#But yeah we’re not some separate category and this is really obvious from a biology perspective

[rotationalsymmetry]

ok I’m definitely not reblogging because I don’t want to shame OP, but I just read a really weird read on vegetarianism and pet ownership.

I’m an ecologist. My opposition to meat eating isn’t about the sanctity of life; most animals eat at least some meat some of the time, some animals exclusively eat meat, animals can eat meat and also have a functioning ecosystem. Actually everything has to be eaten at some point, either via predation or after death via scavenging or decomposition. That’s how we recycle nutrients.

The reason it’s not great for humans to eat meat has to do with trophic levels and carrying capacity . There’s about an order of magnitude more zebras than lions. If humans want to live like lions, our carrying capacity (how many of us can exist without breaking everything) is lower than if we live mostly like zebras. This is complicated by exactly what biome you’re living in (if you live in the arctic, living like a zebra is not an option) and it’s also complicated by the way all industrial agriculture is unsustainable. There is a sense in which all industrial ag is just terrible and we shouldn’t be doing it, at all. But just like you can’t live like a zebra in Alaska, in practice most people can’t opt out of industrial agriculture. But industrial animal agriculture is about an order of magnitude (ten times) more unsustainable than skipping the animals and feeding people plants, so when people can eat plant foods or mostly plant foods — and especially when people can avoid beef/cow meat specifically — it’s … harm reduction. It buys us a little more time.

My impression is indigenous cultures that aren’t in places where eating plants isn’t viable handle this by 1. mostly eating plants, or maybe some combo of plants and seafood, and 2. having a bunch of rules around hunting and harvesting that include the idea of asking permission to take life. I have no idea what that looks like in practice, but I’m sure it makes sense to people who were raised that way. Point is, while vegetarianism is a cultural anomaly, that doesn’t mean that cultures that do eat meat think everything is fine with every way of killing animals for meat.

As a side note the reason I can coexist without conflict with meat eaters is I have a very strong ethic around the idea that each person is in charge of their own life and moral choices, and I’m kind of straddling the middle of an older worldview of “some things that are good to do are mandatory for everyone, and some things that are good to do are sort of above and beyond, and most people aren’t going to do them and that’s ok,” with vegetarianism being one of the above and beyond things, and a newer stoicism-based “whatever anyone else does is none of my damn business anyways.” That’s got nothing to do with seeing animal lives as less valuable than human lives — I think humans should be eaten too, by worms or bacteria or fungi after we’re dead, so that nutrients stay in the ecosystem — and everything to do with “I’ve got enough to handle with my own life and my own moral responsibilities, I don’t need to be running other people’s too.”

[uncloseted]

saying "people who identify as girls are girls" is not simple. at all. i mean ok i am a girl. why? because i identify as one. but why? there's nothing that unites all girls. which doesn't mean that all girls have to be exactly the same but they at least need to have ONE thing in common. i mean if people say yeah i like women, when i'm in the street i look at women not men. how do you know? how do you know who's a man and who's a woman and who's anything else? and even woke people look at someone

1and think "girl" then think, or maybe they're non binary! but they never say or maybe they're a man. never. a person who looks like me has two options: girl or one of the hundreds of non binary identities. but to be a man, I'd have to try harder. it's not enough to IDENTIFY AS. ffs I can't be the only one who sees this. and just to clarify, i sent the joke about Emily being transphobic and i sent the first two of the three asks that you answered together i forgot this. you seriously thinl that if you raise a baby completely gender neutral, like one of those "theybies" and you tell them a girl is someone who identifies as a girl a boy is anyone who identifies as a boy nb is someone who identifies as neither, that they will deep down, without taking into account any stereotypes or biological essentialism, know what gender they are? even if they end up saying I'm a girl/boy, it will be because they will be exposed to girls and boys and "choose" the one they relate most to, or even because they like how the word "girl" or "boy" sounds.

