Call me Nevi. I'm a reploid, a faery, and a human. ✨Don't call me otherkin or I'll bite you like a goddamn rat✨ Human+, nonhuman, transspecies, ontopunk, voidpunk, plural. He/they/it. Adult and then some. Check my pinned if you need to know more than that.
Realized I never made a pinned post so I'm gonna do that...
Last updated 3/18/2026, I have definitively expanded the pronoun list lol.
Anyway hello! My name is Nevi. If you recognize me from anywhere else, no you don't.
Previously astral-actias.
I'm a nonbinary trans man who is also robotgender. He/they/it/bit/bot are all cool. Just pick one set that you vibe with and stick to it.
I run @other-nexus. Check it out if you're interested in a discussion Discord.
I'm over 40. It's kinda great.
I'm disabled. It's less great.
I'm mainly a reploid, from the Mega Man X series. Not any specific canon character, though, I'm just me.
I'm also a luna moth-like fae. This hasn't stopped being true, but it's very in the background now.
I also identify as human, because I'm living a human life in a human body in human society with fellow humans. Yes, I'm one of those human nonhumans. We're out here!
My nonhumanity is unlabeled with regards to origin and I like it that way. I'm an adescriptive nonhuman.
You can call me a reploid, a robot, an android, robotic, a faery, fae, fictional, human+, transspecies, speciesqueer, voidpunk, ontopunk, alterhuman, or nonhuman (our most preferred umbrella label). However, I'm not otherkin.
I think of myself as being from stories. Some of those stories are factual, some are fictional, and I don't draw a distinction between the two for purposes of identity. Reality itself is understood through the lens of the cultural and personal stories that one uses to navigate life. I've embraced that to an extreme degree and found it incredibly freeing.
I got the ADHD + autism wombo combo. If you think I'm being intentionally obtuse or inflammatory, but I haven't directly told you to go fuck yourself, it's probably just that my tone doesn't carry via text, or that I've misunderstood something.
99% of the time I'm not actually trying to start shit. You will know if I am, believe me. I'm not subtle and I don't try to be. I don't believe in making people read between the lines. I mostly try to be positive to interact with, even if I'm correcting someone or debating an idea.
I won't carry grudges if you won't. I'm not actually hard to get along with and I don't keep beef beyond its expiration date. If we've clashed before and you want to talk about it, I'm down.
I have no tolerance for intolerance. That includes those who profess a hatred of humans, humanity, or any of their societies or cultures. I do support those who have a hard time trusting humans due to trauma, but I do not support self-proclaimed, loud, or proud misanthropes.
I sometimes get far enough into my own thoughts that I'll lose the thread of conversations, especially if they're fairly abstract.
I'm the host of a plural system. We enjoy our plurality, despite our traumatic origins, and see it as a net gain for all of us. In practice we see ourselves like soulbonds in many ways and our plurality is not uniquely exempt from being part of our spirituality. Nevi (that's me) is the one most likely to blog here, but X occasionally has an opinion or two also.
I have very strong opinions. Like just in general, but especially on the topic of whether one can choose to be nonhuman. Short answer: yes. Long answer: yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees.
I don't care for DNIs. I don't have one. I probably won't notice yours. If I don't want to interact with someone, I just won't. If you don't want to interact with me, feel free to block me. I am fine with this and I would rather have no exchange than an unpleasant exchange. I am not entitled to your time, space, or energy just as you are not entitled to mine.
I support ALL kinds of plurality without reservation. Treating it as some kind of zero-sum game is truly ignorant. I've found that there's a lot more commonality between types of plurality than there are differences, and if someone tells me their mind(s) works in a way, I believe them, because they live there and I do not.
I do not support radqueers or transIDs. Transspecies is a harmless term that well predates transIDs and I will not be surrendering it to anybody.
Anyway I also do not much care for coining tons of new micro terms, making up flags, or mood boards. I block blogs who specialize in these so I don't have to look at them in tag searches. Nothing personal.
Nowadays, I see a lot of folks using alterhuman as a catch-all for not being human. While nonhumanity certainly falls within alterhumanity, alterhumanity does not exclusively refer to species nor is it synonymous with nonhuman identities (ex: otherkin, therian).
