This is just stupid and it should be classified as such.
So apparently a new ant species has been officially named, except part of its “scientific” term has been named in honor of “gender diversity.”
According to The Independent:
The miniature trap-jaw ant, termed Strumigenys ayersthey, is thought to be the only creature in the world to have the non-binary suffix.
There are hundreds of other ants named in honour of people, but they end with -ae when named after females and -i after males.
American singer-songwriter Michael Stipe, of rock band REM, and Douglas Booher of Yale University in America, who chose the name, said it was in honour of their mutual friend, activist and artist Jeremy Ayers, who died in 2016.
Stipe appears to not only have “lost his religion,” but now he’s lost his concept of genders as well.
“In contrast to the traditional naming practices that identify individuals as one of two distinct genders, we have chosen a non-Latinised portmanteau honouring the artist Jeremy Ayers and representing people that do not identify with conventional binary gender assignments – Strumigenys ayersthey,” Stipe and Booher said.
Okay, I know people can “identify” as a steamroller these days and it’ll be taken seriously by someone, somewhere. But, ants aren’t people, so while certain people might not “identify with conventional binary gender assignments,” an ant uses both of their actual genders to advance their species — well unless you’re “Ant-Man” I suppose.
I would weep for humanity, but people like this who name ants based on gender diversity might find those tears a “micro-aggression.”
H/T: Phys.org