A trans woman on HRT, Gene is particular about keeping her stock available. Generally comfortable in her own identity as long as she can self regulate, she presents quite masculine and shrugs off genuine mistakes very easily, but has no qualms standing up for herself against people deliberately misgendering her. Her partner is a cis woman and is putting a lot of pressure on her to sire pups through her, which Gene is very reluctant to do, her comfort around sex is declining and she struggled to see herself as a mother or woman if she's sired pups, she also has deep rooted fears over being a bad mother. This is both generally cultural and has its roots in her parents, whose failure to accept her as a woman drove her to run away from home as a teenager.
Gene has remained quite isolated from other Ki socially, and her closest relationship outside of her partner is with Mil. Generally she prefers to be alone, but struggles with loneliness, particularly coming from a society with such strong emphasis on extended family units.
Mil, a trans man on inconsistent HRT, benefits from his sabre inheritance and was already a large fairly androgynous person even before his transition. He struggles with a desire to sire cubs that he can't satisfy, which impacts his confidence in courting Chelsea, with her religious and cultural expectations. Mil has had two children himself, a fact he keeps quiet, he is in contact with one of his children but not the other. His regrets over being so distant from his children, the fact he didn't resent pregnancy and his enjoyment of penetrative sex bother him, clashing with his mental image of himself as a male Kathden, he dabbled history when he was younger, taking comfort in the complex roles of sub-males within prides who often crouched for the breeding males, while having access to their own harems, but the lion-mythos fetish turned him off and it's been a while since he dwelt on the topic.
Mil's relationships have been few and far between, and he isn't particularly inclined to pursue a long term partner/s. Despite this he has had casual relationships with people who've already proven themselves to him, notably the sabre adopted parents of his second child. He is more inclined towards sabres due to their already fairly egalitarian and androgyne styles.
Trans people (and their equivalents in time) in Ki and Kathden society have played a number of roles since the start of recorded history, and how they've been accepted by their communities has varied widely from place to place. Ki trans people have commonly been accepted in their gender roles as part of the standard in their societies, however their relationships, status and roles have been prone to change according to how they've conformed to gender norms, having children, while not usually technically barred to them, has often been culturally stigmatised, however there have been some notable matriarchs who particularly valued trans women as their consorts. Trans men in Ki society were generally ignored as part of the men folk, unless they got pregnant, which often forced them one way or another back into the role of woman. In pre-event modern Ki society, with matriarchs being limited to the heads of family groups, the pressure on trans people has reduced, and they are usually equal members of their family group or local community, in line with their gender role. It is highly unusual but not impossible to see trans women in the role of matriarch however, due to the expectation of lineage through the mother's line, and how the position is inherited. Legally the Ki are no longer tied to a matrilineal system, but culturally it is still widely practiced, leaving trans people in a cultural grey area in terms of inheritance.Â
Post-event things remained very similar, but for a time things did shift back to the older way of re-assigning gender according to events in a person's life. Childbirth and rearing is a huge stumbling block for many trans people. Generally trans women maintain their gender role irrespective of who bore their children, as long as they play the mother role, but it can often be a struggle for the woman in question to be allowed to play that role in a social setting. Once her foot is in the door however, she'll usually be accepted, if her children are adopted or sired through a donor (cis) male through her partner, she will have better luck, as these are considered already perfectly acceptable ways for a cis woman to have children. Some families/groups however will insist that a trans woman who sired her own pups is playing the role of a man and should live as such, effectively barring them from (bio) motherhood. Trans men had similar issues, while the inability to get pregnant or bear children is not considered a block to womanhood, getting pregnant/birth is so intrinsically linked to womanhood in Ki society that the idea of someone maintaining man-hood while bearing children is almost impossible to balance in the Ki mind, and just about any Ki trans man would find himself immediately expected to live as a woman if he found himself in that situation. This became less common as one moves towards the modern era, but in general Ki trans men are highly unlikely to voluntarily have children. Historically there have been a few matriarchs to appear to have actually been trans men, and walked a narrow line where their power allowed them to restructure the expectations around their gender.
When the matrilinial laws were still in place, trans women were unable to pass on their family line to any child they sired biologically, only being able if their child was adopted into their family and they were seen to have played the mother role, if their partner was a cis woman, she got the right to pass on her line above her trans partner however. The details of this varied from culture to culture, but generally trans women either couldn't pass on the family name or had second priority. Trans men couldn't pass on their line if they were still seen in their culture as men, but may be forced to if their partner was a cis man, or they bore the child/ren themselves.
Pre-event medica
l transition was widely available, both in terms of HRT and operations, for the Ki, who have greater dimorphism, there was greater pressure to medically transition, bottom surgery was also often used to 'lock in' ones transition, at the cost of fertility, as it blocked any accusation of having had pups, or the possibility of doing so in the future, outside of their gender role.
Kathden trans people have a very different background, as a species with a long history of prides of females lead by a single male and later polygamy. Trans women in pridal society might not get the chance to integrate as women, if that was even a possibility, if they were chased out of their pride before they transitioned. For those who could stay with their pride if they continued to live as women, castration was incredibly common. In some areas they were considered a 3rd gender, of which there were a few variations. In some places they were effectively seen as women-pleasers-of-women. More common in very large prides or prides that had to be more cautious of their growth, they were allowed to live as women alongside the women, with the expectation that they were Also playing a sub-male role, unable to reproduce, they were allowed to mate with the women when they were in heat with impunity. In other areas this 3rd gender was made available to non-breeding males, brothers, uncles etc... who the pride leader allowed to remain, they were barred from mating with the cis women, but had their own harem of the 3rd gender trans women. Less commonly they appear to have become a part of a gender role limited to All infertile kathden within a tribe, that had specific religious and spiritual roles.
Trans male kathden didn't have as many options, and were usually treated the same as any woman in the pride, many would leave and attempt to live as bachelors, but this put them at risk of other bachelors who might see them as lone females.
As one moves towards the modern era and the pride structure gave way to larger communities of family groups, trans men started to have a better lot in life. The 3rd gender became more fragmented and less relevant. One thing remained incredibly important, even up to post-even times. Kathden men continue to have a lot of social pressure on them to demonstrate their virility by siring children, while simultaneously carrying children and raising them is seen as a very feminine role (note: historically the pride lead male would keep an eye on the children when the women were working, this role was lost as communities got more complex), trans men are left in the cold, there is a lot of shame associated with having had children, but also with not having had children, it tends to be the biggest breaking point for kathden families when bio children come into question. Trans women come under less scrutiny in this regard, as there is an unspoken expectation that they will want children as women, and won't care how that child arrives, so while there may be some ribbing regarding virility if a trans woman has a larger number of children, it's usually not considered a mark against her feminity, as all women are expected to have multiple children with their partners anyway.
Trans women often played an important role in childrearing as the responsibility fell away from the males, as they often didn't contribute to the over all number of children, but were able to raise them. This appears to have been adopted early on in prides were the 3rd gender role was taken up by the non-breeding male's partners, who often were not expected to hunt and work, only raise the breeding-male's children (this doubled as a way of reminding the non-breeding males of their place in the pride).
Post-event operations are comparatively inaccessible, but HRT remains available. There is very low expectation for trans people to have bottom surgery, top surgery requires access to the larger cities and HRT access is often inconsistent away from the cities.
