Half-Male, Half-Female Cardinal Goes Viral, Has a Male Lover

Pennsylvania birdwatcher Shirley Caldwell spotted something unusual in her backyard this winter, a cardinal that appeared to be half-male (vermilion), and half-female (taupe), which was confirmed by an ornithologist to be a genuine bilateral gynandromorph (half-male, half-female). Caldwell’s photos have since gone viral.

By the way, birds do not have XX and XY chromosomes.  Males have  normally ZZ chromomes and the females ZW!  I am sure this very fact will make most TERFs and other transphobes internally combust.

There are also many bird species with several gender morphs. Not far from where I live there are two types of male flycatchers, some of them look distinctly male, while others look more like the females. 

Gender variance is not “unnatural”. But bigotry is!

Here’s National Geographic’s take on this story.