Gender Flow

It is time to adress a very old question regarding grifix: biological gender.

As it is well known, grifix do not reproduce sexually. They reproduce through magic. So it was asked pretty early in the species' creation... what defies their gender? What organs do they have and so on...

Well for once I am here to explain... at least part of it.

Well, to begin with, grifix biological gender is mostly defied by their body characteristics: size, shape, bones... as well as hormones and such stuff.

Sexual organs are... not exactly present for grifix, at least not in the way they are for other animals. About this subject I won't talk much, I don't really have an answer for it, nor do I plan to find one. All I know is that males and females are almost identical in terms of sexual organs.

Do grifix have milk to feed their young? This is a subject for some other time. I don't have an answer for it yet.

So let's get to the actual subject of today... The biological gender, and the effect of grifix magic on it.

It is well known that the grifix magic acts on the belief of the grifix, and if one thing is believed strongly enough it can manifest it.

And so... the belief of a grifix can even impact their bilogical gender. In other words, they can naturally transition from one gender to another by their will alone. 

Basically if a grifix feels very much like another gender, their magic will alter their hormone production, which will then cause a transition, similar to humans, except it happens naturally. The magic will also alter other kind of stuff that can't be changed by hormones, but still, it has it's limits.

When transitioning, the grifix will change their facial features, musculature, voice. Their bone structure can not, however, be changed if the grifix is fully grown, but it will be impacted if they are a child, growing up.

Transitioning lasts a few months for adults. The older the grifix is, the longer it takes. On a baby it can fully happen in a week or even faster. That is because the body is easier to alter, but also because their perception of self is much more frail, and easier to change. 

As children, grifix can transition many times without even being aware of it. Babies especially transition a lot of times, as they have no perception of gender or self. And in most cases it is impossible to see by other grifix, since baby grifix have almost no gender differences. So the parents are usually never aware of it. The healers can tell tho - from the baby's magic and other stuff. But it's normal so they usually ignore. It is more weird if it doesn't happen at all.

Usually, by 3 years old, the gender of the grifix is more or less settled, but depending on the family enviroment, how many gender norms and stuff are imposed on them, they could still transition, and quite often. At this age it can take about a month to fully transition.

By 6, grifix usually stop transitioning. It is the time of their life when they have a set identity for the first time, and they usually simply don't focus on gender. Before, the gender change was triggered unconsciously. But from now on, it is much harder for that to happen, since they become much more aware of who they are.

By the early teen years, a lot of grifix rebel on their old identity. It is usually the last period of their life when they might transition. A lot of them decide to do it just to rebel against everyone, but truth is, if the grifix doesn't fully believe in it in their own subconscious mind, it won't happen, so most grifix fail to do it, cause they don't truly want it.

From 15 years old up, grifix rarely transition. Their growth is almost done, so even if they were to transition, their bone structure would remain the same. Transitioning takes from 6 months up to a few years.

From 50 years old up, it is almost unheard of of a grifix transitioning. It is unknown how long it would take.

Most grifix stop transitioning from 3 years old. It is not that common for them to transition when older than that, but still a good number of them do. Few find an identity in this. After all, it is natural.

Those who start finding an identity in their transitioning are usually those who transitioned after 15 years old. 

In other words, a grifix wouldn't identify as "trans" if they transitioned before 15. But being "trans" is not a thing for grifix, they don't use that word.

Facts:

✦ a grifix can be biologically androgynous

✦ other grifix's belief can help transitioning. If a grifix manages to convince the others that they are of a different gender, their magic will also help boost the transition. Because of this, babies spend most of their time in the gender the parents believe they are.

✦ sphirix can never change their gender after they set their shape. Before the sphrix shape ceremony, they can change their gender on will.

✦ most sphirix have the oposite gender from that of their grifix. 

✦ during the Magic Glow stage, all magical progress is accelerated so the transition is as well. However the Magic Glow stage requires a magic boost of some sort. Some grifix can learn how to achieve it through training or by having very intense emotions but all it does is stop the body from properly regulating the magic flow and if overused it leads to serious health issues, so inducing it every time one needs to transition would be rather dangerous.

Note: Night Glow does NOT accelerate transition, only Magic Glow.

Transition in the case of genderfuidity

The natural transition of a grifix’s biological gender is mostly influenced by the grifix's own perception of self. As they grow older, that becomes harder to change, or it changes slower. In the case of a genderfluid grifix, however, that wouldn't be the case, as their perception of their own gender would change quite quickly. But physical changes would still take a longer time, like a few weeks at least, as that is the speed the magic can work at. So if the genderfluid grifix changes their gender more often than that... they would constantly be transitioning, and never fully male or female. That would also be very soliciting for their magic, since transitioning absorbs a lot of magic continuously until it's done. Unless if this grifix has really powerful magic, it would wear them out and they might end up constantly sick.

This happened in the past and the healer found many ways of dealing with it, in order to help the grifix:

✦ One way is a certain potion that acts similarily with that used on abandoned eggs, and it causes the body of the grifix to use external magic instead of their own. But that turned out to be quite dangerous as the grifix can end up being affected more by other’s perception of them and it can have really weird unpredictable results. If used long term the grifix might actually become someone else entirely.

✦ More safely to use, there is a potion that simply stops the body from morphing from one gender to another, and it simply remains stuck often in a more androgynous state which allows the grifix to simply change their gender expression without having their bodies morph with it. This way their mind doesn’t impact their body so much anymore and their magic isn’t drained so much anymore. It is generally a pretty good option for most.

These potions are unknown to the divided grifix. They are known by Everfree Village healers and Frozen Empire medics, as for the Lost tribe and the Forbidden Colony it is uncertain as of now.