I think you're asking some really good questions here. You're raising a lot of very philosophically interesting questions about the metaphysics of gender (what does it mean to have a gender, what does it mean to be transgender, is gender a social construct or is it innate to humans, etc) and how gender, as a social construct, impacts our lives on a day to day basis. Better philosophers than I have struggled with these questions for decades, but I'll do my best not to get too into the weeds on their different theories in this post. Instead, I'll offer my thoughts on what gender is and then investigate how we interact with it on a practical level. This is likely to be a long post, so apologies in advance, but it's a complicated issue that touches everyone's lives and I want to be mindful of that while writing this. Also apologies that this is going to be a pretty binary post. I don't mean to exclude nonbinary identities from this conversation, but to illustrate the points I'm trying to make, I think it's easier to talk about binary identities first. Just know that I do think nonbinary identities are real, valid and worthy of recognition and respect. Lastly, I'm not attached to any of the views expressed in this post. They reflect my thinking at this moment in time, but that might change as I learn more about these topics. I apologize if any of the views presented here are inadvertently hurtful. That's not my intention at all, but I recognize that regardless of intention, some things can cause harm. My goal in this post is to explore some ideas, and I would love to hear other people's opinions on this topic or criticism of these ideas. The Metaphysics of Gender So, to start out with, what is gender? Why are you a girl? Why do you identify as a girl? Why does anyone, and what links those people who identify as "girls" together? Is identifying as a girl enough to be one? These are complicated questions, both philosophically and culturally, and they've become more visible as we've become more culturally aware of gender variances (recently in the West. Third genders have always existed, and do continue to exist, in many cultures around the world). In biology and philosophy, there's a concept called "homeostatic property clusters" (stay with me here, I promise I'm going somewhere with this). "Homeostatic property clusters" is basically just a fancy phrase for the idea that if a creature has enough of a certain set of characteristics, they can be defined as part of a larger category, even if they don't have all of the traits that creatures in that category might have. In the PhilosophyTube video "Social Constructs", Abigail offers the category "mammals" as an example of a "homeostatic property cluster". Mammals are creatures that have warm blood, produce milk, and birth live offspring. Humans are mammals based on these characteristics, and so are seals and giraffes. But platypuses are also mammals, even though they lay eggs instead of birthing live offspring. These three properties, having warm blood, producing milk, and birthing live offspring, tend to "cluster" together, but they don't have to all be present in order for the creature to be "a mammal"- in this case, two out of three is fine. I think gender is similar. It's a homeostatic property cluster that includes biological, psychological, and social traits. Not all of those traits must be present for a person to "be a girl" or "be a boy", but enough of them have to be present in order for the person to be considered as part of that category ("girl" or "boy"). That cluster of traits is what all "girls" have in common, even if those traits aren't exactly the same for each individual. So, then, in the context of gender, what are those traits? "Biopsychosocial traits" is all very good as an academic term, but what does it actually mean? Let's start with the biological traits, since I think they're what most people default to when talking about gender. Biological Sex and Gender One trait we might consider when talking about whether someone "is a

