Some penguins are gay. Get over it.
Lions and tigers and bears…and penguins, oh my! The London Zoo is hosting Pride night on July 7.
The fun starts on July 5 with a Pride makeover of the Zoo’s colony of 93 Humboldt penguins joining in the annual celebrations. ZSL’s LGBT+ society, Team Pride, will also be proudly marching in the London Pride Parade on Saturday, July 6.
Zookeepers have made a special mini banner for the Penguin Beach home (pictured above) of the Zoo’s most famous gay residents, Humboldt penguins Ronnie and Reggie, paying homage to Stonewall’s groundbreaking ‘Get Over It.’ campaign.
Ronnie and Reggie got together in 2014, and famously adopted an egg that was abandoned by another couple a year later. The pair shared parenting duties of their chick, Kyton until he fledged the nest. They remain as strong as ever and are often found snuggled up in their nest box together.
The duo shares their home with 91 other penguins, including fellow same-sex couples Nadja and Zimmer and Dev and Martin, as well as one-year-old Rainbow who hatched during Pride celebrations last year and will celebrate her first birthday this weekend.
On top of Zoo Nights’ packed schedule of activities, visitors will be able to learn about gender and mating in the animal kingdom at a Pride-themed talk, where they’ll discover just how common same-sex pairings are – from penguins and pandas to goats and giraffes. Visitors can check out the Zoo’s pride of lions, enjoy delicious street food from around the world, and score a hole-in-one at the Zoo’s new mini-golf course.
Zoo Nights may be just for grown-ups, but the whole family can join in with the Zoo’s Pride celebrations on Sunday 7 July with Rainbow Families - a storytelling show hosted by drag artist Mama G from Petite Pantos, sharing positive tales about “being who you are, and loving who you want.”
This story was aggregated from the ZSL London Zoo site. For more information on the Pride celebration at ZSL London Zoo, click this link.
The Gayly. 6/27/2019 @11:00 a.m. CST.