Animals are dumb, and everybody’s tired of pretending to care about Cecil the Lion. Now America has a new leonine heartthrob, and this one is perfect for our current golden age of gender fluidity.
Look out, Bruce Jenner. There’s a new ladyman in town!
Meet Mmamoriri the maned lioness. Nope, not a typo…she's a bearded lady! #SneakiestAnimals pic.twitter.com/zMbQ5zpQ0i
— BBC Earth (@BBCEarth) December 25, 2015
Don’t be fooled: Mmamoriri may look, act and roar like a male, but the fiercely maned lioness in Botswana, Africa, is actually the queen of her pride…
The lioness exhibits several male traits, like a mane with black fur and a deep, low-register roar, that she developed after her pride leader died. Researchers suspect Mmamoriri developed these typically masculine traits in order to protect her pride against other lions.
Just like Rosie O’Donnell!
Does this mean the savanna will need to install gender-neutral restrooms and impose protective speech codes? Maybe not quite yet:
She is just one of five lions worldwide believed to identify as both male and female.
I’m not sure how a lion identifies itself by gender — does it have a driver’s license or something? — but okay.
Hey, wait a minute… If Mmamoriri is both male and female, why call xir a “she”? That’s some cisnormal bigotry right there, “man.” Take your gender-binary prejudice and shove it right up whichever bodily orifice you’ve decided you possess today!
Nice try, transphobes.