girl" is sex characteristics. Sex and gender are fundamentally separate concepts, but for many people, they're linked. Many cis people consider themselves cis because they were "born in the right body" or lack the desire to medically transition. They have a "subconscious sex" that matches their physical body. So I think this is a good place to start. We might ask the question, "does this person have primary or secondary sex characteristics associated with being "a girl"?" It feels like the answer should be obvious- do they have tits and fanny, or don't they? But in reality, "biological sex" itself is kind of a homeostatic property cluster. Female sex characteristics include XX chromosomes, ovaries, estrogen and gestagen, a vagina, uterus, and fallopain tubes, breasts, and a menstrual cycle. But there are people without some of these traits that are still "girls". For example, some girls don't have a menstrual cycle (due to menopause, hormonal birth control, low body weight, PCOS, etc), but they're still girls. Some girls don't have a uterus (for example, if they've had a hysterectomy), but they're still girls. Some girls never develop breasts, but they're still girls. Some girls are born with Swyer syndrome, where they have a uterus, fallopian tubes, a cervix and a vagina, but have XY sex chromosomes. They're still girls. Any one of those traits by themselves can't be enough to decide if a person "is a biological girl" or "isn't a biological girl", but if a person has enough traits in that cluster, then they can be considered part of the larger category "biological girl". That by itself is kind of a TERFy take, so I would offer that the biological trait in the cluster "girl" is "has a cluster of female sex characteristics, either naturally or artificially, or gender dysphoria resulting in a desire to acquire those sex characteristics." But that alone can't be enough to determine if someone is or isn't "a girl". If it was, it would exclude pre-medical transition trans boys, even pre-medical transition trans boys who are living their lives as boys. It's also a transmedicalist take- it would also exclude trans people who never medically transition. To me, that doesn't feel right. People shouldn't be considered "a girl" or "a boy" based on biological essentialism, the pain of gender dysphoria, or their access to medical transition. So there have to be other factors at play- other traits in the cluster. Gender as Identity On the other side of the spectrum, some people say that gender is identity. You are "a girl" or "a boy" because that's how you identify- it's how you see yourself. In this viewpoint, gender is something innate to a person, that they instinctively know about themselves. It's perhaps a "female soul" in a "male body". In your ask, you express some scepticism about this view, and I'm inclined to agree. If humans have souls, I'm inclined to think they're not gendered, since what constitutes gender varies so widely across cultures and time periods. But I do also think that "identifying as" is an important element of "being a girl". Identifying as a girl is a basic criteria for being a girl. No person who doesn't identify as a girl can be a girl. It's an innate property of "girlness", the same way that an innate property of triangles is that they have three sides. But I do agree with you that I'm not convinced it's enough to only "identify as". Other traits in the cluster have to be present, because without a physical or social transition (or at least, the desire for a physical or social transition, particularly in cases of people for whom it's not safe or possible for them to transition), a person's identification doesn't have much practical value. Gender as a Social Role If "identifying as" isn't enough, then perhaps an important part of the gender conversation is the social role that gender plays in our lives. A gender is put upon us when we're born, and people continue to expect us to fill our assigned gender role throughout our lives. Maybe what's important isn't our body

parts or our internal identity, but instead, the gender role society lets us adopt. Perhaps society has to let you adopt the gender role you identify as. Either you're perceived as a woman or you aren't, either you "pass" or you don't. Perhaps those expectations that others have of you are what defines your gender. Intuitively, this seems to be tapping into something that feels true, at least to me. "Identifying as" isn't enough because society has to acknowledge that we are who we say we are. As you say, perhaps we have to "try harder" to "be a girl" or "be a boy" than just "identifying as". But this, too, has its problems. What about trans people who can't or don't pass? Does their transness get revoked for not appearing like they're trying hard enough? And what constitutes "hard enough"? Is trying at all "hard enough", or is there a point at which you "become" your gender? How many people need to reach a consensus on your gender before that's who you "are"? Does it get revoked by one person who misgenders you? And what about people who are cis, but occasionally put into an opposite gender role because of the way they present themselves? It seems to me that relying on other people to confer gender onto us is at once too limiting and not limiting enough. Gender as Gender Expression Going off of the idea of gender as a social role, then maybe gender is how you physically express yourself to the world- how you look to others. Maybe if you choose to express yourself as a given gender (through hair, clothes, makeup, voice, etc.), that's the gender that you are (or a reflection of the gender that you are), because that's how society will gender you. But that seems insufficient as well, for a lot of the same reasons that gender as a social role does. There are people who express themselves in stereotypically "masculine" ways but who identify as girls and who are understood to be girls by those around them. Their "girlness" is not culturally taken away from them based on their gender expression (unless there's another trait within the cluster of "being a girl" that they appear to not have). A girl can wear a full face of makeup, a dress and high heels, or have a pixie cut, no makeup, and wear a flannel and Doc Martens, but that alone isn't enough to say that she's not "a girl". This is especially true now, where very few ways of presenting are viewed as inherently gendered. Dresses and skirts are no longer exclusively "a girl thing" and pants have long been gender neutral. And what constitutes "presenting as a girl" and "presenting as a boy" changes across culture, time, and based on other characteristics an individual has (like class, race, size, or level of ability). So gender expression doesn't seem sufficient by itself to determine gender identity. Gender as Behaviors and Actions (aka Gender Performativity) Okay, so gender isn't just gender expression. But what about gender as a set of behaviors, something that you do? Gender performativity is a theory presented by Judith Butler in 1990 (sorry, I know I promised I wouldn't namedrop philosophical theories, but this is important to the conversation). Butler says that gender is constructed through a set of "acts" that are in line with societal ideas of what it means to "be a girl" or "be a boy". This performance of gendered acts is ongoing, even when we're alone, and is out of our control. Butler believes that there's no such thing as a "non-stylized" act- that is to say, everything we do is an act, and there's no such thing as an act that is not perceived as being somewhere on the spectrum of masculinity and femininity (at least, not in the current world we live in). The way we stylize these acts have the possibility to change over time. So Judith Butler believes that we "do" gender rather than "being" gender- that a girl "does girlness" over time. Put another way, a girl does behaviors, actions, and expressions that are stylized as "girly", which is what makes her gender identity "girl". And this gender, "girl", is constantly being

