The future is fungal? Unboxing gender and sexuality in the "lower plants" collections

This chapter examines how thinking-with fungi can open up creative and critical spaces for exploring gender as multiplicitous, more-than-binary and more-than-human. Historically understudied relative to flora and fauna, there has been an explosion of interdisciplinary scholarly and public interest in the ‘marginalised science’ of fungi in recent years. The multi-sexed biological nature of fungi have troubled taxonomists since the early eighteenth century and illustrated the limits and affordances of biological classification systems. With young people adopting an expanding taxonomy of non-binary gender and sexuality descriptors, this chapter will consider how engaging with the social and sexual diversity of fungi offers an opportunity to rethink gender and sexuality. It draws on data from a pilot study with the National Museum of Wales in which five LGBTQ+ young people aged 20–28 years old worked with mycologists and environmental artists to explore the fascinating world of fungi and consider what gender imaginaries they inspire.