It's all my mod's fault it turns out.
So the bull mechanic, her name is Ineth, did get elected mayor. And then started making mandates. But because her unit screen only shows that she's a bull and she's muscular, I have no idea what she wants. Not helpful, bull lady.
So it turns out Ineth is married, and her husband is in the fort, another metal warrior/summoner. His name is Tosid, and according to his relationships screen, Ineth is his wife. Ineth was a woman apparently.
In fact, legends mode supports this, referring to Ineth in all contexts as a female dwarf. She was born in 40, became a recordkeeper in the Guild of Cremating, a position she lost and reacquired many times throughout the years, embezzling funds all the way to pay off a gambling debt she acquired in 61, became obsessed with her mortality in 80 and became a metal warrior in 84 at the age of 44. Still pretty young for a dwarf. She was cursed to assume the form of an animal in 113, and became Tosid's apprentice at first in 200 after being denied twice, and only became his lover and married him in 246. She'd had like a dozen or more lovers and half a dozen marriages beforehand, only one of which started before she had been cursed.
People just keep falling in love with this weird bull that claims through charades or something to be a woman and to have made various independent scholarly discoveries including why wheel and axle construction is effective.
I made Tosid mayor. Tosid has virtually no social skills. But at least he can tell me what he's mandating.
Since the permanent animal curse interaction is set up to be random and apparently doesn't carry that information during worldgen/between-games, I bet if I reload the fortress she'll assume the form of some other animal. Maybe one that has hands and can talk. Maybe the curse should only turn people into critters that can talk and have hands so this doesnt happen in the future. Or maybe it turns you into a different animal every full moon, like some sort of shitty random shapeshifting.