produced as the girl produces more of those "girly" acts. Instead of having an innate gender or expressing our internal gender through the way that we present, Butler thinks our outward gendered acts create our inner gender identity. Those acts and the way we perform them are shaped from the minute that we're born, when we're thrown into a pre-existing gender category and taught that "people like us" do things "in this way". This theory offers an answer to the question we asked in the previous section about gender as presentation; someone who is dressed "masculine" can still be "a girl" because they're performing "girlness"- they're doing acts that are in line with what we think of as "a girl". Because Butler doesn't believe that you're born with an internal gender, her work is controversial in trans spaces and are sometimes thought of as being trans-exclusionary (although Butler herself is a trans advocate). But I think disagree. Presumably, a person could change the stylization of the acts they perform. A person who was performing "boy" can begin to instead perform "girl", although they did not grow up performing "girl". It may be difficult, as they haven't had the performance of "girl" thrust upon them their entire lives, and have not experienced the "oppression experiences of girlhood" that can shape the performance of "girl". But gender performance and gender socialization are a lifelong process, and so the more a person "does girlness", the more they will be perceived as "doing girlness", and the more they will be expected to "perform girlness." I think it becomes something of a feedback loop where performance feeds socialization and socialization feeds performance. What about the "theybies"? What would happen if you raise a baby completely gender neutral? What would happen if a baby wasn't thrown into a pre-existing gender category upon birth? Would they identify as a gender without taking stereotypes or biological essentialism into account? This is essentially a question about social constructs. If we raised a baby with the understanding that some people have male sex characteristics, some have female sex characteristics, and some people have a combination of both, but removed the social constructs we have around gender, would gender still exist to this child? What you've created here is a "Twin Earth" thought experiment- a hypothetical where there are two Earths that are identical in every way except for one. Our Earth has the social construct of Gender, but Twin Earth does not. Would our Theyby still have a gender if they lived on Twin Earth? I think no. They wouldn't have a context to understand the social systems that we've created around sex characteristics, and so they wouldn't be able to place themselves within those systems. They wouldn't understand why we've based our whole society around sex characteristics as opposed to something else. They would be able to identify that they have the sex characteristics associated with "boys" or "girls", but not what it means to "be a girl" or "be a boy". (If you want to dig further into this idea of Social Constructs, that PhilosophyTube video I linked above is a good place to start). They could learn, but it wouldn't be innate to them. We, however, don't live on Twin Earth. We live on Earth. And on Earth, we do have the social construct of gender. So even if you raise a child completely gender neutral, they still have a concept of what it is to "be a girl" or "be a boy". They might learn that "girls" have long hair, or wear dresses, or are nice and caring, or are emotional, or walk and talk a certain way, or wear pink, or whatever other social constructs we ascribe to the gender "girl". They might learn that "boys" have short hair, wear pants, are mischievous, are aggressive, or walk a different way, or wear blue, or whatever other social constructs we ascribe to the gender "boy". Kids who are raised gender neutral look at the physical characteristics of other kids, the gender expression of other kids, the performance of "girlness" or

