Consider this June 5. I've got plans, and I'm not going to let them be entirely destroyed by my internet provider being something I'm not allowed to say where my mother might read, and my migraines going nuts because of the summer sun.
So, one of the big arguments is that being gay is unnatural because you can't have kids. While that's true for humans (unless they get assistance from someone outside of their relationship, which is fine and shouldn't be shamed), God didn't make that true for everyone.
The Mexican Whiptail Lizard is an all-female species.
Actually, they might be a Woman-Power species more than a Pride species because they're proof that women don't need men, which everyone should know anyway, but they still fit for both.
The New Mexico Whiptail Lizard does reproduce through parthenogenesis, which is basically a natural form of cloning, or another word for virgin birth. This is pretty common among plants, single cell organisms, and some other animals. It's not particularly common among vertebrates, but not unheard of.
Why this is a Pride species beyond their all-female ness is that they actually do 'pseudo-sex' to stimulate the production of hormones, which means that their 'pseudo-sex' leads to babies.
What they've found more recently that is really, really, really, really cool about these guys is that they are actually different from the other species that produce asexually. One of the problems with asexual reproduction is that everyone has the same genetics, so if they get hit with a disease or their environment changes, then everyone dies. There is no diversity that might have a gene that allows them to change and adapt to a new environment or fight an illness.
Somehow, the Whiptails don't though. I don't know the specifics because I'm not an expert on biology and I'm going to be going down a rabbit hole of it later, but National Geographic below says that the Whiptails actually come up with a second set of chromosomes somehow and that lets them give birth asexually to not-clones. Apparently this comes from hybridization with other species of lizards in their past, which gives these ladies a genetic richness that they somehow recombine to create a new set of genetics for their daughters. They're still looking into all of this, as of the articles I was looking at.
I hope you have a great day, and you were amused by these little ladies. Sources below if you want to know more about them.
Sources:
High Country News-- How the Whiptail became a gay icon
National Geographic-- How the Whiptail Reproduces Asexually
Scientific American-- No Sex Needed
Knowledgeable Magazine-- The Weird Biology of Asexual Lizards
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