I WANNA BE YOUR FAVORITE CONCEQUENCE

Nova the velociraptor and my nameless Jellycat seal came to the aquarium at Loch Lomond in October 2025!

I love bringing Nova to places like this, she always has such a perfect expression of excitement and wonder (or sometimes a cheeky BITE! No eating the sharks, Nova!)

My seal got soaked by the rain travelling on the outside of my backpack lol oops, but he had a nice time as well, 'swimming' and hanging out with a ray friend!

- A donor with a scrotum the size of my head. When we opened it up, we discovered it was a MASSIVE inguinal hernia and a good 1.5 ft of intestine were trapped down there.

- A donor with situs inversus totalis, whose organs were a mirror image of what we normally see (ie their heart pointed right and their liver was on the left, just for starters)

- A donor whose right common carotid artery branched off the aorta waaay over on the left hand side of the body and crossed alllll the way back across the thorax to get where it needed to be.

- A donor with 4 lobes for their right lung (should only be 3). We named the 4th lobe the Lisa Loeb, but all of the students were too young to appreciate our sparkling wit.

- A shocking variety of penile and breast implants. Y'all would not believe the number of different ways science has come up to counteract gravity.

- A couple of cases of ectopic kidneys, where a kidney didn't rise to its typical position just deep to the lowest ribs and instead stayed in the pelvis.

My contribution: client co pinched nerve in L side of neck. I asked about health hx; she said, “I've got some extra ribs on that side.”

me: “some?” (!!!!!??!?!??!???)

A census can understand population level trends just fine without storing your assigned sex as part of your legal identity. They can ask for this information in the census. The census tracking population level data is not the same as your assigned sex being permanently part of your legal identity. (At least, the way my country does a census.)

Your doctor can know your anatomy by you communicating it to them if/when it is relevant. There is never a time when they might need to know something that could only be conveyed by your assigned sex being officially relayed to them via government documentation. You can just use your words. The same way you tell your doctor any other part of your medical history.

People respond to "the government doesn't need to store your assigned sex as part of your legal identity" as if they are hearing "no one should ever acknowledge gender or sex at all" but that's not what's being said.

Your birth certificate conveys important legal information about you. Your name, as a designation. Your parents, as they have a legal obligation to you. Your place of birth, as that place has a legal obligation to you. Date and time of birth, since age is important for application of some laws.

And sex. That's on there too. But what is the legal relevance? What laws is the government going to apply to you differently based on what sex is on your birth certificate? I can only think of one thing my government really uses that for, and that is to determine who has to sign up for the draft. And guess what, fuck that shit anyway. The government also used to use this to decide who is allowed to marry who. They don't do that anymore. For now.