents, both the germ cells and the parental embryo presumably experience the same environmental temperature. Both germ cells and parent therefore receive the same message about which sex to develop as, and their agendas automatically agree.

Scientists reported the first case of intersexuality in an African dwarf crocodile (Osteolaemus tetrapspis), a 10 year-old male-presenting crocodile with gonads that were ovotestes.

We used to think crocodiles couldn’t be intersex, because we had never found any before. Our understand was that crocodiles needed two separate types of cells that never occur together.

This discovery shows we have so many more questions to ask about sex determination!

Image caption: A dwarf crocodile. (C) Jim Frazee

Because the model we use to explain sex determination in crocodiles cannot help explain this evidence, we must keep asking questions and build better models for looking at our evidence.

Langer: Half of the 22 extant species of crocodilians have been examined for occurrence of temperature dependent sex determination (TSD). In TSD reptiles, masculinizing temperatures yield 100% or a majority of males, whereas feminizing temperatures yield 100% or a majority of females. In the transition range of temperature (TRT), a mix of males, females and sometimes intersexes are obtained. However, the molecular mechanisms behind TSD and an explanation for the occurrence of intersexuality remain elusive.

References

• C. Johnston, M. Barnett, and P. Sharpe, 1995, The molecular biology of temperature-dependent sex determination, Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond., ser. B, 350: 297-304.

• J.W. Lang and H. Andrews, 1994, Temperature-dependent sex determination in crocodilians, J. Exp. Zool. 270-28-44.

• S. Langer, K. Ternes, D. Widmer, & Frank Mutschmann. The first case of intersexuality in an African dwarf crocodile (Osteolaemus tetraspis). Zoo Biol. 33:459–462, 2014. DOI:10.1002/zoo.21149

• C. Smith and J. Joss, 1993, Gonadal sex differentiation in Alligator mississippiensis, a species with temperature-dependent sex determination, Cell Tissue Res. 273:149-62. 

• Wibbles, Bull, and Crews, 1994, Temperature-dependent sex determination. Journal of Experimental Zoology 270(1):71 - 78. DOI: 10.1002/jez.1402700108

Spawning males of the bluegill sunfish have 3 body types/genders of distinct size and color. (Gender Showcase, 9-12)

One sunfish species, the bluegill sunfish (Lepomis macrochirus), has been studied in detail at Lake Opinicon, Ontario, Canada, and at Lake Cazenovia, in upstate New York.

Spawning males consist of three distinct size/color classes, and together with females, fall into four morphological categories, corresponding to four distinct genders:

I think the author, Roughgarden, is using gender to mean that there’s no sexually reproductive distinguishing function, and the difference is strictly morphological and behavioral. This also makes me wonder if the testes are lighter in the small male bluegill sunfish, given that they occupy most of the body cavity but still only comprise 5% of the total body weight of the fish. I am assuming she assigns male and female based on gamete production (egg/sperm) and/or primary regulatory hormone status (progesterone/estrogen/testosterone).

Large male bluegill sunfish are very aggressive, even towards females in their own nest, and defend their nest every 3 minutes.

Females prefer prefer nests with large populations to protect from egg predators.

Image credit: ScienceSource

The yearly spawning episode lasts only one day. In preparation, large males aggressively stake out territories next to one another in aggregations of a hundred or more, called leks, along the bottom of the lake at a depth of 1 meter. Large males are called on to defend their space against neighbors about once every 3 minutes. Large males make nests for eggs in their territories by scooping out a depression in the mud with their tails. Females aggregate at the locales with many males and do not visit isolated or peripheral nests. Females prefer nests belonging to large aggregations because the presence of many males affords more protection from egg predators.

The large males are not Mr. Nice Guys. Their acts of aggression include biting, opercular spreading, lateral displays, tail beating, and chasing. Although primarily directed at intruding males, aggression sometimes is directed at a female in the territory—domestic violence, sunfish style. The male apparently tries to control the speed and timing at which a female lays eggs. Females simply leave if harassed too much in this way.

The females arrive in a school, and one by one they enter the territories of the large males. When a female arrives, a large male begins to swim in tight circles, with the female following. Every few seconds as the pair turns, the female rotates on her side, presses her genital pore against that of the large male, and releases eggs that the large male fertilizes. The egg release is visible as a horizontal dipping motion.

Female bluegill sunfish spawn in many nests that the large, aggressive males guard.

9% of fertilizations are by a neighboring large male who took a break from guarding.

A female may spawn in many nests. A large male accumulates up to thirty thousand eggs from various females during the one-day spawning episode. A female lays about twelve eggs at a time with her dipping motion, so this total egg accumulation involves some female laying in the nest about once every 30 seconds. The scene is fast. Still, large males somehow find the time to enter the nests of neighbors, and about 9% of the fertilizations in a nest are by a neighboring large male.

The more numerous small males quickly fertilize eggs in nests that aren’t their own.

The females only choose nests based on how many fish are around it for protection.

Meanwhile, the small males are active. They stay at the borders between territories of large males and in the periphery, often close to rocks or in vegetation. Eggs remain viable in lake water for about an hour and sperm for only a minute. When the female releases eggs, the small males dart in quickly to release sperm over the eggs and carry out their own fertilizations. The large males try to repel the small males from their territories, but the small males are more numerous than the large males—about 7 to 1 in shallow-water colonies. Chasing all these small males, as well as neighboring large males and the occasional predator, takes a large male away from fertilizing eggs being laid in his territory. In these circumstances, the females spawn readily with small males while the large male is busy with all his chasing.

There are more small males in shallow-water colonies than deep ones because there is more vegetation for cover. It is important to hide because predators—large mouth bass, small-mouth bass, and pike—lurk in the lake. Thus the ratio of small to large males depends on the surrounding environmental context. All in all, the small males seem to be the gender counterpart of silent bullfrogs, silent singing fish, jack and parr salmon, and antlerless male deer.

Medium males: the romantic wingman.

Medium males court with large males, then join them in the nest to mate with a female bluegill sunfish. Both drive away other fish and both mate with the same female.

The medium males—the third male gender—are really surprising. No one knows where the medium males live most of the time, but they may school with the females. A medium male approaches the territory of a large male from above in the water and descends without aggression or hesitation into the large male’s territory. The two males then begin a courtship turning that continues for as long as ten minutes. In the end, the medium male joins the large male, sharing the territory that the large male originally made and defends.

Although the medium male sometimes joins the large male before a female has arrived, more often the medium male joins after a female is already present. The large male makes little if any attempt to drive away the medium male, in contrast to the way the large male drives away small males that dart into the territory.

When a female and two males are present, the three of them jointly carry out the courtship turning and mating. Typically, the medium male, who is smaller than the female, is sandwiched between the large male and the female while the [courtship] turning [ritual] takes place. As the female releases eggs, both males fertilize them.

When two females mate with a large male, there is no courtship ritual like between the medium male and the large-male.

The females mate with the large male and then leave without a three-way interaction.

Occasionally, two females may be within a large male’s territory at the same time. Although the large male mates with both females, the three do not participate in any common ritual similar to the three-way interaction of the female with a large and medium male.

After the day’s excitement is over, each large male remains in his territory for 8 to 10 days to guard the eggs. The large male repels nest predators. During this period he never leaves the nest to forage and loses body weight.

% Spawning Groups

In all, 85% of spawning males are either small or medium, with the remaining 15% large males. Although in the minority, large males take part in most of the matings.

