The British Library celebrated LGBTQ+ Pride Month by tweeting about the Māori wrasse, a fish that can change its sex from female to male.
If you were asking yourself what else is left that could possibly offend transphobes, wonder no more.
The answer is a fish.
A fish.
The British Library wrote:
“This #Pride month, let us tell you about the Māori wrasse (also known as the humphead wrasse).
"But its wondrous forehead isn’t the most magnificent thing about this fish—they are protogynous hermaphrodites, which means the females can later change sex to become males.”
@britishlibrary/Twitter
Transphobic trolls freaked out that a library would post educational information.
Many also had to declare fish are not human.
\u201cPride now celebrates fish? Wtf British library\u201d— \ud83d\udfe5 Witch? Magazine (@\ud83d\udfe5 Witch? Magazine) 1685718042
\u201c@SwipeWright @britishlibrary Humans \ud83d\udc6b\ud83d\udc6c\ud83d\udc6d \u2260 Fish \ud83d\udc20\ud83d\udc1f\n\nThis should not be a hard concept to understand\u201d— Colin Wright (@Colin Wright) 1685733215
\u201c@SwipeWright @britishlibrary Its the sort of agenda-based logic that, on a different issue, makes any variation in the daily weather a result of human-induced climate change.\u201d— Colin Wright (@Colin Wright) 1685733215
\u201c@SwipeWright @AndrewAQLD @britishlibrary I'm also pretty sure that the fish doesn't change sex as a juvenile \ud83d\ude2c\u201d— Colin Wright (@Colin Wright) 1685733215
\u201c@MsMelChen A pride fish?\u201d— Melissa Chen (@Melissa Chen) 1685976247
\u201cHow soon before The Natural History museum writes a post about how it's the *MALE* seahorses that get pregnant so therefore... men can get pregnant too? \n\n\ud83e\udd21\ud83c\udf0e\u201d— Melissa Chen (@Melissa Chen) 1685976247
The British Library caved to the anti-LGBTQ+ trolls—as many others have done this year *cough* Target.
They deleted their tweet.
\u201cThe British library was forced to delete this tweet about a fish because of transphobes. Yes, you read that correctly. Transphobes attacked the The British Library because they posted a fun fact about a fish.\u201d— Theo \u2721\ufe0e \u05d8\u05d5\u05d1\u05d9\u05d4 \ud83c\udff3\ufe0f\u200d\ud83c\udf08\u262d (@Theo \u2721\ufe0e \u05d8\u05d5\u05d1\u05d9\u05d4 \ud83c\udff3\ufe0f\u200d\ud83c\udf08\u262d) 1685829014
People not triggered by piscine biology shared their disappointment.
\u201c@LGBwiththeT To me any rebranded *for pride month* org who deletes a tweet is showing their performative allyship because they\u2019d leave it there if they didn\u2019t allow people to bully them and really did stand by their words.\u201d— LGBWithTheT (@LGBWithTheT) 1685727677
\u201c@LGBwiththeT @MarkyMooUK How are these companies suddenly succumbing to the bullying? It's been going on for years?\n\nWhy are they allowing trans erasure?\u201d— LGBWithTheT (@LGBWithTheT) 1685727677
\u201c@munchl4xx @LGBwiththeT Yeah, the back peddling is happening so much that it's emboldening the hassasers.\u201d— LGBWithTheT (@LGBWithTheT) 1685727677
\u201c@LGBwiththeT they should not have deleted it @britishlibrary don\u2019t do a Target! stand up for us!\u201d— LGBWithTheT (@LGBWithTheT) 1685727677
\u201cthe scariest thing to me is watching businesses cave to transph*bes.\n\n- the british library deleting their thread about fish that can change their sex\n\n- target pulling merch\n\nlike if allies recoil at the first hint of backlash related to queerness, imagine how it is to BE queer\u201d— Jey will be at Config (@Jey will be at Config) 1685904114
\u201cLike, if all that\u2019s required to get you to delete your factual content is for some trolls to tweet at you, we\u2019re very quickly going to see a total erasure of queer and queer-coded knowledge.\u201d— Omar Sakr (@Omar Sakr) 1685913927
While they did remove the fish tweet, The British Library kept their June 1 Pride post that reads:
"'Love demands expression. It will not stay still, stay silent, be good, be modest, be seen and not heard, no.'"
"'It will break out in tongues of praise, the high note that smashes the glass and spills the liquid...'"
"Written on the Body, Jeanette Winterson."
\u201c'Love demands expression. It will not stay still, stay silent, be good, be modest, be seen and not heard, no. It will break out in tongues of praise, the high note that smashes the glass and spills the liquid...'\n\u2014 Written on the Body, Jeanette Winterson\n\nWishing all a happy and\u2026\u201d— The British Library (@The British Library) 1685613455
Though this tweet has also faced anti-LGBTQ+ backlash, it remains online.
As it should.