It is truly remarkable that some can note that in every animal, the males and females have different behaviors and preferences, but when it comes to humans, all logic is out the window.
It feels very much like religion to hold humans on a magical pedestal where the rules that apply to animals suddenly cease when applied to humans.
What rules that apply to animals? There is plenty of homosexual behavior in animals. According to Wikipedia, there even seem to be animals (sheep) that are homosexual individuals.
There are apparently intersex animals. There are certainly many male animals castrated at a young age that have markedly different behavior as adults.
We humans have aspects of gender identity (pink vs blue, for example) that most non-human animals lack the technology or inclination to develop even if they wanted to. Sure, male ducks often have lots of green feathers. But do they wear green because they identify as male? Of course not, because they don’t choose their color scheme! (And remember that pink hasn’t been a girl color for all that long.)
Humans have the fascinating property that you can ask them about their sexuality, gender identity, etc, and they might actually answer the question! I wonder how much of the apparent exceptionality of humans this accounts for.
> the rules that apply to animals suddenly cease when applied to humans.
If you observe a room full of small human children and conclude that the “the males and females have different behaviors and preferences” and that this is anywhere near sufficient to explain the behavior of said small children, then you’ve either found a highly unusual group, or you’ve found a group where someone else is fairly aggressively imposing gender identities on them, or you simply aren’t paying attention.
Anecdote: I just want to add that if you spend a decent amount of time with groups of dogs, you will find female dogs mounting and thrusting on male dogs very commonly.
To me, this is evidence that non-heterosexual behavior occurs in mammals other than humans. Therefore it is not only a human social construct. BTW, even if it was just a human social construct I don't know why I should have a problem with that.
Edit after 1 upvote, apologies.
To be 100% honest, this was an evolution of thought for me. Seeing 2 guys making out freaked me out the first time I saw it. These days I have all kinds of non-hetero friends and their behavior does not freak me out.
I wanted to add this because so many of these conversations lack depth and understanding.
> very much like religion to hold humans on a magical pedestal where the rules that apply to animals suddenly cease when applied to humans
Well .. yes? Isn't it a major premise of most religions that humans are different, and are in some way connected with the divine, and in particular have consciousness that obliges us to use our thoughts rather than our instincts? That we might probe the universe for its physical rules, and attempt to determine moral rules for ourselves? Or that the rule that applies to animals, that you can kill and eat them if you like, does not apply to humans?
It feels very much like religion to hold humans on a magical pedestal where the rules that apply to animals suddenly cease when applied to humans.