Among the large males, the reproductive skew is high and only some of the large males apparently survive the mutual aggression that is necessary to acquire a successful territory. The small and medium males obtain about 14% of the spawnings. Overall, 85% of the territories in which spawning occurs consist of 1 male within 1 female, 11% of 2 or more males and 1 female—usually a large male accompanied by a medium male—and 4% of 1 male and 2 females.

Developmentally, the small and medium males are one genotype, and the large males another. Individuals of the small male genotype transition from the small male gender into the medium male gender as they age, whereas individuals of the large male genotype are not reproductively active until they have attained the size and age fo the large male gender.

Third male as mating facilitator?

Instead of deceit theory or ungendered signaling, Roughgarden proposes a third interpretation: 

Once the medium male is sandwiched between the large male and the female during their combined courtship turns, the medium male may protect the female from spawning harassment [from the aggressive large males] through his position between her and the large male. 

Also, the medium male may have developed a relationship with the females while schooling with them, and thus able to vouch that the large male is safe.

I suggest that the feminine male is a “marriage broker” who helps initiate mating, and perhaps a “relationship counselor” who facilitates the mating process once the female has entered the larger male’s territory. This service is purchased by the large male from the small male with the currency of access to reproductive opportunity.

Sharing fertilization represents an incentive to stay, not theft...Nothing prevents animals from cooperating in bringing about a mating, as well as in caring for young after a mating...In view of the roles played by the three male genders, let’s agree to call the large male a ‘controller,’ the small male an ‘end-runner,’ and the medium male a ‘cooperator.’

References

• For Lake Opinicon studies, see:

  • M.R. Gross, 1982, Sneakers, satellites and parentals: Polymorphic mating strategies in North American sunfishes, Z. Tierpsychol. 60:1-26.

  • M. R. Gross, 1991, Evolution of alternative reproductive strategies: Frequency-dependent sexual selection in male bluegill sunfish, Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond., ser. B, 332:59-66.

• For Lake Cazenovia studies, see:

  • W.J. Dominey, 1980, Female mimicry in bluegill sunfish—a genetic polymorphism? Nature 284:546–48.

  • W.J. Dominey, 1981, Maintenance of female mimicry as a reproductive strategy in bluegill sunfish (Lepomis macrochirus), Environ. Biol. Fishes 6:59-64.

• Gross, 1991, Evolution of alternative reproductive strategies.

• Dominey, 1981, Maintenance of female mimicry as a reproductive strategy in bluegill sunfish.

• Roughgarden, J. (2013) Evolution’s Rainbow: Diversity, Gender, and Sexuality in Nature and People. University of California Press, Berkeley. p. 78-81.

Sex Estimation Based On Multiple Pelvic Indicators More Accurate, Based On 49 19th c. Canadian adults — Bass Lab & Field Manual

The most accurate single indicator was sacrum shape (94.1%). On the other hand, three combinations of pelvic criteria produced higher levels of accuracy than the trait list as a whole: obturator foramen shape and presence of the ventral arc (98%); obturator foramen shape and presence of the ventral arc (98%); obturator foramen shape and true pelvis shape (98%); pubic shape and acetabulum shape and size (95%).

The William Bass Field Manual mentions other studies of European populations, but reproduces in full several tables by Rogers and Saunders based on 49 “adult skeletons from a 19th-century cemetery located on the grounds of the St Thomas Anglican Church in Belleville, Canada.”

Embedded below are tables for:

• Table 3-24. Accuracy Levels for Each Individual Pelvic Trait (after Rogers & Saunders (1994:1051, Table 5) (Bass 2005: 216)

• Table 3-25. Probability of Estimating Sex Correctly for Combinations of Two Traits (after Rogers & Saunders (1994:1051, Table 3) (Bass 2005: 216)

Curious about what the broad labels for male and female anatomical regions are for those anthropologists using the Bass Manual?

Source

Bass, William. 2005. Human Osteology: A Laboratory and Field Manual, 5th ed. Special Publication No. 2 of the Missouri Archaeological Society. Columbia, MO. http://coas.missouri.edu/mas

Bullfrogs (Rana catesbeiana) have two male genders that both mate with females. (Gender Showcase, 9-12)

Bullfrogs (Rana catesbeiana) have two male genders that both mate with females.

Bullfrogs have two male genders that both mate with females:

(1) large males who call at night, giving bullfrogs their name, and

(2) small males who are silent.

Both are reproductively competent, and females mate with both. Silent males turn into calling males as they grow older. Male frogs in older species and males in many vertebrate groups aslo have to decide when to begin breeding—whether to wait until established enough to flaunt wealth and power, or to begin sooner with fewer resources but lots of charm.

Silent males turn into calling males as they grow older.

Both still mate with females regardless of silence.

Perhaps silent males should not be considered a different gender from calling males, but rather an early developmental stage of the same gender. Compare this case with others, though, and you may agree that it makes more sense to view males who mature from a silent stage into a calling stage as changing genders.

• R.D. Howard, 1978,. The evolution of mating strategies in bullfrogs, Rana catesbeiana, Evolution 32: 859-71.

• R.D. Howard, 1981, Sexual dimorphism in bullfrogs, Ecology 62:303-10.

• R.D. Howard, 1984, Alternative mating behaviors in young male bullfrogs, Amer. Zool. 24:397-406.

• Roughgarden, J. (2013) Evolution’s Rainbow: Diversity, Gender, and Sexuality in Nature and People. University of California Press, Berkeley. p. 76.

Time to Thrive - Presentation Materials

We are so excited to give a presentation at Time to Thrive 2020 in Washington, D.C. You can access our slide deck, with linked resources, below.

Lab Out Loud: Strategies for Gender Inclusivity in Teaching Biology

The hosts of Lab Out Loud Podcast were very interested to hear from Sam and Lewis about our science-specific strategies for gender inclusion. Thanks, Brian and Dale, for having us on the show!

Without sharing food or grooming relationships among all genders, 80% of vampire bats would die from a missed meal instead of 25%. (Gender Showcase, 9-12)

The vampire bat (Demodus rotundus) is a small bat, no bigger than a plum, that “removes a small patch of flesh [from its prey] with its razor-sharp incisors and laps up the blood flowing from the wound. A vampire’s saliva has anticoagulant to keep the blood from clotting. After one bat has drunk its fell, another continues at the same spot.”

Hunting for food is hard and up to one-third of bats miss a meal on any given night.

Bats die after 60 hours without food, after freezing from dropping 25% of its weight.

Life as a vampire is hard. Bats are warm-blooded and, without feathers or fur, lose lots of heat. Their requirements for energy are huge. A vampire bat consumes 50 to 100 percent of its weight in each meal. Yet up to one-third of the bats may not obtain a meal on any given night.

Going without a meal is dangerous. A vampire dies after sixty hours without food because by then its weight has dropped 25 percent, and it can no longer maintain its critical body temperature. To survive, vampire bats have developed an elaborate buddy system for sharing meals. The sharing takes place between mother and pup, as well as between adults.

The dominant male bat fathers half the group’s young by staying and guarding the inner top of the nest.

Subordinate males hang out by the entrance.

Photo credit: Alex Hyde/NPL (https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03005-5)

One study of vampires on a ranch in Costa Rica focused on a population divided into three groups of a dozen females. The members of a group often stay together for a long time, twelve years in some cases, and get to know one another very well. The group of a dozen adult bats is a family unit from a vampire’s standpoint.

Most of the group consists of females, each of whom usually cares for one pup. A female pup stays in the group as she matures, whereas a male pup leaves. The females in a group span several generations. Group membership is not entirely static, however. A new female joins the group every two years, so at any time the females in the group belong to several lineages, called matrilines.

