Transphobes Are Mad That the British Library Posted About a Fish That Can Change Its Sex

The British Library’s post was in honor of Pride Month.

If there’s one thing a certain subsect of British people loves, it’s getting Big Mad about completely innocuous mentions of anything having to do with gender. For example, today hundreds of transphobes got their knickers in a twist over a Twitter thread about a literal species of fish, to the point where the British Library deleted the entire thread. 

Thankfully, the internet is forever and the thread (and a selection of the totally unhinged replies) is archived on the Wayback Machine for your viewing pleasure. On Tuesday, in honor of Pride Month, the British Library shared a thread about the Māori wrasse, writing that the fish’s “wondrous forehead isn’t the most magnificent thing” about it. “They are protogynous hermaphrodites, which means the females can later change sex to become males,” the tweet reads. 

The thread goes on to explain that Māori wrasse takes five to seven years to become sexually mature, and can change from female to “supermales” around their ninth birthday. This means they develop “an even more prominent hump and even brighter color blue and green.” (Admittedly, it took me 23 years to transition from female to “supermale,” but I must say — deeply relatable.)

“Which makes them super attractive to females,” the museum wrote. “Ooh la la.” 

The thread notes a number of t examples of sexual variation in different fish species, including that clownfish are all born “male” and mature into “females.” (We already knew that Finding Nemo was a touching tale of queer found family, but this really drives the point home.) 

It’s pretty obvious that the Library made this a Pride Month thread to celebrate the fact that “biological sex” is a beautifully varied thing across species, and that a static dimorphic sex binary is not actually a default or natural state — in fact, that’s not even true for humans. But the Library got totally ratioed by transphobes. 

One person, totally missing the point, replied, “Are you saying gay men are actually women because fish?” Another person wrote, “Pride month is also a celebration of hermaphroditic fish.” And you know what? We’ll claim that. 

Tragically, as mentioned, the British Library ended up deleting the thread. As much as we wish they had stuck by it, we’re in full support of anything that makes transphobes lose their absolute goddamn minds, so just this once, we’ll hand it to them. 

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