A few years ago, I wrote a short blog post titled “So You Think Being Transgender is Unnatural?” pushing back on the often used talking point that transgender people are unnatural.
That post has gotten a lot of attention recently. I wonder if this is related to the many anti-transgender pieces of legislation being considered and enacted across the USA. Regardless of the reason why, and in honor of Pride Month, it seemed like a good time to look more deeply into the topic of transgender animals.
First, let’s start off with some definitions.
Gender = The social, psychological, cultural, and behavioral aspects of being a man, woman, or other gender identity.
Transgender = An individual whose gender identity or gender expression does not correspond with the sex they were assigned at birth.
Gender Identity = The personal sense of one’s own gender.
Gender Expression = An individual’s behavior, mannerisms, interests, and appearance that are socially associated with gender.
Sex = The trait that determines whether a sexually reproducing organism produces male or female gametes.
When discussing animals that we cannot hold conversations with, gender identity becomes virtually impossible to really determine. How can we know how a Giraffe senses its own gender? But gender expression can be investigated in non-human animals. An individual’s behavior and appearance can definitely be observed. By doing so, humans can see if an individual non-human animal’s behavior and/or appearance corresponds with the type of gamete that individual produces or not. If they do not, that individual can reasonably be identified as transgender.
The Lions (Panthera leo) I wrote about in my previous post, and that were described in this paper, are pretty clearly transgender. To recap, a small number of lions are female in sex, but present male in gender. They have manes. They scent mark and roar to identify territory. They mount other females. They kill the cubs of rival lions. These are all traits that are very typical in male lions, but very rare in female lions. However, the bodies of these individuals produce female gametes. So, their gender expression (behavior and appearance) does not match their sex (gametes). Transgender lions.
Hummingbirds are another potential example of transgender animals. In a species of South American hummingbird called the White-necked Jacobin (Florisuga mellivora) a study found that around 1 in 6 birds with male plumage were female in sex. This is a situation where some female birds appear to be male, so their gender expression is male. However, again, the bodies of these individuals produce female gametes. It is not known if these male-plumaged-female-gamete-producing individuals display more male-typical behavioral traits, but it seems likely that this will be an area of future research. So, again, their gender expression (appearance) does not match their sex (gametes). Transgender hummingbirds.
Spotted Hyenas (Crocuta crocuta) are another prominent example of a transgender animal. Spotted Hyenas that produce female gametes can have genitalia that can be indistinguishable from that of Spotted Hyenas that produce male gametes. These individuals are more aggressive than males, are larger than males, and are usually socially dominant over males all of which are reversals of the usual pattern in mammals. Here again, the bodies of these individuals have gender expression (appearance and behavior) that do not match their sex (gametes). Transgender hyenas.
And we have not even talked about individual animals that are half male and half female (a situation called gynandromorphy) or when an individual animal changes from male to female or vice versa over the course of its life or when all the members of an entire species are female or many many more examples in nature where animals do not conform to the simple binary of male/female in both sex and gender.
So, examples of transgender animals can be found in many different species all around the world. Far from being unnatural, they are absolutely a normal part of nature, and this includes transgender humans as well.
Happy Pride!
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