The bats live in the hollows of trees. Imagine a hollow tree with an opening at its base and a long vertical chamber reaching up into the tree trunk. The females congregate at the top of the chamber. About three males hang out, so to speak, in the tree hollow. 

One male assumes a position near the top of the chamber, nearest to the females, and defends this location against aggressive encounters from other males. This dominant male fathers about half of the group’s young. Subordinate males take up stations near the base of the tree by the entrance. Other males are out of luck, roosting alone or in small male-only groups rarely visited by females.

70% of food transfers are mother to pup.

The other 30% are female to someone else’s pup, female to female, and male to pup.

Photo credit (C) Gerry Carter

The food is transferred by one bat regurgitating into the mouth of another. Most (70 percent) of the food transfers are from a mother to her pup. This food-sharing supplements the mother’s lactation [milk production]. The other 30 percent involves adult females feeding young other than their own, adult females feeding other adult females, and on rare occasions, adult males feeding offspring.

Increased cooperation in bats includes same-sex grooming and food sharing.

Some adult females have a “special friendship” with females who are not their kin (males also have same-sex relations; see Roughgarden 141). This bond is brought about in part by social grooming. The bats expend 5 percent of each day grooming and licking one another. Some of this grooming is between special friends, and the remaining among kin. A hungry bat grooms one who has recently fed to invite a donation of food. To solicit food, a hungry bat licks a donor on her wing and then licks her lips. The donor may then offer food.

The mutual assistance is significant. If they didn’t help each other, the annual mortality of vampires would be about 80 percent, based on the chance of missing a meal two nights ina row. Instead, the annual mortality rate is around 25 percent because food-sharing tides bats through their bad nights.

References

• G. Wilkonson, 1990, Food sharing in vampire bats, Scientific American (February), 76-82.

• Roughgarden uses “cooperation” here in the wider sense to include both helping and not hurting. See R. Trivers, 1984, Social Evolution, Benjamin-Cummings.

• Roughgarden, J. (2013) Evolution’s Rainbow: Diversity, Gender, and Sexuality in Nature and People. University of California Press, Berkeley. p. 61-2.

All male red-sided garter snakes wear female perfume and participate in same-sex copulation every year. (Gender Showcase, 9-12)

Species: Thamnophis sirtalis parietalis

All male garter snakes wear female perfume and participate in same-sex copulation every year.

In 1985 some male garter snakes were found with female perfumes in their skin. Of two hundred mating balls, about 15 percent consisted of a male, presumably with female perfumes in his skin, surrounded by courting males...In choice experiments [tests where they were given a choice between female and feminine male], the males preferred a female to a feminine male, showing that males could tell the difference—they were not deceived.

In 2000 it was found that all male garter snakes have female perfumes when they emerge from the den in the spring and that all males court these perfumed males in addition to females. 

Four Flawed Deceit-Based Hypotheses:

Investigators floated four deceit-based theories to explain why all males have female perfumes on emergence: (1) a perfumed male may confuse the other males while carrying out its own mating; (2) the perfumed male may avoid wasting energy in courting before he has fully awakened from hibernation; (3) a perfumed male may induce the other males to waste time and energy courting him while he gets ready to start his own courting; and (4) a perfumed male may distract other males from females so he has more to himself when he does get going.

The simplest Occam’s Razor hypothesis:

The female perfumes might protect from attack or mounting when he is emerging, to lessen hostility and improve cooperation.

15 percent of garter snake mating balls consist of a male surrounded by courting males.

These snakes appear to participate in group sex every year as a way to improve relationships and reduce aggression.

Photo credit: Flickr user @vabbley

Originally, scientists dismissed this explanation without even considering it, because they thought the theory required that organisms could only be habitually aggressive and antagonistic. Garter snakes tend to be friendly, especially with 20,000 in one giant group sex mating ball!

Citations

• R. Mason and D. Crews, 1985, Female mimicry in garter snakes, Nature 316:59-60

• R. Shine, D. O’Connor, and R. Mason, 2000, Female mimicry in garter snakes: Behavioural tactics of “she-males” and the males that court them, Can. J. Zool. 78-391-96. [Ed. note: Do not use “she-male” to describe transgender people. This is historically used as a harmful pejorative word to demean and exclude.]

• R. Shine, P. Harlow, M. Lemaster, I. Moore, and R. Mason, 2000, The transvestite serpent: Why do garter snakes court (some) other males? Anim. Behav. 59:349-59. [Ed. note: This sensationalist title should not detract from the data recorded or this paper’s role documenting now-revised theories.]See also http://www.naturenorth.com/spring/creatre/garter/Fgarter.html

• Roughgarden, J. (2013) Evolution’s Rainbow: Diversity, Gender, and Sexuality in Nature and People. University of California Press, Berkeley. p. 97-8.

The groove-billed ani bird has 4 types of family structures: 2, 4, 6, & 8 adults. The larger the family, the more protection from predators. (Gender Showcase, 9-12)

Larger groups provide more protection against egg predators.

The ani family shows up in groups of 2 adults (1M1F), 4 adults (2M2F), 6 adults, and 8 adults.

The groove-billed ani (Crotophaga sulcirostris) is an insectivorous black bird with a large, deeply grooved bill. It lives in marshes and open pastures in Central America and is related to the cuckoo. Family organizations of the anis may consist of twosomes with one female and one male, foursomes with two females and two males, sixsomes, and even eightsomes.

An ani foursome is two couples cohabiting a one-bedroom flat with one crib. Nests are built in thorny trees or vines. Each male guards one of the females. A female lays an egg every one to two days. The time from egg-laying to fledgling is three weeks.

Females lay fewer eggs each in 4some than in 2some by laying at different times but stop at same time.

Longer ovulator gets 37% of eggs raised, shorter ovulator gets 63% of eggs raised. Longer ovulator lays larger eggs that hatch earlier w/ better chance of survival.

The two females in a foursome wind up with four eggs total. A female in a twosome can also produce four eggs by herself. Thus the number of eggs laid per female is lower in a foursome than in a twosome.

In a foursome, the females start laying eggs at different times. The starter lays bigger eggs and has a longer time between successive eggs than the follower. Both females stop laying eggs at about the same time. Each female “tosses” out of the nest some of the eggs already laid by the other, with the follower winding up mothering an average 63 percent of the eggs and the starter only 37 percent of the eggs. After the tossing is over, four eggs are left in the nest.

Even though the follower mothers more of the eggs, she doesn’t necessarily successfully raise the most offspring. The starter lays larger eggs, which hatch earlier, so these chicks have a better chance of surviving than chicks from the follower. 

All four birds in a foursome work together to provide for and protect the eggs.

Males divide day into unequal shifts based on oldest getting riskiest shift but also fathers most young.

Photo credit (C) Dave McCauley.

The males divide the day into unequal shifts. The oldest male incubates at night and most of the daylight hours. As a result, he also incurs the most hazard and the highest death rate. Yet he also fathers the most young.

The benefit from predator protection in a larger nesting group outweighs the disadvantages of a crowded family life.

The starter in a foursome produces the most young, a female in a twosome produces an intermediate number of young, and the follower in a foursome the fewest.

Photo credit (C) Joseph Morlan

By why should a female, who can lay four eggs in a twosome without worrying about a nest mate tossing her eggs out, bother living in a foursome? The answer is that the larger group provides protection against egg predators. 

Once loss of eggs to predators is taken into account, the starter in a foursome produces the most young, a female in a twosome produces an intermediate number of young, and the follower in a foursome the fewest. For the anis, the benefit from predator protection of living in extended families of two couples outweighs the disadvantages of a rancorous life at home.

