Actually I think transgender Dathomiri Zabraks would be an absolutely fascinating concept. Like, Humans and even most other SW species have pretty low levels of sexual dimorphism, to the point that it’s decently easy for members of one sex to disguise themselves as another without any transition at all. But Dathomiri Zabraks are incredibly sexually dimorphic, to the point that they don’t even look like the same species at first glance.
The goal for most binary trans people is to at least have the opportunity to pass as cis, but whichever way they’re going, that’s gonna be pretty much impossible.
Transfem Dathomirians could get their horns and tattoos removed, but their skin is still going to be a different color. Transmascs could maybe get around that by claiming to have albinism or something similar (if that exists in Zabraks), but I’m not sure there’s anything they could get to convincingly mimic natural horns and claws. And presenting as nonbinary in any way is going to be exponentially more difficult in a species where there’s basically no standard of androgyny at all—having horns and claws is unambiguously masculine, but not having them is feminine, hair is feminine no matter how it’s styled or how much of it you have, any natural skin color you could have is gendered one way or the other, and there don’t even seem to be any unisex accessories or clothing styles in Dathomiri culture.
And on that last point, all of Dathomiri culture that we see is blatantly gender-segregated. Men and women even form two distinct cultural groups in their society, with incredibly little overlap. They live in different villages, work different jobs, and live entirely different ways of life. It’s quite possible that the first time men and women interact meaningfully with each other, under normal circumstances, is when they choose partners and have sex in their fucked-up selection ritual.
How fucking difficult would it be to be transgender in that kind of society? I have to imagine gender dysphoria would typically be much more severe in such a dimorphic species, and their society has got to be incredibly bioessentialist with how they view Nightbrothers as natural servants. They might have the magical technology to help some aspects of transition, but I highly doubt that the majority of Nightsisters would be willing to use their Magick to do that.
There’s got to have been quite a lot of transgender Dathomiri with how long they’ve existed, but they’re completely erased from anything we know about their society and history. How violent and thorough are their social control mechanisms? We know they’re pretty okay with members being outright killed for failing to live up to gender roles (look at Feral), so how dangerous would it be to openly break them? How deep in the closet must trans youth be in order have even a semblance of safety?
Honestly, the most viable option for transition might be just… leaving Nightsister/brother society altogether, either living in the wilderness on your own or with other societal exiles who are willing to do Magick for transition, or finding a way off-planet to transition medically per galactic norms, cutting yourself off entirely from Dathomiri culture. Both options are very difficult and isolating, but they’d also make for really juicy stories.
They’re so incredibly different from Human biology or any Human societies that their experiences of transsexuality are going to be completely different. Just. Ugh. I need to think about this more, it’s so interesting