Alterhumanity includes but is not limited to:
Fictionfolk: An umbrella term that encompasses all individuals of fictional origin or hold a personal connection to fiction. This includes fictionkind, fictives, fictionhearted individuals, folks with fictional hearthomes, imagithropes, etc.
Factfolk: An umbrella term that encompasses all individuals who originate from this world as a past or present public figure or hold a personal connection people, places, things, etc. within this world. This includes factkind, factives, faitkind, faitives, facthearted individuals, etc.
Otherlinkers: Individuals who choose and create, or “link”, various altertypes to incorporate into their personal identity. Some otherlinkers aim to become the subject of their linking, whereas others may choose a specific framework they want the subject to fall under (such as linking it as a hearttype, a hearthome, a paratype, etc). The term otherlink gets its roots from the term copinglink(er), which refers to individuals who choose kintypes, theriotypes or some other altertype(s) to cope with a specific experience or behavior. Two more forms of otherlinking include funlinking (linking for fun) and aeslinking (linking based on aesthetics or appearances).
Otherhumans: Individuals whose species is human but not in context to humanity as we see it in its current state. Some examples include human fictionkind, early humans (ex: Homo habilis, Homo floresiensis, neanderthals, etc), and humans from alternate Earths.
Imagithropes: Individuals whose identity/ies are created and/or formed, wholly or partially, through some form of imaginative play. This can include fantasy play, roleplay (tabletop, text, live action, etc), fanfiction, writing, art, and more.
Heartedness: A broad experience in which an individual may not identify as someone or something, but has a deep, personal connection with that person, place, or thing. This includes folk who are otherhearted/otherkith/synpaths, talehearted folk, and folk who have hearthomes (fictional or not).
Archetropy: An identity in which one heavily identifies with or generally experiences an archetype, trope, or pre-established character model in a way that is central to their identity.
Plurality: The state of more than one person within a body. That said, not all who are plural may relate their plurality to alterhumanity. Whether or not this framework applies depends on an individual basis.
Dæmonism: The practice of communicating with one's internal dæmon, a thoughtform stemming from one's subconscious. A dæmon is also given a sentient form, typically a nonhuman animal of sorts. Can be considered as a form of plurality but depends on the individual and their relationship to their dæmon(s).
Soulbonding: A practice in which an individual forms a personal bond or connection to a fictional character and communicates with them from their headspace or soulscape. Can be considered as a form of plurality but depends on the individual and their relationship to their soulbond(s).
Furry Lifestylers: A subset of the furry community whose position in the subculture carries into their daily life. Some members have described it as "furry as a way of life", in which being a furry is inseparable and intrinsic to oneself.
Past lives, parallel lives and/or future lives also apply as alterhuman experiences and may intersect with previously listed experiences.
I have alterhuman terms of my own to take into account as well:
Archaeosapiens: Individuals whose alterhuman identity is intrinsically rooted in prehistory, antiquity or mythic accounts of history. Although I don’t use it for myself anymore, I can say as the person who coined it that species is not central to archaeosapience; it is the distinct connection to one’s time that’s central. Anyone of any species can be archaeosapient. Note: Archaeosapiens are similar to the Paleofolk community and may also overlap with it, depending on the individual and their relationship with time displacement.
Ontoplanarity: In referral to ontoplanar, which describes individuals who originate from planes and realities outside of this Earth. While one could relate this term to alienkind and spacekind, ontoplanar focuses one’s own point of origin rather than one’s species. In that regard, anyone of any species can be ontoplanar.
There’s also human alterhumans who aren’t specifically otherhumans. The idea that humankind as we know it is completely alienated from alterhumanity is a misconception, likely tying into the assumption that “alterhumanity = nonhumanity”.
I originally discussed this in the Alterhuman (Tumblr) Community but I felt as though I should make this information publicly available, especially with how the term has been sifting around lately. I’m not the first to bring this up, far from it even. If anyone who’s learned something from this wants to know more, here’s some posts to check out:
The finalized coining of the term Alterhuman/AHPI (x)
Aster’s discussion on alterhuman as an umbrella, particularly its conflation with otherkin (x)
Rani’s discussion on umbrella terms in the community, addressing erasure in folks’ usage of both alterhuman and fictionfolk (x)
Rani’s explanation on the difference between nonhuman and alterhuman as terms (x)
A thread of terms and experiences that tie into the alterhuman community (x)
I understand being excited to find a community that speaks to you. We’ve all been there!