“It’s a cooperative soft goth bird!” —RXS

Citations

• S. Vehrencamp, 1978, The adaptive significance of communal nesting in groove-billed Anis, Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol. 4:1-33.

• B.S. Bowen, R.R. Koford, and S.L. Vehrencamp, Breeding roles and pairing patterns within communal groups of groove-billed Anis, Anim. Behav. 34:347-66.

• Roughgarden, J. (2013) Evolution’s Rainbow: Diversity, Gender, and Sexuality in Nature and People. University of California Press, Berkeley. p. 57-8.

15% of geese pair-bonds are male-male, with some remaining monogamous & cooperative for over 15 years. (Gender Showcase, 9-12)

Scientists have documented same-sex matings in over 94 bird species. One of them is the common goose, Anser anser, who pair-bond for more than a decade and live for 20 years. 

The male goose becomes despondent & defenseless when his same-sex partner dies.

This is the same behavior that between-sex (male-female) goose partners display.

A male is reported to show “grief” after his partner dies, becoming despondent and defenseless, just as between-sex partners do when one dies.

Often one female & 2 males will co-parent a family together.

Geese sometimes form threesomes that are the reverse of oystercatchers: a male pair is joined by a female and the trio raise a family together.

Citations

• F. Cezilly and R.G. Nager, 1995, Comparative evidence for a positive association between divorce and extra-pair paternity in birds, Proc. R. Sox. Lond., ser. B, 262:7-12. 

• T. Clutton-Brock, 1989, Review lecture: Mammalian mating systems, Proc. R. Soc. Lond., ser. B, 236:339-72.

• Roughgarden, J. (2013) Evolution’s Rainbow: Diversity, Gender, and Sexuality in Nature and People. University of California Press, Berkeley. p. 136.

80% of gay swan couples successfully raise their young, compared to 30% of straight swan couples. (Gender Showcase, 9-12)

Life-long pair-bonded male-male couples of the species Cygnus atratus will raise an egg together donated by a female.

Male-male black swan parents are more successful.

80% of gay black swan couples successfully raise their young, but only 30% of straight swan couples successfully raise their young.

Black swans (Cygnus atratus) also form stable male-male pairs that last for many years. Gay swans may even raise offspring together as a couple. A female may temporarily associate with a male-male pair, mate with them, and leave her eggs with them.

By sharing the workload more equally, male-male parents access better nesting sites and territories than straight couples.

The male couple then parents the eggs and is reported to be more successful than a male-female couple because together they access better nesting sites and territories, sharing the workload more equally than between-sex couples.

A full 80-percent of the gay couples successfully fledge their young, compared with 30 percent for straight couples. (EN19)

(EN19) L.W. Braithwaite, 1981, Ecological studies of the black swan: III. Behavior and social organization, Australian Wildlife Research 8:135-46.

Citation: Roughgarden, J. (2013) Evolution’s Rainbow: Diversity, Gender, and Sexuality in Nature and People. University of California Press, Berkeley. p. 136.

Update (5/24/23): Thanks to J. Boeheme at Science TV Australia for clarifying these papers are about black swans, not all swans.

Many asexually-reproducing Unisexual (all-lesbian) anole lizard species frequently copulate anyway. (Gender Showcase, 9-12)

Confused?

If the entire species is one sex, how can there be lesbian? Doesn’t there have to be something else? Here, “lesbian” is used to refer to how their behavior is based on progesterone cycles but the entire species is one sex; if it were based on testosterone cycles, I assume authors would have referred to it as gay asexual lizards.

If they’re asexual, why are they having sex? Here, “asexual” means they’re able to reproduce without having sex. Some humans identify as asexual, but this is different from the term “asexual reproduction” as it is traditionally used in biology.

Some parthenogenic unisexual species include:

• Cnemidophorus inornatus (Arizona whiptail lizard)

• Cnemidophorus velox (Colorado whiptail lizard)

• Cnemidophorus tesselatus (Colorado whiptail lizard)

• Aspidoscelis tesselatus (Common checkered whiptail lizard)

Book Excerpt

Courtship in an asexual species is almost exactly the same [as in sexual species of American whiptail lizards].(EN3) One of the females copies the male role down to the last detail. One mounting female was even seen everting her cloacal region to contact the cloacal area of the mounted female. Courtship between female whiptail lizards is not a sloppy parody of male-female courtship left over from its sexual ancestry, but an intricate and finely honed sexual ritual.

When two females are housed together, they quickly wind up with alternating hormonal cycles. (EN4) As one female cycles into high estradiol, her eggs mature and she assumes the female role in courtship. At the same time, the other cycles into high progesterone (not testosterone) and assumes the male role. Then they switch roles a few weeks later as their hormone cycles switch. (Roughgarden 129)

Why do asexual females bother with courtship?

Because they lay twice the number of eggs!

In nature, asexual females lay an average of 2.3 batches of eggs each season. If a female is housed alone, she lays only about 0.9 batches. If housed with a female whose hormonal state leads to male behavior, she lays 2.6 batches during the season. (Roughgarden 130)

New Mexico’s Environthon reports:

“The New Mexico Whiptail, as well as several other all-female species of whiptail lizard, does reproduce, and all of its offspring are female. Moreover, it reproduces by parthenogenesis -- its eggs require no fertilization, and its offspring are exact and complete genetic duplicates of the mother. Scientists understand only partially how this reproductive mode developed, and it raises many questions. One of the most intriguing is how this cloning affects the lizard's ability to adapt to environmental changes. Since there is no genetic variation except that which occurs through mutation, the New Mexico Whiptail cannot evolve as other species do.”

National Geographic Magazine (Nov 2016 issue) reports on the Baumann team’s research:

“The lizards are all female and parthenogenetic, meaning their eggs develop into embryos without fertilization. But before the eggs form, Baumann’s team discovered, the females’ cells gain twice the usual number of chromosomes—so the eggs get a full chromosome count and genetic variety and breadth (known as heterozygosity) rivaling that of a sexually reproducing lizard.

Why does this occur?

Because long ago, Baumann says, lizards of the genus Aspidoscelis had “a hybridization event”—that is, females of one species broke form and mated with males of another species. Those outlier liaisons gave whiptails robust heterozygosity, which has been preserved by the identical replication—essentially, cloning—that occurs in asexual reproduction. It’s a genetic-diversity advantage that today’s females still enjoy and propagate.”

Crews, D. (1987) Courtship in Unisexual Lizards: A Model for Brain Evolution. Scientific American Vol. 257, No. 6 (December 1987), pp. 116-121. writes:

“The females produce by parthenogenesis, that is, reproduction without fertilization, and therefore copulation between its members is not directly related to the production of offspring. Nevertheless, the females in this species actively engage in courtship rituals that are virtually identical with those observed between male and female whiptail lizards.”

Book Citations: Roughgarden, J. (2013) Evolution’s Rainbow: Diversity, Gender, and Sexuality in Nature and People. University of California Press, Berkeley. pp. 129-131.

Related Citations

1. D. Crews and K. Fitzgerald, 1980, "Sexual" behavior in parthenogenetic lizards (Cnemidophorus), Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. (USA) 77:499-502

2. D. Crews, 1987, Courtship in unisexual lizards: A model for brain evolution, Scientific American 257 (6): 116-21.

3. L. Young and D. Crews, 1995, Comparative neuroendocrinology of steroid gene expression and regulation: Relationship to physiology and behavior, Trends in Endocrinology and Metabolism 6: 317-23.

4. D. Crews, M. Grassman, and J. Lindzey, 1986, Behavioral facilitation of reproduction in sexual and unisexual whiptail lizards, Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. (USA) 83:9547-50.