"boyness" that other kids do, and compare them to the physical characteristics they have, the gender expression they like, the gender expression that's expected of them from others, the performance of gender that they gravitate towards, and the performance of gender expected of them from others, and they tend to pick the one that feels more like their category. Most kids start conceptualizing their gender identity around age 3 or 4, and that's true for kids who are raised gender-neutral as well. When they start spending more time out in the world, they notice that they're different from some kids and similar to others, and they learn the language to describe those differences. But all of this is kind of beside the point, because raising a child as a "theyby" doesn't ultimately have the goal of the child not having a gender or growing up to be agender or genderqueer. It has the goal of allowing children to develop their likes, dislikes, and views of themselves without the contribution of harmful gender stereotypes. And I think that's actually a really great goal- how many of us that were raised female were discouraged from pursuing certain interests (especially science and technology related interests) because those "aren't girl things"? Kids will be exposed to those harmful stereotypes eventually, but if a kid is raised until age 3 without them, they might be more resilient to them when those ideas are presented. And for kids who do end up being transgender, being raised without gender lets them know that they'll be accepted by their family no matter their identity. Okay, but give us some answers... what is gender? So, we've gone over a lot of things that gender isn't, or at least, a lot of things that can't exclusively constitute a gender. But where does that leave us? What does that make gender? I propose it's something like the following: There are lots of ways to have or experience a gender. In order to have a gender, a person must:

1. Identify as that gender and: 2. have a cluster of sex characteristics matching the biological sex associated with that gender, either naturally or artificially, or gender dysphoria resulting in a desire to acquire those sex characteristics AND/OR 3. socially inhabit that gender, through gender expression or gender performance, or have a desire to socially inhabit that gender

I think that covers pretty much every case I can think of. People who identify as a gender and have the sex characteristics matching that gender are cis people, regardless of their social presentation. People who identify as a gender and have gender dysphoria or who have medically transitioned are the gender they identify as. People who identify as a gender and socially inhabit that gender are also the gender they identify as, and so are people who identify as a gender and would like to socially inhabit that gender but can't due to financial constraints or safety concerns. They're just experiencing trans identity in a different way to medically transitioned people. Gender as a Social Construct Okay, so that's the metaphysics of gender, or at least, an approach to the metaphysics of gender. I want to make it clear that I'm not attached to this theory, and I don't necessarily think I'm right. This is just where I've landed in my thinking right now, and I'm open to hearing other people's opinions and criticisms. In any case, it's very abstract, very philosophical, but maybe not super practical for the other questions you're asking here, and definitely not simple. So why, in my original answer, was I making the claim that "people who identify as girls are girls" is simple, then? I was making that claim because the way we interact with other people isn't metaphysical. It's practical. And practically speaking, all you need to do is acknowledge a person the way they ask to be acknowledged. Does someone say they're a boy named Jack who uses he/him pronouns? Great, call him Jack and use he/him pronouns. Does someone say their name is Sarah and use she/her pronouns? Great, call her Sarah and use she/her pronouns. Does someone say their name is Alex and they use they/them pronouns? Great, call them Alex and use they/them pronouns. Does someone say their name is Cloud and they use ze/zir pronouns? Great, call them Cloud and use ze/zir pronouns. You don't have to understand their relationship with their gender or what their gender means at all. You can even think their gender is "cringe". But you do have to respect the way they view themselves, and acknowledge them how they want to be seen. Think about it this way- if you were at an event and someone had a nametag that said, "Hi! My name is Taylor", but when they introduced themselves, they said, "I know my nametag says Taylor, but actually I go by Riley," what would you do? You'd just... call them Riley, right? You don't need to know why they have the wrong nametag to respect that their nametag is wrong. You probably wouldn't insist on calling them Taylor because that's what the nametag says. You probably wouldn't even ask how they ended up with a nametag that was wrong. Trans people are people, and they deserve respect just like anyone else. That's why this is simple- all you have to do is listen and be respectful, even if you don't understand. Wrapping up, here's my question to you. What is it about trans people that makes you uncomfortable? Think about it honestly, and try not to default to, "it's political correctness run amok! People are offended if you breathe too loudly!" Does it feel like a challenge to your own identity, either your gender identity or your sexuality? Is it a discomfort with society changing? Is it a fear of getting something wrong and offending someone? The vast majority of trans people I've met just want to be acknowledged for who they are. They'll politely correct people who misgender them or accidentally say something transphobic. And the ones who are the most aggressive or militant are the ones who have been hurt the most by a system that won't acknowledge them for who they are. It's a plea to be seen in a world that denies them that visibility. Maybe it isn't trans people that need to become less sensitive, but us who need to become more accepting. Some resources that you might be interested in if you liked this post: The Aesthetic | ContraPoints Social Constructs | Philosophy Tube "Transtrenders" |

