I was just currios to know what would happen to an animal born in the wild that was either transexual or intersexed. Especially in social animals like Chimpanzees or Wolves, are they abandoned by the pack for showing gender non conforming behavior. I am just curious, as a human I have felt abandoned in many ways by my plight, I never felt like a boy, yet was never a girl so I was torn away from the entire social construct. I have often heard that in early human history up until like 1000 years ago, it was very rare for a transsexual person to survive to adulthood. Ie MTFs being unable to hunt with the men so the tribe wanders off without them and they starve to death. How true do you think this is, I do know that we have 1 of the highest suicide rates of any group of people around even in our modern day and age. So what is your theory on transsexual/ inter sexed creatures of other species that are basically gender binary like humans. Are they thrown to the curb, or are they accepted, lol. I am especially curious about creatures like Chimps and Bonobos since they are so similar to us. I assume it would be a very bad thing for their survival, which makes me feel really grateful to be alive today in a more enlightened age, and I am well aware that having a mind that has some characteristics of both genders can be a very good thing intellectually since we share certain qualities of both genders. ie behaviorally I am female yet have good spacial abilities facilitated by the effect of testosterone on the brain after birth. I know there are numerous cases of animals showing gender variant behavior in nature, and I personally know that if I was born even in a cave. I still would have been trans.

I have been looking for this issue in the literature for years, but never found anything; all the studies are about sexual (homosexual) behavior. I once asked an animal ethologist (behaviorist), and the answer was animals do not show gender specific behavior other than those associated with sex and reproduction. I beg to differ, but it is just my opinion

Happens all the time in the insect world, look up gynandromorphic insect specimens, they are the most beautiful and prized of collection pieces.  Typically, gender variance is a death sentence in the wild, usually contributing to the creature's demise before it is able to reproduce.

One time I was reading about transsexuality in rats. There was a "female" rat named Kelly who displayed traits that could be transsexual. She apparently behaved like typical male rats. She often struggled in attempts to mount another female rat. When a male rat tried to mount her, she attacked him and would have killed him without intervention.

Quote from: ~RoadToTrista~ on February 26, 2011, 05:14:32 AM
One time I was reading about transsexuality in rats. There was a "female" rat named Kelly who displayed traits that could be transsexual. She apparently behaved like typical male rats. She often struggled in attempts to mount another female rat. When a male rat tried to mount her, she attacked him and would have killed him without intervention.

damn, pretty interesting story (no sarcasm here)  i would never have imagined such reaction from a rat

Interesting topic.  It'd be nice if somebody could find some more information to share with everyone ;3. 

But wait, wasn't there a story about a chicken who had features of a male chicken and even crowed and everything?