That said, inclusive language is important. Even more so when the terms we use were already inclusive to begin with.
I think the best example I’ve seen to address this phenomenon is Aster’s example referring to queer and its usage. Queerness is vast. It is not synonymous with one specific experience in the LGBTQ+ community. That much is understood online.
In the same vein, alterhumanity is just as vast. It is not synonymous with nonhumanity, be it therianthropy or otherwise. It can be alienating for your peers to see it centralized as that experience alone. Alterhumanity is an ocean of possibilities and perspectives that should be recognized alongside nonhumanity. I encourage folks to look at it in full, if not use terms that specifically highlight what you experience instead of framing alterhumanity as only that experience.
reblog thread!! Everyone who wants to partecipate will share the date of their awakening (as specific or as generic as they feel comfortable) by reblogging to this post!
If we're going to go with a general answer here, because there's definitely been different stages, as far as the initial realization? Sometime around 2001. If you want to start when things got a little more specific thats about 2005.
If we want to talk about fictionkin specifically, 2015.
This is too far in the past now for me to be able to pinpoint a specific day and it was more of a gradual "oh you mean that's a thing? you know, that really makes some sense..." I was searching for stuff about "dark elves" (nb, I am not one, that just happened to lead down a path) in late 1997 and I discovered otherkin email discussion lists in the first half of 1998. I think I first turned up on the wyldefae list between April and June of 1998. (I never got any archives of that list, so I can't be sure now.) For larfs, to pick a specific day, I like to say it was Beltane 1998, but that's basically me making shit up.
(Maybe bonus points for having been subscribed to the Silver Elves' paper letters earlier in the 90s, which I had had a similar reaction to seeing their listing in the back of Drawing Down the Moon: "You mean there's really elves???" but although clearly there was something subconscious going on, I wasn't aware of the meaning of it yet.)
I don't have a very exact date, but I can get as close as month and year for it?
I realized I'm a faery all the way back in early February 2013, possibly January but right around that time. Calling it 'the start of 2013' is close enough. It's been thirteen years, wow. What the hell. I've been in it for a minute. My views have entirely changed since then. Wild shit.
Early or mid-April 2022 was around when I was figuring out my reploid shit. Imagine being a kind of extreme one-species-identity purist towards yourself, for almost a full decade, and then getting slapped upside the head with the sudden knowledge that you're extremely wrong, you've understood nothing this entire time about fiction and reality, and also you were applying restrictive standards to yourself for no reason other than fear. I had my blinders blown the fuck off. My blinders got in a forever exploding hammers car and departed. Turns out they were bad for me. Shocking, right? I've rapidly had to unlearn a lot of things and learn a lot more new (and kind of unpopular but true) things since then and it's been a hell of a trip. Wouldn't trade it for anything, though.
I had the trumpeter swan dream February 10, 2026, which is the only date I have for sure. I'm still not sure what to call that identity, but five months in I still feel it, so let's add it to the list since I've been doing that lately if someone asks for the whole identity roster.
I've been plural since I was a child (dat traumagenic undiagnosed CDD life u_u) but I finally, conclusively realized it and verbalized it as such to my partner on March 3, 2021, so I'm gonna take that as The Day The System Shit Clicked. But again, I've been extremely plural the entire time. Kanai helped trigger the realization on that date, but he's been actively and almost continuously around since the summer of 2007. And he's not remotely the first headmate we've had, just the first extremely distinct one. (And possibly the oldest? I'm not even totally sure that I'm the same headmate as the host back then! He might well be literally older than me!)
(Gotta give my eternal props once more to Legion and EnCryptid for just existing as themselves and being fucking cool and walking the talk. They showed me so much more was possible than I'd thought. I honestly do not believe I'd have this understanding of myself if I hadn't met them.)