ContraPoints Gender Critical | ContraPoints Judith Butler's Theory of Gender Performativity, Explained

[gerrydelano]

about as much as any entity does, i’d say? they all had to start somewhere.

[ID under the cut]

@purplepunchsoda: Do you think the vast can feed off animal fears?

i was going to answer this in an ask but then i unfortunately began to ramble so OOPS. once again we are back in this awful place where ron cannot shut up.

i think for animals the fears would all just blend together a lot into obvious wordlessness and inarticulation for the most part. there’s a definite muddle between exactly What is being feared or even that fear is what they’re feeling about it, and it’s enough to feed all of them because there’s such a MASSIVE quantity of that overlapping undercurrent. 

if you think about it, a lot of animals sort of build their lives and habits around avoiding things that’ll kill them, which means that the fear that drives that is a primary motivation and more or less always in the very back of their minds. 

in the end, honestly, they all come down to the same thing. yet even if it all comes down to the fear of death, it’s Also a collection of fearing death through any NUMBER of means along the way, which ALL of them feed directly into.

the flesh and the hunt in particular rose up first through animal fear, so they definitely have to play some part in all of the fears to some extent.

for the beholding, they might not fear someone knowing their secrets specifically but they could fear being watched by something they don’t know about (or something they can’t see physically, which also feeds into the dark, and by extension the hunt, the slaughter, and so forth.) for the web, they might not fear being manipulated, but they could fear being trapped. that could lead into the buried, which could also be feared through responsibility; one animal in charge of a pack of babies, with no way to feed them, would be terrified.

of course they’ll fear disease. of course a pack animal would fear isolation. of course they’ll fear the destruction of their habitat and food source and therefore the patterns hardwired into them through time and evolution. 

stranger and spiral would both screw with evolutionary rhythm, too; for many animals, everything is the way it is and they have recognizable patterns and places and things they have deemed Safe while they have deemed others Dangerous, so of course they rely on things being familiar and would inherently Not want to lose that.

so with the vast, yeah, like. animals fall off of stuff, too. a bird over the ocean probably has an innate Bad Feeling about needing to stop with exhaustion and settle onto the water (which could feed into a fear of being eaten by something that sprang up from underneath, which could be attributed to literally so many other things by proxy, etc.) a rabbit in an open field with nowhere to hide, which again leads from one fear to the next all the same.

i think the natural response to not wanting something to happen or not wanting to face a consequence of your biology and environment is something that feeds all of the fears in some way whether they put them into categories or not. 

you know how it got said that “as people developed, we developed a system for categorizing fear and there’s no actual telling whether they can SPLIT OFF or if we’re just defining them more narrowly.” smirke’s fourteen is just a theory. there’s no Actual telling where the lines really are, or if we just made them up. all of it coexists and they play off of each other naturally and for some things, can’t be separated much if at all.

so, people might not always be as susceptible to every single fear as heavily as another one (or maybe we just like to think that), but that’s partly because of that system of putting them into little boxes to cope with them and combat them in whatever way we could. 

animals might not be able to draw those lines/conceptualize it all the same way, and so it’s like. they’re fearing everything, all at once.

