Documentary on LGBTQ Animals Takes Insanity to New Level

The new series "Queer Planet" features several episodes about animals and plants that appear to be LGBTQ.

Photo: Federico Anfitti

On June 6, the American NBC Universal Media will debut its new series "Queer Planet", featuring a series of episodes about animals and plants that appear to be LGBTQ, from "multi-gendered fungi" to "pansexual primates". While documentaries have been made about almost every aspect of the natural world, this appears to be one of the first by a major channel to showcase "queer" flora and fauna, the news portal The Post Millennial points out.

In the trailer, narrator Andrew Rannells informs the viewer that "everything we were taught as children is wrong" and that "this is a queer planet".

"Queerness has always existed," one of the show's multiple "experts" then notes, before another adds, "Only humans have such a stigma about it."

The term queer refers to people who identify as members of the LGBTQ community, the international V4NA news agency recalls.

NBCUniversal's Peacock is launching a new series about gay and transgender animals pic.twitter.com/cNh5SxGU6c

— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) May 16, 2024

One message being pushed in the series is that "the idea of having just two fixed sexes is clearly out of style". To prove their point, they rely on the fact that many plants, and some animals, shift from one to an other.

According to a synopsis cited by SYFY, the documentary "looks at extraordinary creatures, witnesses astonishing behaviors and introduces the scientists questioning the traditional concept of what’s natural when it comes to sex and gender".

"We've all heard of gay penguins, but this film really opened my eyes to the full spectrum of LGBTQ+ behaviors across the natural world," Rannells said in a statement.

Naturally, news of the new show did not go without a reaction on social media.

"Well how about cannibal animals?" one user wrote, posing the question: "Because animals eat others of their own species, does that mean humans should too?" And in another post a commenter pondered, "How exactly does an animal tell you they are transgender?"

Cover photo: Illustration (Photo: MTI/EPA/EFE/Federico Anfitti)