On Therianthropy, Otherkin, Zoesthesia, and My Perspective on Subjectivity
This post might make your brain hurt, so take your time with it. As someone who was raised in a cult, escaped, and was forced to deconstruct the origins of belief in order to stay sane and retrieve control over my life, this topic is very important to me. Some of the thought experiments I put forth were originally defense mechanisms against others trying to rewrite my own beliefs with theirs. You may or may not agree and I don't necessarily posit that I am "correct" in my analysis; I don't really expect anything one way or the other, but I am curious what will come of it. I want to emphasize now that I do not necessarily think that anyone else needs to adopt this perspective, only that it is useful to me.
Yesterday I met face-to-face with a researcher to discuss the "zoesthesia" term I proposed a few months ago as a potential precursor or stand-in for terms such as therianthropy and otherkin. They brought up a number of good points. It was a delight to hear the insight of someone both educated in psychology and external to the community, and about some of the future studies they're still formulating (I can't discuss that at this time, but they are entirely unrelated to this topic).
It became clear that adoption of this term may be unlikely to aid many of the major social issues plaguing the community both here and abroad. Although it sounds like "synesthesia" - a phenomenon rarely, if ever, targeted by bad actors, zoesthesia may still be a hot topic for those who take offense to the non-conforming simply because of its nature. They did find it interesting that zoesthesia prioritizes experience over identity. Whether zoesthesia is actually adopted, improved upon, or thrown out, I have no preference.
What I proposed during that meeting was a slightly more refined version of the previously proposed definition, which does not necessarily try to include every form of alterhumanity, some forms of which I've learned may be entirely unrelated. After more discussion and thought, I refined the idea further. This is what I arrived upon:
Zoesthesia
Zoesthesia ('zo-esthesia') is the experience of sensations, perceptions, and behaviors subjectively interpreted as belonging to something incongruent to one's own biology. Interpretations and identities arising from these experiences are personal and diverse; zoesthesia can be present without interpretation, especially at early ages, but is often experienced as an embodied identity.
Individuals who experience zoesthesia have a wide spectrum of experiences, often leading to unique endeavors and forms of expression in social, artistic, literary, and professional contexts.
The experience of zoesthesia involves:
Experiences (e.g. sensations, perceptions, memories, behaviors, desires, social cues, states of consciousness, and/or involuntary urges) that are often subjectively interpreted as belonging to something other than one's own biological species,
Experiences that may vary in form and intensity, remain at a stable baseline, or become triggered by internal or external stimuli,
2. And may include any number of the following:
An identity or overarching sensation that embodies these experiences,
An understanding that one still has a human body,
Dysphoria regarding the incongruence between one's physical body and perceived embodied experience,
Dreams or trance-like states that are experienced through the lens of something incongruent to one's biology,
A strengthening or increased frequency of experiences after one becomes conscious of them,
And/or a personal interpretation of these experiences as non-human through psychological or spiritual means.
"Zoesthesia" is derived from "zoe" and "aisthesis" - Greek, literally "life perception" or "animal perception."
So why did I create this?
Obviously, this could technically be considered as a refined definition of therianthropy and/or otherkin. It does not deny the existence of spiritual experience or belief, but doesn't assert that anything we feel (whether interpreted as psychological or spiritual) is objectively "real" or "unreal." This avoids language that reifies belief as fact, since it is impossible to measure how objectively "real" something is in the first place. It also avoids the linguistic ambiguity present when someone says something like "I'm a nonhuman animal," which is typically inferred to be about one's subjective interpretation of reality, but can - from a purely linguistic standpoint, be confused with an assertion of objective reality. That kind of ambiguity has resulted in some individuals claiming that certain identities under the alterhuman umbrella are inherently delusional.
If I'd like you to have a clear picture of why this proposal exists so that we can have constructive discussions, I must assume that you're entirely unfamiliar with my worldview and deconstruct its basis for you. Before we continue, I would like you to consider the following terms and thought experiments and how I use them. I ask that you try to understand my perspective on these ideas. As I've said previously, some of these things are thought experiments informed by my upbringing and experiences. I cannot assert that they are objectively true.
If you would like to skip this, go to the "Current Definitions" section.
1 . Empiricism
In philosophy, empiricism is the view that all knowledge and belief is derived from firsthand experience, e.g. through the senses. This philosophy is the basis for the scientific method and the following thought experiment:
Consider that you may have already taken for granted the belief that a real person wrote this post and not just a collection of subatomic particles resembling a person. I believe it to be a fact that I wrote this because doing so is now within my memory and I believe that my memories were not placed there last Thursday. I might tell you that this is a "fact," but then you have to believe that I am a reasonably trustworthy person and that a "reasonably trustworthy person" is an inherently "real" fixture in your reality.