5. C. Cole and C. Townsend, 1983, Sexual behaviour in unisexual lizards, Anim. Behav. 31:724-28.

6. D. Crews and L. Young, 1991, Pseudocopulation in nature in a unisexual whiptail lizard, Anim. Behav. 42:512-14.

7. B. Leuck, 1982, Comparative burrow use and activity patterns of parthenogenetic and bisexual whiptail lizards (Cnemidophorus: Teiidae), Copeia 416-25.

8. B. Leuck, 1985, Comparative social behavior of bisexual and unisexual whiptail lizards (Cnemidophorus), J. Herpetology 19:492-506.

9. Y. Werner, 1980, Apparent homosexual behavior in an all-female population of a lizard, Lepidodactylus lugubris, and its probable interpretation, Tierpsychol. 52:144-50.

10. M.J. McCoid and R.A. Hensley, 1991, Pseudocopulation in Lepidodactylus lugubris, Herpetological Review 22:8-9.

11. Dias, B. G., & Crews, D. (2006). Serotonergic modulation of male-like pseudocopulatory behavior in the parthenogenetic whiptail lizard, Cnemidophorus uniparens. Hormones and behavior, 50(3), 401–409. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.yhbeh.2006.05.001

12. Paulissen, M., & Walker, J. (1989). Pseudocopulation in the Parthenogenetic Whiptail Lizard Cnemidophorus laredoensis (Teiidae). The Southwestern Naturalist, 34(2), 296-298. doi:10.2307/3671747

Listen to our interview w/ Peter Hostrawser on the Disrupt Education podcast, episode 118!

On episode 118 of Disrupt Education…

Thank you so much to Peter for hosting us on his show, and taking the time to share perspectives on the future of education. We really enjoyed talking to him and love the energy he puts behind the podcast. Scan the pull-out quotations or read the entire transcript below.

Transcript:

Peter Hostrawser: Welcome to this episode of Disrupt Education. I have two guests: science, teachers and innovators, Sam Long and River Suh, with me today. We will start with you, River. Can you tell us a little bit about who you are and what your educational path is?

River Suh: Thank you so much for having us. I'm currently in San Francisco, helping out high school science teachers, but I've taught in middle school and high school environments and I mostly teach biology and physiology. I forgot your second question.

Revising Oversimplifications to include Gender in Science

Peter: The second question is your path, but let's introduce Sam. Hi Sam, can you tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do?

“One of my foci has become as a teacher who is out as trans to my students: how do I talk about the way that gender, sex, and sexuality relate to or fit into science?

Because I can’t just go and give a typical lesson where I say XX and XY chromosomes or what make you a man or a woman. I wouldn’t want to do that for my students and commit that oversimplification. And it also is not my truth in the first place, so that was kind of my bridge into talking about gender inclusion in biology. ”

— Sam Long

Sam Long: Hi, so I'm a high school science teacher in Denver, Colorado. I've been teaching for five years. This year, I teach biology and chemistry.

Peter: My second question, River, was what is your educational path? What does that look like through now, because you have both very different backgrounds teaching in education, and then your path to education, so if you wouldn't mind bringing us up to speed on that.

River: Well, I started as a bio archaeologist looking mostly at ancient populations and analyzing their skeletons. Then I went over into law and got my JD and I started working with creating new constitutions and legislative drafting or intellectual property. As I got out of that and moved on into academic publishing, I started really ramping up my interdisciplinary publishing pathways.

And I was looking at a lot of gaps in how we were addressing both the way students understand the world but also in the way that we are defining ourselves in relationship to each other and so I entered teaching—and got my masters at Stanford about three years ago—really looking at how to help teachers scaffold and create supports that are hyperlocal, that really address the strengths that a lot of our underserved students bring to the classroom. And so I'm coming at it from what a systemic legal and scientific workplace perspective is and what that asks of the students.

Peter: Excellent. That's that's such an all-the-way-around you see. So we're gonna talk a little bit about the curriculum that you all are working on, which is very interesting. Sam, you've been in the classroom for five years, you said. Tell us a little bit about your educational path to that.

Sam: Well, my educational path leading up to being an educator consisted of first, I went to school in Canada. My family emigrated there right about when I started going to school and my family is a family of scientists, so that's like my background. I've always been able to feel a part of science, able to participate in science, and know some of the things ahead of time, and ultimately getting a bachelor's degree in science. And my perspective in teaching is focused on recognizing that not all students have that and some students have no push in their lives that is getting them to think, “well I could possibly do something and this matters to me and this is a part of me.”

And I found that that really affects students’ attitudes towards learning science. And so in the five years that I've been teaching, one of my foci has become as a teacher who is out as trans to my students: how do I talk about the way that gender, sex, and sexuality relate to or fit into science?

Because I can't just go and give a typical lesson where I say XX and XY chromosomes or what make you a man or a woman. I wouldn't want to do that for my students and commit that oversimplification. And it also is not my truth in the first place, so that was kind of my bridge into talking about gender inclusion in biology. 

Convert to NGSS & Host Authentic Student Inquiry Over Gender

“It’s a great time, when we’re converting over to national NGSS, to really use this opportunity to be evidence-first. This is the perfect intersection of an authentic socially-charged topic that really models how professionals recognize each other, make human decisions, and work in groups.”

— River X. Suh

Peter: So let's go deeper into that, because this is really innovative curriculum, speaking truths and bringing it into science. So when you contacted me, I was ecstatic, because this is something that we are, as River said, we're missing a lot of pieces in education. I think you know where are you guys going, how you are doing this in the biology or the science realm. Can you explain a little bit about how this came about with a team, because we have a third person who's not with us today, and what did that look like from building it to actually implementing it in schools?

Sam: So the team consists of myself, River, and our third collaborator, Lewis Maday-Travis, who's a high school teacher in Seattle area and I started the near the end of last year. I started to put together a presentation for a conference called Gender Conference NYC and I felt I had been doing this work in big and small ways talking about gender and biology for a couple of years. 

Most teachers have no entry point or even some don't even have an awareness that this is necessary and that it could benefit their students so started in that way what a work consists of now is creating teacher professional development workshops for science teachers, building a web of resources on our website that's currently in development, and publishing some articles to get this idea out there.

We want to see that science teachers need to be thinking more about this and we know that some folks have done that in the past they're kind of there's a few published articles about it there's a little bit of research some question as to how that impacts students in STEM fields but we want to put together a collection of resources that can help any science educator enter this work no matter where they're coming from. 

River: And if I may add on to what Sam was saying, the timing of this is very critical, because as you can see, slowly we are examining the problem. Right now, adults are asking questions that we're not sure how to answer, but that our students already are trying to answer, by themselves, without us.

So there's really this absence of any competing narratives, and whoever unfortunately bangs their drum the loudest is going to be the one that students remember the most, regardless of whether or not it's true.

Biology most easily addresses gender by explaining diversity.

“[Gender] belongs in biology before it belongs anywhere else. Biology explains the diversity of living things, human and non-human. It gives us a more complete understanding of the world rather than going with these over simplifications that are not exciting or helpful to any student to learn so.”

— Sam Long

So in this regard, we think it's a great time when we're converting over to national standards, the Next Generation Science Standards, to really use this opportunity to be phenomenon-first, to look at just what the evidence is out there, and to go from that phenomenon to a model to multiple explanations in different contexts. We think that this is the sort of perfect intersection of an authentic socially charged topic that really models how professionals recognize humans, make decisions, and work in groups.

