Femme birds, butch owls, and lesbian frogs: Meet the queer animals of Instagram
In 2008, a gay penguin couple went viral for the best of reasons: They stole an egg from a straight couple in order to become parents, then replaced the missing egg with a rock. Genius.
It's rare to see queerness represented in the animal world — if you can even call it queerness, given that these are, in fact, animals who don't have human sexualities. Still, that hasn't stopped the LGBTQ community from anthropomorphizing them wherever they can.
To anthropomorphize is to be human. Who doesn't want to see a lesbian earth mother frog dispensing self-care advice? Or a high femme owl warding off a heteronormative holiday with her deadly, femme fatale stare? Tell me the last time you saw a masculine-of-center bird represented in media. How many serial monogamist flamingos do you know in your personal life?
These moments are few. But thanks to Instagram, "queer" and queer-adjacent animal representation is starting to spike.
Welcome to 2019, where "queer" animals are able to build large Instagram followings. To be clear: None of the queer-animal-centered Instagram accounts claim to fully know the sexuality of the animals they depict. The "lesbian warthog" from Instagram account @lesbian_animals could very well be a pansexual warthog. Or maybe she just experimented with female warthogs in college after seeing a particularly dapper drag king warthog at the local warthog cabaret.
Or maybe she's just a warthog and therefore has no idea what any of these humans posting about her are talking about.
So while queer Instagram animals might not have a sexuality in the same way humans have a sexuality, there's something about them visually that feels so deeply, constitutionally queer. Queer people can see themselves in them.
As strange as that is, it matters.
The inherent queerness of birds
Take a look at @femmebirds, an Instagram account dedicated to the bird femme community. Created by Meaghan O'Malley of Butches and Babies and Katie Horowitz, the account celebrates the femmeness at the heart of bird identity:
"Birds just don't give a fuck, which I think is inherently femme," O'Malley told Mashable in a phone interview. "They're also very sensitive and hollow-boned."
O'Malley started the account after discovering @butchbirds on Instagram, an account dedicated to the severely underrepresented butch bird community. Both accounts share photos of birds that are aesthetically queer.
Worship the raw masc power of Bryce, a newly appointed young butch owl. Bryce is the Shane of the queer owl community. He fucks.
Next, open your heart to these queer pastel parrotlets processing critical attachment theory:
But these accounts do more than just share photos of animals. Both @femmebirds and @butchbirds draw from queer tropes to generate meaningful conversation.
For O'Malley, @femmebirds allows her to discuss queerness in a way that feels lighthearted and slightly removed. It can be challenging and painful to discuss LGBTQ issues in more traditional contexts. Who really wants to explore the nuances of gender performance in a Twitter thread?
When queer identity is re-imagined in bird form, the conversation feels lighter, more manageable. It's easier to discuss femme visibility among parrots (who are inherently absurd) than among humans:
"I am not really an animal person, but I love birds and their anthropomorphic personalities ... and I think it's a little bit easier with animals to connect with what you're feeling and experiencing," O'Malley said. "Femme birds are specifically adaptable in that way. The vast majority of birds we post are assigned male at birth. Male birds tend to be the most femme in nature. Some people have been curious about why we use male birds. But that has everything to do with our perception of femme identity."
O'Malley is able to facilitate a conversation about the meaning of femme identity — who it belongs to, and why we associate it with just one sex — without it becoming a contentious internet forum.
These are birds, for God's sake.
Language is key to understanding these accounts. @Femmebirds routinely repurposes vocabulary from queer culture, such as bottoming or lesbian processing, to discuss bird behavior. In doing so, O'Malley is able to have a conversation about femme visibility and even poke fun at some of the more rigid conventions through a careful curation of words.
Look at this queer femmebird trying to process her emotions with her cis boyfriend:
This femmebird walks her runway like a goddamn professional: She's "steadfastly true to herself, her values, and her fabulous shoulder-padded/glittery pantsuited/silky bowtied aesthetic."
Human lesbians may struggle with scissoring. Great crested grebes sure do:
These femmebirds are absolutely crushing the cis-heteropatriarchy:
Let's be clear: @femmebirds and @butchbirds are, at their hearts, extremely funny accounts. Yes, they inspire thoughtful comment threads about gender performance and identity. They're also weird as hell, in wonderful, tender ways that remind me of the pre-bad internet era.
Forget everything you learned about Judith Butler and Michel Foucault and just soak up the comedy of this sex talk between parakeet lesbians.
I will always hate birds. But I am deeply thankful for Instagram's queer bird community for giving this highly marginalized group some representation in media.
Lesbian guinea pigs, gay lions, and closeted cats
There are plenty of animals in the kingdom who possess big dyke energy.
Instagram account @lesbian_animals, which has been around since 2016, identifies the non-avian queer members of the animal kingdom. They're less visible than out and proud pigeons. But that doesn't mean they're not worth paying attention to.
Consider, for example, the queer guinea pig community. Without this account, we wouldn't even know they existed.
Possums really broke into the viral spotlight last year. But — with all those memes and all those tweets — did you ever once hear about the vibrant LGBTQ possum scene?
Probably not. Shout out to @lesbian_animals for bringing this marginalized demographic to the forefront.
When was the last time you learned about queer chosen families in the animal world? Look at how these queer koalas have forged community in spite of oppression:
Accounts like @lesbian_animals are more than just collections of queer koala friends. They meet a psychological need, highlighting "queerness" in the world around us, even if that queerness is absurdist projection.
Just like everyone else, queer people want to see themselves on television, in movies, in government, and sometimes even boning in the wild.
So forgive me if I take deep satisfaction in this lesbian otter tape dispenser. As a queer person, I am sick and tired of seeing only cis heteronormative seal tape dispensers.
Finally, I feel seen: by animals, and by the people creating these accounts.
It's more than just queer animal tape dispenser representation
For all the joy it brings me to see a genderqueer rockabilly owl, queer animal representation isn't ultimately about the animals. It's more than that. As O'Malley describes it, it's about the people behind the accounts and the people engaging with these accounts connecting with each other.
When you like a photo of two lesbian dogs in matching knit hats, you're not identifying with the dogs. You're sharing a moment with the account's creator, who knows what knit hats signify in the lesbian community and can laugh about it with you.
As much as you think you're connecting with animals, you're actually connecting with people.
Here's how O'Malley describes the human affect behind her femme bird account:
"Femme identity has always been something I tentatively danced around. I didn’t fully embrace it until about a decade ago. It's been challenging because there's so much gatekeeping around it. I was really unsure if I would be able to create femme-centric content ... [but] posts that tend to resonate the most are dramatized versions of my own experience. Posts that say: 'I am femme but I don't feel like I'm good at it' tend to get the most affirming feedback. It makes me feel like less of an outsider femme. I have not been able to connect to other femmes as a human but I have through my bird language."
Let me use my bird language to connect to the kind readers who've made it to the end of this story.
We see you all: the masc owls, the drag queen parrots, and even the heteroflexible parakeets. These Instagram skies are open. There's a home for you all, my fellow queer birds, even if it's just on a platform.
Heather was the Web Trends reporter at Mashable NYC. Prior to joining Mashable, Heather wrote regularly for UPROXX and GOOD Magazine, was published in The Daily Dot and VICE, and had her work featured in Entertainment Weekly, Jezebel, Mic, and Gawker. She loves small terrible dogs and responsible driving. Follow her on Twitter @wear_a_helmet.