You also may believe or take for granted that the conversion of the letters you're reading on your device into concepts in your consciousness isn't just zeroes and ones but a complex process derived from quantum mechanics, psychology, or the amorphous idea of "the soul" that none of us can put a definitive finger on.
These beliefs are not empirically verifiable or unverifiable because we cannot physically sense the world on this scale (as far as is generally understood). Even if you use tools to measure the world on that scale, you then have to believe in the accuracy of your tools.
With this in mind, you may need to be wary of what you assert as "truth." The only thing you may truly be able to know without the need for reason is what you are currently feeling and thinking in this ever-present moment. Everything else in your head that you "know" (e.g. your memories) is made up with varying measures of belief. It is entirely possible that the past may not exist. Attempting to make judgements on that information can result in some pretty funky paradoxes, but there are ways to talk about experience without invoking belief. This is why I have structured the refined definition of zoesthesia to emphasize interpretation.
This thought experiment is a robust methodology known as methodological solipsism. If you still don't believe that any of this is valid or useful because you believe in another kind of philosophy, religion, or dogma...can you see where this is going? I cannot emphasize how important it feels to be precise in the language that we use so that we might avoid creating and promoting dogma while just trying to discuss and share our experiences.
Growing up in religion we are often taught that belief is virtue and that you must believe in one way or another. After all, taking the stance of "not believing" something is the belief that something is not. It seems like a circular dilemma on the surface and cults will often try to manipulate that intuition. I've since found that the responsible thing to do is to simply observe the moment and decline to believe in the first place. There are plenty of beliefs you can function without. The state I get into when I'm feeling particularly mental-shifted is a state in which belief and language is largely reduced or implicit, my inner dialogue is non-existent, and if I do think it tends to be in pictures. If one can exist and thrive in such a state, why don't so many of us ever leave that monologue?
2. Spirit
Often thought of as a force, being, consciousness, or presence
For the purpose of sticking to the concept of empiricism and the previous thought experiment, I would suggest that a spirit is no different from any concept that you can interact with in your head that is based in something you have observed externally or internally. It may also include any actual object or being in the external world (some would call beliefs related to this animism or panpsychism).
It is not possible to verify the "being-ness" of any particular object or animal, whether it is conscious or just a bunch of atoms playing the part. Just watch Vsauce deconstruct a chair's existence. You are free to believe that it is more than that, but that will dive us into spirituality, dogma, and paradox. I see "spirit" and "object" as synonymous with "concept."
3. Spirituality
A preoccupation with or capacity for understanding moral, existential, or metaphysical questions without the dictation of dogma.
Whatever you've experienced through your senses is something that you have come to know, and in that sense "spiritual experience" is just another way to describe firsthand experience that falls perfectly under the umbrella of empiricism. If you have the firsthand experience of going into trance and entering [what you believe to be] the astral plane, that is still received through your senses and is a part of your conscious experience. Even your mind's eye could be considered a kind of sensation. Your experiences, no matter how you see or discuss them, are inherently valid because you experienced them.
"Valid" in this context simply means that you experienced what you experienced and we are giving you the benefit of the doubt because we can't see inside your consciousness. To say something is valid is not necessarily to make the impossible assertion that your interpretation of your experiences is based in "reality." Good researchers try their best to maintain this perspective to respect everyone they study. To claim that someone else's experience is invalid is a just another belief that no one can definitively assert as truth.
4. Dogma
In religion, dogma is typically referred to as a collection of deeply held beliefs often passed down through generations. Those beliefs can seem "spiritual" in that they may have once been based in someone's firsthand experience, but this quickly leads people into a trap.
It can also be thought of as the rules, laws, and rituals you believe in. We create new rules all the time as we gain new experiences. If you're open to new experiences, you may find that it is possible to break whatever rules you've previously prescribed to existence. No law can be empirically verified as universal or eternal except maybe entropy - until even that breaks down at the event horizon of a black hole, which typically breaks our understanding of the laws of physics.