I think it's especially important right now as we're noticing science teachers asking, “how do I go and run?” First, “how do I really put the cognitive burden on my students?” Well this is actually a really great way to integrate that in a way that makes students feel like it's authentic and so we're looking at three different levels [of implementation.]

We're looking at the urgency of actually implementing this right now in their classrooms. Teachers who are asking really relevant questions of Sam and Lewis at conferences, who are asking for support on Facebook, for even just small changes or big changes. The need is there. And we're also looking at translating all of these different policies. 

There's all of these great ideas and organizations like Sam was mentioning, a lot of that is couched in language that is really opaque to teachers. So how do we both reach and help students currently in classrooms, but also build a more politically and religiously agnostic approach to biology that helps our students deal with genders that we don't even understand yet?

Peter: What I like hearing here is: this is just the beginning. Is that what I'm hearing? Because I feel like, yeah there was attempts before. But for some reason, with the way that the education realm is changing, and everybody knows there that there needs to be changes in education, I feel like this is something beyond biology and science that we can take across curricular activities and such. 

Are you looking at that yet? Or are you still just focusing directly on the science and and how does that look taking it from the urgency and the translation and the students, to what comes next? Because this has so many different layers to it. I think there's so many different places you could put it and and start to understand, so if anybody wants to take that question.

River: Sam, you called it low-hanging fruit, right?

Sam: Right. Well, there's work in other content areas certainly. In social studies, a couple of states passed laws teaching the contributions of LGBTQ people in history. There's definitely a lot of work in health and reproductive education. But this really is the beginning for biology.

Some of the feedback that we hear talking to teachers is, “well in what way does this belong in biology?”

But to me, it belongs in biology before it belongs anywhere else. It explains the diversity of living things, human and non-human. It gives us a more complete understanding of the world rather than going with these over simplifications that are not exciting or helpful to any student to learn so: low-hanging fruit.

Peter: Right, and River, did you want to add something to that because I think this you you're right on you go to the source you go to the molecule you go to and I'm not a big science guy but I'm excited for science right now 

River: oh that's great to know I think what really is the end goal is to encourage a curricular design that meets students where they are. 

Just to review an example, I taught a 11th/12th grade during physiology class where several of the students just did not see themselves as learners in terms of feeling like the classroom environment could benefit them. that was a position that I felt very familiar with my own education in schools. 

And so by saying "we don't have the answers, but these are the different models and skills adults have used to understand our world and all these confusing questions we have these tools. let's create conditions where you can practice interpreting that so that you can do better" and I think that kind of approach to curricular design helps a lot of thinkers who don't necessarily feel confident. Like I have teachers who are like, "do I have to be trans to teach about you know transgender culture and how it relates to biological sex chromosomes?" 

And I say, "well no but your kid will probably face somebody who is transgender in their life at some point." So are you going to be able to represent every single person your student meets? No. Can you give them the tools to interpret that? Yes, and so designing the curriculum that is very open to a student perspective of experience is really the  foundational support that we're trying to provide here when we design curricula. 

Where are, what do the students really need and the students right now need something that says, unlike some teachers, "hey you are legitimate, your perspective is legitimate, and it's real."

Peter: As an educator for 20 years, I do I see so much extreme value in this because students who we all know students who don't see themselves in the curriculum are very disconnected. Is that something that they you all have found? And what kind of I guess what I'm trying to ask is then what what ways would you would you continue to change education? So say you had the the education system at your hand and you're already doing this in the science realm and it's it is a fantastic—I would have loved a course like this because it's so dynamic and innovative and different and inclusive that I'm wondering what you would do if you had the entire system at your hands what would you change. 

I'm looking at a secondary level where we can look at a primary level or any level so I'm curious to hear that question so yeah that's so how would you change the system to make it better you're already doing it in one curriculum but let's let's take a few of if this what would it look like when it's completed what's the big idea going you alluded to it River about you know we're meeting students where they are how does that look across the board?

All teachers must consider whether their classroom perspectives reflect their students.

“What are some possible roadmaps for this work in biology, to become a national standard for how we include our students and how are we teach our students? Teachers need to consider whether the perspectives reflect their students.”

— Sam Long

River: At least for me—and this goes beyond the scope of what our or our team is doing—we're really looking at specific but small scale changes. Instead of saying “men make sperm,” you could say “people with testes make sperm.” When I'm educating my trans student in risk factors for ovarian cancer, I don't say, “women have X amount of percentage etc.”, I say “people with ovaries,” and that student has reported that they feel much better about that approach.

Even at the ninth grade level, I have students who look at the existing way that we teach nondisjunction, meiosis, or things like chromosomes, and then I show them my way of teaching and I say, “well compare these two models”. My student literally told me, "I like this more because you don't have to change a random role that says 'oh this doesn't exist' when like we have students and classmates who exist and fall under that description."

So for me, it's about not only having a science curriculum that recognizes we don't know things—and science is about deepening confusion—but also that school needs to be fed not from k12 into the workforce, but instead the workforce environment needs to be feeding more back into the classroom.

So for example I just answered a question about osteomyelitis this morning in the National Anatomy and Physiology Teachers Facebook group. We had four physiology teachers who were asking each other what the forensic state standards were for race based on a skeleton. And those are things where we don't hear a lot of information coming. It's not reaching a lot of teachers and yet, we're trying to prepare our students for the future. 

So I think it's totally understandable for a teacher to be looking at this and saying "I don't even know how to get started because I'm not used to getting that kind of information. I'm not used to interpreting that information from the professional realm and they're not used to interpreting that for me."

No tokenism, no exceptionalism, just integrative evidentiary analysis.

“This is where it’s really about serving our students. It’s not, “let’s have a standalone lesson just on gender”—that is still exceptionalist. That is not sufficient, because it singles it out and it’s just not what we want, right? 

We want a more integrative pluralist content-agnostic approach and I think biology is just one lens to implement that. ”

— River X. Suh

And so what I see is emphasizing student agency based on skills, regardless of what the content is and in the biology curriculum in this phenomenon and I think Sam can add a lot about that in terms of what he's doing with actual teachers in all these workshops here question, about how this looks outside of science curriculum there. 

Sam: I'm only really able to identify how teaching about gender sex and reproduction affects students and whether they see themselves in that way of teaching or not I'm able to figure that out because I come from the perspective of a trans person and because I've talked to students who've been willing to share.

Peter: Mm-hmm.

Sam: Teachers need to think about that. I think that's a practice that needs to occur in every classroom in every content area. I know that a lot of work's been done in social studies and one of the things that I get to be part of this year is the Colorado Commission, to make recommendations regarding the teaching of the contributions of minorities in civil government.

That's a bill that passed this past semester that I get to be on the Commission to do work on, and so I'm excited to do that as somebody who comes from science and think about how that might be a road map or that might be a pathway as to what happens with science, because there's nothing in the law that says teachers need to do this work right now. There's things in the law about the way we need to teach health, now social studies in some states.

In the longer term I would like to learn from those stories: what are some possible roadmaps for this work in biology to become national to become the standard for how we include our students and how are we teach our students?

River: And Peter, you earlier mentioned where race figures into biology. Looking at case studies dealing with ethnicity and race and biology in the HHMI's excellent biology of skin color unit really serves our students. This is where it's really about serving our students with the idea that we're not saying, "oh we should only focus on transgender people. we're talking about gender or we should only make something incredibly exceptional and add it." That that's not a very integrative curriculum for us. 

So for us, it's not, "let's have a standalone lesson just on gender"—that is not sufficient, because that in itself is still exceptionalist. It singles it out and just it's not what we want, right? 

We want a more integrative pluralist content-agnostic approach and I think biology is just one lens to implement that. 

