Sexual diversity in ARTIS also on the Canal Parade this year
– July 27, 2023
For 30 years, ARTIS has been drawing attention to sexual diversity in nature. The first tour on homosexual behaviour in the animal kingdom was given at ARTIS Zoo in 1993.
Since then, ARTIS pays attention to the subject every year through lectures, guided tours and educational routes. Exactly 30 years after the first guided tour, ARTIS participates in the Amsterdam Canal Parade for the first time, with the message; nature is queer and queer is natural.
Nature is queer
Mating lionesses, hermaphroditic plants and penguin trios. Nature is queer. Homosexual behaviour has been observed among some 1,500 birds and mammals and that number is still growing. Visitors learn from an early age that a heterosexual couple is not the only possibility and that gender is a flexible concept in nature. Every day, the zookeepers and volunteers of ARTIS Zoo tell stories about sexual diversity.
From Saturday 29 July to Sunday 6 August, there will be a guided tour on sexual diversity in nature every day at 1 pm (and also at 11 am on weekends) that all visitors can join.
In ARTIS' botanical garden, visitors also learn about monoecious and hermaphroditic plants and flowers. And in ARTIS-Micropia, the only microbe museum in the world, there is a focus on different forms of micro-organisms. Many bacteria and fungi have no gender at all, while other microbes have seven or many more. Animals, plants, microbes; nature in its broadest sense is queer.
Artis de Partis goes to Pride
To spread the message of sexual diversity in nature more widely, ARTIS is joining the Canal Parade for the first time this year. The ARTIS boat is a green oasis decorated with colourful plants and flowers and on the main stage there is a large Artis de Partis, who is non-binary. ARTIS staff and volunteers hold up signs showing examples of sexual diversity in nature.