Some rituals may be useful to you, especially if they help promote or maintain your well-being. Practicing something like Tai Chi every day is a ritual that can keep your mind and body healthy. Actually practicing it and believing that it helps you (because you have, in fact, found that it does in your own experience) is entirely empirical. Believing that it will make you super lucky and start seeing synchronicities everywhere would be superstitious. Superstition is often based in dogma too.
You create your own miniature personal dogma every moment you look to the past for guidance. Even firsthand/spiritual experience can transform into a kind of dogma the moment it becomes a variable for calculating future actions. In some cases this is necessary for your survival. It can also become overblown and lead to things like depression and anxiety, especially in the form of trauma and limiting beliefs. Trauma can become a form of dogma, too - if it changes the way you live and behave.
Finally, dogma is often the result of:
5. Heuristic Processing
To put it simply, heuristic processing means that your brain makes judgement calls based on limited information. You flop three dates in a row with potential partners you were interested in and your brain wants to jump to generalizations like "Maybe I'm just an unlovable person, I'm ugly, I'll always be lonely, etc." And then bam, 6 months down the line your life is agony and you've done nothing to actually improve your odds of connecting with somebody, reinforcing your confirmation bias (also what I would consider to be an element of dogma) that you're just not cut out for love. And so the downward spiral goes. It is so tempting to do this - heuristic processing is the primary mode of the brain, after all. Years of reinforcement only makes the resulting neural pathways stronger and harder to move on from. This is especially apparent with addictions like alcoholism, which literally alters the structure of the brain over time.
Everyone is guilty of this. It can useful because analyzing every single point of data would be absolutely debilitating, but it is a double-edged sword I believe you should be aware of. Look for it and you will find it everywhere.
These ideas, and perhaps relativism, are some of the pillars of my worldview and understanding of the thing we call reality. It's not an exhaustive list, but was wholly necessary for me to break things down this way so that I could purge myself of the dogma of the cult I was raised in. I'm not necessarily suggesting that you should subscribe to these ideas, but now you should be able to see where I'm coming from.
Now that these things are defined, I can get to the point!
The Problem
I'd like you to take a look at the following definitions and see if you can spot the problems:
If you don't see it, I'll explain in a moment. In response to the initial zoesthesia discussions, TG also published their own "Definitive Stance" in the forums, which suffers from the same problem. The definition above remains on the main site. This is the new one:
Wikipedia's page on "Therian subculture" (there isn't one for therianthropy itself) primarily focuses on identity, but at least mentions "the broader lived experience of therians":
Therianthropy's Fandom wiki page is much closer to emphasizing the experience, if a little term-heavy and requiring the use of "therian" in the main definition:
Pluralpedia's definition...
There are countless others, but I want to focus on the first two for the moment. Both definitions for therianthropy on TG take for granted the interpretation of one's relevant experiences as "non-human" or "animal." By omission, these definitions can ambiguously be taken to assert that we know for a fact that there are individuals out there who are having non-human animal experiences and aren't just delusional or whatever else. But the interpretation of these experiences as non-human is subjective belief, not an empirically tested fact.
Saying that "therianthropy is the internal experience of being a non-human animal" as TG maintains is the equivalent of creating a "true" statement and then forming a hypothesis that might make it seem true. At that point, you may as well be practicing Biblical numerology or quack science. The problem I have with this is, once again, that subjectivity and objectivity are not crystal clear.
Over years of certain members policing labels and experiences, there remains an ache for feelings of legitimacy in the community. Many feel like if they aren't "committed" enough to their identity, their experiences won't be seen as real and they won't get to be a part of the club. Some such people are coming back after being turned away by sites like TG years ago. I'm not active enough in the community to know what it is generally like now, but I would be concerned if these attitudes remain.
Those who put forth the idea that certain sensations, behaviors, or lack thereof are concrete proof that one is or isn't a particular nonhuman animal engage in something known as reification. According to David K. Naugle's Worldview: The history of a concept, "Reification takes place when natural or social processes are misunderstood or simplified; for example, when human creations are described as 'facts of nature, results of cosmic laws, or manifestations of divine will'." Engaging in this itches at the incredibly human fear of social exclusion, especially in kids just trying to make sense of themselves. Some of these definitions keep the existence of this fallacy hidden by not emphasizing the fact that all of this is based on interpretation to begin with. This isn't an exact science and may never be. As much as one may desire for their experiences and identity to be perceived as legitimate by their peers, there is no empirical way to do this except to say that your experiences are valid because they're yours. Gatekeeping legitimacy encourages members to preen their experiences and limit their interpretations of them to a prescribed box.