Sam: And the framework that we use for biology really isn't specific to science and can apply to any subject area but what I identified is five features of, I'll say "a good gender inclusive biology curriculum" is. That what we're learning is authentic. It's a continual. It's not one separate lesson. It feels like a part of the curriculum.

Peter: Mm-hmm.

Sam: It is affirmative of student identities without tokenizing them and that involves student agency so and that's just that is no matter what we're learning about it that students need to have a voice in what topics they're interested in what they want to learn more about because ultimately to cover our standards we have a lot of freedom as to what models we look at and with that in mind we also want to meet teachers where they are. 

River: so for the website as we try to curate and refine more institutionalized guidelines and worksheets for people we do want to give lots of different levels of strategies that educators and all use so whether it's small changes that you want to slide under the rug—or I can't remember what the phrase is, small change you want to kind of sneak in yeah—because you teach in a state that requires creationism in your biology curriculum we have that if you're in a school where suddenly you have a hundred percent freedom and all the parents really want inclusive education, we also plan to have that kind of curriculum.

So we really also want to meet teachers where they are and to lean on their existing experiences.

Peter: yeah you're leading into my next question which was yeah what what are some of the blockers you have the creationism in certain States there's different levels of freedom that you have in in different schools where can people find do you have a website up now that people can find and get some resources already or is that being built?

River: we have some resources existing right now. you can visit gender-inclusive biology com. we have it organized by curricular examples which we really want to add more of we haven't we're kind of busy teaching and doing other stuff.

Peter: right right 

River: we have a learn section where people can look at 50-state survey for example school district policies for high school transgender athletes. There's that. We have lots of—

We recognize that there are lots of teachers that may not be in the best position to say things about science, but maybe in a trusted position with students. 

And so we want to create a whole range and teachers will be able to find things like talking points with colleagues talking points with admin legal protections by state policies model district policies by state passive aggressive info graphs that you can print out and post on your wall, but you know, anything that might work for you.

We want to respect the teachers. We know that teaching is hyperlocal and they know what's best for their context, their job security.

Peter: when you do look at change in education what were some of the biggest blockers that you both came up with or have seen in your separate districts or are going through this? and how how do you suggest a teacher who is in a situation where those blockers do exist how do you how do you maybe help them strategize to get through some of those walls or blockers?

Sam: I think one of the fastest responses that I hear sometimes is we are putting social interpretations in the science. "you're not teaching the science of it", "we're trying to relate this to identity and those two things don't mix together." But we really see this as a way of teaching more accurate more modern science that prevents misconceptions. 

Peter: I really like that. I think you know as a straight white male in from Indiana, I have a lot of questions, and I'm sure there's questions for students. Everybody's learning in this.

Is that the way you feel when you when you start a program or continue a program somewhere? Do you get that excitement because that, for me, learning something new even at my old age of 47 right now is something that is just encouraging and enlightening to me. Can you can you describe that process when you just get a group of learners on this what does that look like?

Sam: Usually, science teachers are pretty amenable to learning new things and interested in this. Sometimes we start off presentations with quizzes that it's all like factual questions about gender, sexual, and reproductive diversity in human and non-human species. That always gets science teachers thinking and excited. And maybe there is one I haven't heard of or they missed, and they want to learn more about. and so that's good that we're starting that and that you read it is a learning process for everyone.

I definitely feel like in any lesson where I'm prepped and I know I'm going to talk about sex or reproduction that I feel a little bit more under the microscope, because, well I need to speak precisely and I need to make sure that I'm communicating what I'm trying to.

And that awareness I think is good and when I notice things I wishI'd said differently like one year I went through a whole unit on genetics we had this unit long project about genetic diseases and I put because some students were asking about this I put a few intersex traits chromosomal traits like a Klinefelter's syndrome X X Y chromosomes and only the end of the units I realized, "well I just put that under this project of genetic disease is we've been using that word disease the whole time gosh." I wish I had said well these are genetic variations because that's not the message that I want to send about intersex. 

And when I brought that up with my students it was a chance for them as well to see well okay everybody evolved their language and everybody makes mistakes, or they realize unintended consequences of their actions and at least I hope it made them less worried about saying something wrong, but just focused on speaking thoughtfully speaking inclusively and learning as they go in that process. 

Peter: I do like that because I think one of the things that a lot of teachers are afraid of is actually that right like saying something wrong but if you're if you're in a learning environment where okay hold on I said this and and you bring that environment together where you know it's it's just really inclusive and people know that, "hey we're not all perfect and we all have a lot to learn." I think that's that's that's great and that's why it gets so excited out you know just this new inclusive especially in the biology room. 

I swear I would have been so much more interested in biology if I had all of you as teachers because I remember you know just checking the boxes off...

River: Oh I remember that too...

Peter: It's not exciting!

River: No not at all! We might have had the same bio experience, which was fill out these forms and bubble in the right letter and we can do better than that!

Sam: Yeah, and I think in biology—at least in some high schools I've been at—gets typecast as well. You just memorize everything. Memorize all the words, memorize all the categories, and you're going to be good. Rather than seeing patterns in the vocabulary, noticing patterns and exceptions. If we don't want to teach this rule, that there are only male and female, and that's true for every species 100% of the time, because we're just gonna be revising that constantly.

River: And we're getting you know increasing demographic changes in the classroom where you have more students that are familiar with language code-switching are familiar with corporate coaching they're going to have to encounter a lot of different ways of interpreting sex gender all of these cultural values that we have as humans and I think that's where modeling that insecurity and that uncertainty and a healthy way is really important for a teacher regardless of their gender and sex identity. 

I remember when I was I went to a talk with Sherman Alexie and I asked him how do I help my American Indian students feel less tokenized when we are talking about things like race or certain aspects of history and we said make them feel less alone make them see that throughout all of human history we have always struggled with these problems and we will continue to struggle and redefine them you know this is nothing new under the sun.

Peter: actually I've never heard it put that way being tokenized and it makes such make such sense where you know you're creating a road map for people to to actually understand this isn't just hey a pullout lesson which is is so invigorating to me.

Lastly, what where our different places where people can find you and connect with you are you going to be of speaking engagements online in different places. can you can you tell us a little bit about how people can connect with you?

Sam: we do have the website and I'll put that up as well on the podcast but where are other places where people connect and can find out more about this incredible program that you are building I'm gonna get out the the recent newsletter with the correct dates for a couple of coming conferences that we'll be at and Lewis River do you want to start saying other places that we can be found?

River: yeah so right now you can find us at www.genderinclusivebiology.com for tips news updates and anything that is related to a gender inclusive classroom and curriculum. 

You can also sign up for the Trans educators Network we are a nationwide education network of just transgender educators people working as staff or faculty in education. Sam long is the founder of the Colorado chapter, Sam please correct me if I'm wrong on that. 

We're updating the website every day and having lots of conversations and changing it based on feedback, so it's very much a living document, and it's very much something we're growing. But to really get connected all the time in this busy day and age to sign up for our newsletters that is the best way to get updated.

But you can also see Sam and Lewis at lots of different conferences and workshops throughout the year and we're getting some interest from other national associations for educators about creating larger-scale shops where we can guide teachers and perhaps workshopping one sample lesson or one sample worksheet, for example.

Peter: Sam and River, it's a pleasure to meet and actually talk with you all about just this innovative curriculum that is much needed bringing a roadmap to an authentic kind of a continual affirmative with agency there's so much to this I can't wait to dig into the website I'll be signing up for that newsletter I have a lot to learn thank you both for being here on disrupt education today thank you and coming conference dates.

