Birds of the Week: Roy and Silo, the Gay Penguins

Our Gay Animal Month concludes with a pair of chinstrap penguins who revolutionized how we think about queer animals.

Wow, have you seen the EXCLUSIVE DISCOURSE BLOG GAY ANIMAL MONTH MERCH yet??? Don’t sleep on it!!!

I don’t know about you but it’s deeply confusing to me that it’s already *checks calendar* June 27th??? The year is…almost halfway over?? I don’t think so, man. That’s simply not possible. Alas, I haven’t yet figured out how to contest time itself, but if anyone reading has thoughts on that, please do let me know. 

In that same vein, it feels like we only JUST began our Gay Animal Month and now it’s already coming to a close! The injustices never stop. My only solace is that just like Pride Month itself, we are not actually confined to June 2024 when it comes to celebrating queerness (in the animal world and beyond). We own this blog!! We literally don’t have a boss to tell us no! Still, who are we without our traditions we take our traditions—especially when it comes to birds—very seriously. We want to end this celebration properly and damn it, that’s what I’m here to do. 

I had an inkling that Jack had something in mind for closing out this very merry celebration, and when I posed the question, he hit me with four of the most beautiful words in the English language: “iconic gay animal couple.” Sold! 

I’m happy to report that the choices here were numerous. There is a rich bounty of iconic gay animal couples out there! If you’re ever in need of a sweet, anthropomorphized listicle to brighten your day, the internet can and will provide.

But here is the most important thing I discovered in my quest, and something we must all understand: Penguins absolutely own the iconic gay animal couple category and there is not a competitor in sight for MILES. Sure, there are rollicking anteaters, frisky giraffes, and “sex-crazed bonobos,” but none of them have captured our hearts and minds quite like penguins. 

These couples have NAMES. There’s Buddy and Pedro, Inca and Rayas, Elmer and Lima, Missy and Penelope, and Sphen and Magic, just to name a few! There are so many queer penguin couples, I even found a blog from Tufts University titled, “What’s With All the Gay Penguins?” A great question! We’re not here to answer that though, we’re here to celebrate the #1 gay penguin couple amongst all the gay penguin couples: Rory and Silo.

Rory and Silo were—I won’t keep you in suspense here, they are now deceased as far as I can tell—a pair of male chinstrap penguins who were born in the 1980s and lived in New York City's Central Park Zoo. This is not them, but just imagine it is:

Photo: Paul Balfe

At some point in the ‘90s, zoo staff noticed that Rory and Silo were performing mating rituals, namely entwining their necks and doing mating calls, and later, the pair tried to incubate a rock like an egg (!!!). After observing this, zookeepers decided to give the nesting couple a dummy egg, which they tried to hatch as well. After that, they moved on to a real egg from a different pair of penguins who could not hatch it. Voila: Soon after, Rory and Silo had a chick of their own, named Tango, who—brace yourself—would later become gay herself for a time. Iconic lineage! 

While Roy and Silo weren’t the first same-sex male penguin couple to be observed, their story received widespread attention in part because of a series of articles about them in The New York Times. It’s truly quaint what that coverage looks like now, a decade before The Dodo existed and a year before the first cat video was uploaded to YouTube. Were we ever so young??

Photo: Christopher Michel

Roy and Silo became so famous that their story was turned into children's books and even featured in a play. Naturally, they also became the center of controversy, mostly (and predictably) among conservative and/or Christian psychos. Despite the media circus around them, in a lasting sense, they are perhaps most beloved for helping to popularize the practice of letting pairs of same-sex penguin couples (often male) adopt eggs, which has since been repeated in many other zoos around the world.

I had pretty much decided that Roy and Silo would be my pick for an iconic gay animal couple to spotlight in today’s blog before I even learned the next, final, and juiciest part of their story. Oh yes readers, there is a twist!! These penguins aren’t just trailblazers, they’re also damn good at keeping things interesting.

After several years together in partnership and then parenthood, things took a turn. In 2005, Silo partnered up with someone else! A female penguin named Scrappy, who’d moved to town from SeaWorld Orlando stole Silo’s heart. After that, the legendary couple that lit the animal world on fire was no more. Still, there was no need for drama or declarations that love was dead: Roy kept on keeping on, and shacked up with a different male penguin, named Blue. I don’t know if it was awkward around the observation window after that, but it sounds like one happy ending to me.

And there you have it! That concludes Discourse Blog’s 2024 Gay Animal Month. What a ride! Happy Pride, y’all, and thanks as always for hanging out with us as we celebrate birds, as well as animals of all stripes, and all sexualities. Mother Earth truly is a rich tapestry, and we’re lucky to gaze in awe at her work alongside each other.

We’ll resume our regularly scheduled Bird of the Week programming next week! Got a recommendation? Don’t be shy. Email us at hello@discourseblog.com.