So I have this cat. It’s a male cat.

But the thing is when I got this cat as a kitten I was told it was a female cat, and I’ve bonded with it on that basis.  The full name I’d given it is Nicotine Catbutt, but I called it Nikki, and I’ve referred to it as “her” and “she” all this time. And it’s probably affected the way I cuddle and hold and sleep with and relate to the cat, because I’m a heterosexual male mammal, so I associate cuddling and comfort and intimacy and cosleeping with females.

And even now that I’ve learned, three months into keeping it, that it’s a male, it’s an effort to use “him” and “he”. If it happens at all, it’s usually in correcting myself a second after using female terms. I used the precedent of Nikki Sixx to justify keeping “Nikki”.

And I know that I should spay and neuter my pets, but now that I know this cat is male, with testicles and all, as is typical with male pet owners I feel really weird and hesitant to have it castrated.

But then yesterday I was like “wait, why don’t I solve these problems with each other?” Because if I consider neutering not as castration but as, like, sex reassignment surgery, then I not only feel a lot more okay about it, but I feel like I can keep using female pronouns and considering the cat female and everything.

So basically I’ve got a transsexual cat.

I mean god only knows what the cat thinks about all this. Doesn’t seem to have noticed anything all along.