Sam: yeah so I've got a couple of upcoming appearances yes the first is the HRC time to thrive conference will be there President's Day weekend February 14 to 16 2020 and the next is the NSTA national science teaching Association national conference which is in Boston April 2nd to 5th and we'll be there as well doing a very similar presentation for science teachers so we hope to see you out there.

Peter: excellent thank you so much again Sam and River appreciate it until next time, ladies and gentlemen we'll talk to you later on disrupt education.

All female spotted hyenas have penises they use to mount, pee, & give birth. (Gender Showcase, 9-12)

Editor’s note: Earlier, the author defines “penis” in this discussion as something the animal can pee through. —RXS

All female spotted hyenas have functional penises. They use it pee, signal, anally mount males & females for dominance, and give birth.

Intersex plumbing is found in ALL females of the spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta) of Tanzania—in which the females have penises nearly indistinguishable from those of the males. (EN23)…The first scientific investigation in 1939 showed that a spotted hyena makes only one-size gamete throughout its life, either as an egg or sperm. (EN24) Thus these hyenas are not hermaphrodites. Rather, female spotted hyenas are intersexed, like some female bears.

Editor’s note: The term "hermaphrodite" is appropriate for referring to non-human animals with sex characteristics that do not fit typical binary notions of male or female bodies. For humans, “intersex” is the appropriate term—learn more here!

(EN23) L. Frank, 1996, Female masculinization in the spotted hyena: Endocrinology, behavioral ecology, and evolution, pp. 78-131 in J. Gittleman, ed., Carnivore Behavior and Evolution, vol. 2, Cornell University Press; L. Frank, 1997, Evolution of genital masculinization: Why do female hyenas have such a large ‘penis’? Trends Ecol. Evol. 12:58-62.

(EN24) M. Harrison, 1939, Reproduction in the spotted hyena, Crocuta crocuta (Erxleben.), Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. Lond., ser. B, 230-1-78.

The females have a phallus 90% as long and the same diameter as a male penis (yes, somebody measured, 171 millimeters long and 22 millimeters in diameter). The labia are fused to form a scrotum containing fat and connective tissue resembling testicles. The urogenital canal runs the length of the clitoris, rather than venting from below. The animal can pee with the organ, making it a penis. Completing the picture, the female penis contains erectile tissue (corpus spongiosum) that allows erections like those of a male penis.

Sex & reproduction with two penises is as costly as pre-Industrial human reproduction, so why has this survived so long? (book excerpt)

A female spotted hyena mates and gives birth through her penile canal. When mating, a female retracts the penis on itself, ‘much like pushing up a shirtsleeve,’ and creates an opening into which the male inserts his own penis. The female’s penis is located in the same spot as the male’s penis, higher on the belly than the vagina in most mammals.

Therefore, the male must slide his rear under the female when mating so that his penis lines up with hers. During birth, the embryo traverses a long and narrow birth canal with a sharp bend in it. About 15% of the females die during their first birth, and they lose over 60% of their firstborn young. (EN 25) These obvious disadvantages lead us to question why female spotted hyenas have this penis instead of a clitoris.

(EN25) L. Frank and S. Glickman, 1994, Giving birth through a penile clitoris: Parturition and dystocia in the spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta), J. Zoology London 206:525-31; L. Frank, M. Weldele, and S. Glickman, 1995, Masculinization costs in hyenas, Nature 377:584-85.

Erect hyena penises are a sign of submission; the female hyena without the erect penis is the dominant leader of the entire pack. (book excerpt)

Female spotted hyenas have a dominance hierarchy, and the erect penis is a signal of submission. When two females interact with each other in a struggle for dominance, the one who wants to back down signals by erecting her penis. (EN26) No one knows why female hyenas evolved this method of signaling.

(EN26) M. East, H. Hofer, and W. Wickler, 1993, The erect “penis” is a flag of submission in a female-dominated society: Greetings in Serengeti spotted hyenas, Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol. 33:355-70; H. Hofer and M. East, 1995, Virilized sexual genitalia as adaptations of female spotted hyenas, Revue Suisse de Zoologie 102:895-906.

Erections occur in the “meeting ceremony” when animals greet after having been apart. The animals approach each other and stand alongside one another, head-to-tail, one or both lifting her hind leg to allow inspection of her erect penis. When only one member of a greeting pair displays an erection, she is normally the subordinate.

Each hyena puts her reproductive organs next to powerful jaws. Greetings between captive females that have been separated for a week are tense and frequently wind up in a fight that starts when one bites the genitals of the other, doing occasional damage to the reproductive capability of the injured party.

[This] social-inclusionary trait…allows a female hyena access to resources needed for reproduction and survival. If a female were not to participate in social interactions using her penis for signaling, she would not be able to function in hyena society and presumably would either die or fail to breed.

[Testosterone from elevated aggression in hyena society can’t develop] a full-fledged replica of male genital anatomy, complete with scrotal sacs and fat bodies resembling testicles. This structure can’t develop from a few extra splashes of testosterone in the blood.

Citation: Roughgarden, J. (2013) Evolution’s Rainbow: Diversity, Gender, and Sexuality in Nature and People. University of California Press, Berkeley. pp. 138-39.

On binary sex: "Just because it’s a convenient system of classification doesn’t mean it’s right."

In this article for Slate, bone researcher Alexandra Kralick discusses scientific research that debunks the fundamental misunderstanding that sex is a binary.

The sex-changing Australian goby species have 2 sexes: all-female or part-male-part-female. (Gender Showcase, 9-12)

Image credit: Yellowfin Goby, Acanthogobius flavimanus, in Jawbone Marine Sanctuary, Williamstown, Port Phillip, Victoria, February 2018. Source: Wayne Martin / iNaturalist.org. License: CC By Attribution-NonCommercial.

Edit (6/23/21): The book excerpt uses “gender” when it talks about morphology (body plan) in the Barlow study. Thanks to reader Breanna H. for asking about a previous draft of this post that repeated the book’s wording. I learned recently how much K-6 material leans on gender norms to explain biological things. Models are always imperfect, and Breanna refers to a teaching approach that avoids applying the human concept of gender to animals, and a discussion about the risks in conflating sex and gender in animal model studies. (-RXS)

Edit (6/8/23): Thanks to Wayne, adding this: Editor’s note: The term "hermaphrodite" is appropriate for referring to non-human animals with sex characteristics that do not fit typical binary notions of male or female bodies. For humans, “intersex” is the appropriate term—learn more here!(-RXS)

A species of goby from Lizard Island on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef [is the Australian goby].(EN12) In the Australian goby, all the juveniles mature into females, with some later becoming males. The males, however, can change back into females. In fact, the meaning of male is ambiguous here. The investigators defined a male to be any fish with at least some sperm production. All males, however, contain early-stage oocytes—cells that develop into eggs—in their gonads. So all the males remain part female. The species therefore consists of two genders at any one time: all-female fish and part-male-part-female fish.

(EN12 G. Barlow (2000) The Cichlid Fishes: Nature’s Grand Experiment in Evolution. Perseus.)

Citation: Roughgarden, J. (2013) Evolution’s Rainbow: Diversity, Gender, and Sexuality in Nature and People. University of California Press, Berkeley. pp. 137-38.

Sexing skeletons: the biology of sex, gender, and the incredible diversity of human biology

In this blog post, Gender-Inclusive Biology contributor Lewis Maday-Travis shares a presentation he created to wrap-up a unit on the skeletal system. The presentation focuses on the science of the intersex experience and nonbinary identity, both of which are supported by scientific research yet frequently erased in public discourse.