National Pride Month

Wildlife's always just so busy wildlife-ing around isn't it?  It doesn't give a root 'n' toot how human beings vote, pray, identify, dress, or who we show our down-belows to.  All it really cares about is whether you're danger or dinner - a philosophy we can hopefully all relate to.

But the wider natural world is not immune to the concepts raised by National Pride Month either - not one bit!  In facts, nature plays around with gender identity, physical appearance, and gender roles all the time.

Take this little European Pearl Mussel as an example.  She is born with hermaphroditic traits that she can call upon at will to literally change her gender.  More crucially, her species' very survival depends upon her ability to do it.  She uses an intuitive blend of age, hormones, and water temperature to trigger the gender change, to positively impact her environmental and population requirements.  

Every European pearl mussel starts out life as larvae, which is released into the river flow, to find a host fish (usually salmon or trout) to support it.  It hooks onto the fish's gills, where the larvae broods as it is transported along the river.  Once reaching maturity, it looks for a suitably mussel-y place to call home. Here it will drop from the host fish and cling to the sand bed, where it feeds by filtering nutrition from the water, slowly reaching adulthood, to begin the reproductive process all over again. (The host fish is unharmed incidentally).

All good. Except that this distribution method doesn't always drop them quite where or how they need to be.  In smaller colonies for instance, where there might be a shortage of male-born mussels  - or in larger populations, where the majority of females are situated down-river or far away from the males - the female mussels are often too isolated to receive the sperm the males release into the river's flow.  So they trigger hormonal releases that allow them to temporarily become hermaphrodites to both lay and self-fertilize their eggs. 

But this is not their only reason for adopting gender fluidity.

Egg laying is an energy-costly activity, and mussels reach sexual maturity very slowly (usually around 18-20 years).  To ensure the colony grows efficiently younger females will often adopt male physicality until they become older and larger, and therefore better physically equipped to safely undergo this part of the reproductive cycle.  Only then do they display female reproductive characteristics. 

Water temperature is often the trigger for the mussel's reproductive cycle in terms of sperm release.  Mussels released from host fish into adverse water temperatures can experience negative impact on sperm release.  Here the ability to change identity from female to hermaphrodite can mean populations have a sufficient number of males and females to reproduce.  Scientists are seeing this behaviour more often, not only in mussels, but in other bivalve populations such as oysters, with the rise of sea temperatures as a result of climate breakdown..

Pollution has not been found to directly impact adult mussels in terms of gender change - but of course it can kill off larvae, juveniles - and host fish - so the measures mussels take mentioned above will no doubt be happening more frequently, as we pollute more of our oceans and artificially warm the climate.

Sadly for the pearl mussel, only the born-females are able to hermaphrodise - which is possibly one of the reasons they now appear on the red list of endangered UK wildlife.  In the case of oysters, the males have also been found to change gender when required - but changes in their environment caused by climate breakdown and intrusive fishing methods such as bottom-trawling (and indeed overfishing), are having devastating impacts on their populations.

For the time being, these little darlings are very lucky they're able to choose their gender at all - it has probably been one of the few factors keeping them in existence up until now.

 

A final word on Pride Month and Jewellery

The natural world is in real trouble right now.  It needs you (yes you!) whoever you love, however you identify, and whatever you chose to wear today.  It needs your kindness, your voice, your support,  It needs your understanding.

I's my personal belief that true compassion comes without parameters: we cannot claim to care about the animal kingdom if we then choose to exclude certain animals from it.  My compassion is for every living being who needs it.  And my jewellery is for anyone who wants to wear it.  Because for me, philosophically speaking, there is no ethical difference between being kind to all living people and being kind to all living things.  Only social conditioning convinces people otherwise.

Whilst I accept not everyone shares my exact viewpoint, (vive la difference!) I'd like to go on record and say that Barham Designs is and always will be a safe and inclusive space FOR EVERYONE. 

I'd also ask, this June, that anyone reading this remembers - and accepts - that here are other animals all over the world who routinely change their gender identity, and that it is not new, unnatural, or in most cases, the least threat to anyone.  In fact, as the pearl mussel demonstrates, having a bit of diversity has actually been the best survival technique for her entire population.  

And the pearl mussel is not alone.  We have already mentioned oysters being able to change sex - but there are several birds, butterflies and moths, who do it too.  Bearded dragons, banana slugs, clownfish - even lions - have been known to use gender fluidity -  for survival, to influence power dynamics within their social groups, or even for fun!

Data also shows that some creatures can change their gender en masse, rather than as individuals.  Limpets for instance, colonise in stacks, with males at the top steadily transitioning into females the further down the stack they are found.

Nope - gender fluidity and sexual diversity is not unusual or dangerous - in many cases it's essential to the natural world.

More poignantly, we are experiencing a biodiversity crisis.  Animals the world over, including those who use gender fluidity, really need us to be on their side, now more than ever. 

If we all only get one shot at life, then why waste time picking and choosing which organisms to save - or even like?  Surely instead we should be doing our best to make each and every life on earth the very best, very safest - and most fun! - it can be. 

You can find both my pearl mussel (and native oyster!) pendant in the Marinelife section.  I've made her as beautiful as I can, with soft etching,   a swirl of colour on her 'outside' - and a high glossy shine on her 'inside'.

I hope those who choose to buy her will remember that she stands for ALL gender diverse species on the red list - and wear her with pride. 

Have a Happy National Pride Month.

With love, Fi