[botanyshitposts]

You've talked about identifying lichens in class before on this blog, but if you don't mind me asking, how do you do that? How do you (or I guess how did you specifically) identify the lads?? I'm not asking for a tutorial on identifying lichens on my own btw, I'm just really curious on how exactly you went about it? I'm rlly new to botany so sorry if the answer is obvious !

okay, so this is something i didn’t know until i hit college, but biologists of all kinds usually identify things using something called a dichotomous key, which is kind of like a choose your own adventure/process of elimination thing. it’s a guide that has statements in numbered pairs, and as you pick which statement best represents the organism you’re trying to identify you’re pointed towards other pairs, which eventually lead you to either 1. the name of your species or 2. another, more specific key that will ask you more questions about your subject. 

keys can be as general as a continent or as specific as a county, and they vary widely based on what the key is meant to identify, too, but the big one used in north america is Brodo’s ‘Lichens of North America’, which has been hugely influential in reviving modern lichenology since it came out in 2001. it’s also a required textbook in my uni’s lichen course. although this version has the keys, there’s an expanded and revised spiral bound version containing only the keys that’s way more affordable; my uni’s herbarium has both versions on hand, and when i identify The Lads in there i usually use the version with just the keys to narrow down a species, then look it up in the full textbook. unfortunately, the full textbook is an ENORMOUS (beautiful!! well illustrated!! detailed in species info and general biology!! but enormous) coffee table book and i left it in my hometown for this semester bc Lichen Teaching Time is primarily in spring. 

because i don’t have my book with me, i’m gonna take some examples from the arguably second best lichen key source and one that’s coincidentally free to download online: Bruce Ryan’s Working Keys to Lichens of North America (note Brodo’s endorsement at the top of the page, lmao). note that in terms of practicality, Ryan’s keys are a bit out of date, but it’s a good example. 

a key like this has to give us a place to start, so the ‘synopsis’ file when you expand the .zip is the first key that we’ll run our species through, and it’ll guide us to which key to go to from there; in an actual physical lichen key, this key will be the first one in the book. for the purposes of this, im gonna imagine i’m trying to identify the (common where i live) species Xanthoria candelaria, which is pretty distinctive from the fact that most things in the Xanthoria lichen genus are like, bright orange or yellow:

okay. so. here’s the first page.

so right away we have our first pair. if we take a sample from our lichen and put it under a microscope, and the algae we see is a blue-green color, it’s a lichen that has a cyanobacteria symbiont instead of a normal green algae symbiont, so it’s pretty easily narrowed down within the category of ‘Lads With Strange Inner Lads’ and therefore sends us to the cyanolichen key. Xanthoria has a normal green algae symbiont, so we’re directed to the second pair, where we’re asked about the growth form of the lichen. this lichen has the foliose growth form (kind of off the shits, but also pretty restrained), so we’re on to the third pair. 

aaannd we hit our first redirect to a separate, more specific key; our lichen is foliose, which leads us to the fourth pair, which leads us to the foliose key. so far, pretty simple. unfortunately, depending on what you’re working with, things can tend to get pretty spicy after the main key; like, the farthest i’ve ever gotten lost in a key like this was probably around 150-170(?) pairs in, and that was with a really ambiguous lichen that i kept hitting dead ends with (kept getting redirected to a slew of wrong species on). easy identifications usually take me like, 15 minutes, while the hardest ones (like the 150 pair multiple-key monstrosity) can take me up to four hours or more. it really varies. 

so like, for a technical key like this it helps to have a grasp on the vocab around the organisms you’re trying to identify, BUT there ARE a bunch of ID sites you can find online that use the same concept in a waaayyy more accessible way, like the gobotany general plant key here. like, i’m good with lichens, but for most plants i don’t think i’d be able to go like, full-on scientific dichotomous key like that. anyway thats probably more of an in-depth explanation than u wanted but yeah lmao