This will not lead in a positive direction.
According to Therian Guide, we don't just have "therianthropy." We have suntherian, contherian, non-shifting therian, standard therian, polytherian, cladotherian, shifting, aura shifting, bi-location shifting, phantom shifting, dream shifting, astral shifting, and a whole slew of other terms. Point #1.1 in the definition of zoesthesia eliminates the need for this obtuseness entirely, reducing the need to use seemingly woo-woo terms like aura shifting, astral shifting, bi-location shifting, and more. I don't believe that these extra terms need to be publicized as part of an official definition, but instead as a historic note. Obviously I can't advocate for the outright removal of these terms and microlabels from the community's lexicon (this likely isn't even possible), but this all looks wildly disorganized.
Many of the other definitions on other sites (not all can be pictured here) emphasize either identity or a combination of experience and identity. Every site is different and some are better than others. Several have 5+ terms within the first couple paragraphs. For ease of understanding, I wonder if this may need to be refined.
Something I recently realized was that the younger alterhuman community is the only one I can think of that coins new terms every week to describe their own flavor of experiences. I feel that there must be some deeper commonalities that people are trying to get at. I believe that zoesthesia may alleviate some of those efforts, but I can only use it for myself.
I also believe that potential authority figures such as Therian Guide, as well as general members of the community at large, have a responsibility to avoid the promotion of magical thinking. By not educating people about the fact that the "non-human animal experience" is an interpretation of one's experiences as "non-human" rather than objective truth clearly within the definition of terms like therianthropy, magical thinking is encouraged. Anything and everything can start to become cultish when this responsibility is ignored. I'm not a fan of ambiguity. I bring this to everyone's attention out of concern more than anything. I was raised in a cult, which the new owner of TG herself rescued me from and helped me process. I've seen a lot of dangerous patterns that have left me observing from a distance. It is my hope that the future of the community is a positive and healthy one.
Okay! Finally got the spoons to come back to this.
First of all, I love this. Which isn't me saying that it's perfect or anything, but I feel like as a community we (general alter/nonhumanity, I'm not a therianthrope myself but I'll get into that later) are bizarrely resistant to taking any kind of empirical approach to discussing our experiences and identities. And like...why, you know? There's a lot to be learned there. And I also feel that as a whole we're wildly allergic to the idea of academia, which is really unfortunate. We say we want to be taken seriously but then we actively reject the currently existing route to being taken seriously¹, which I think is really counterproductive.
As someone who hasn't interacted with the therianthrope community, I don't feel like that's a label I can or should adopt. I do feel some kind of heavy draw towards the idea of being a trumpeter swan, but I don't feel like I can claim that I'm a therian. That entails a whole lot of social meaning and implications that simply don't apply to me. I am not following the same norms as the majority of therians, I don't hang out in those spaces, basically none of that. However, that doesn't change my experience of having experienced some kind of swan-ness. I feel like zoesthesia is a perfectly good and useful word to frame that: implying nothing further than the definition itself nor any allegiance to any societal group or set of norms, I have some subjective experience of being a nonhuman animal.
Where I'm less certain of the term is what the boundaries are regarding nonhuman and specifically nonanimal experiences. I am also fae, which isn't a known kind of animal. I'm also also a reploid², which is not just an inorganic thing but also a fictional³ thing. I wouldn't say that my experiences are tremendously different in kind, however, beyond those details. The definition and etymology of zoesthesia doesn't really include either of these things, though, or many other identities that involve having experiences of being non-living things; is that by design, or oversight?
Another question that I have is, is there a specific reason that the phrasing, "[...]a personal interpretation of these experiences as non-human through psychological or spiritual means" (emphasis mine) like the experience to being limited to just those two means? I ask because I'm one of those who does not attribute my overall state of alter/nonhumanity to either of those things, and while I do realize that the category could simply not apply to me in that case since it's in the "may include" section, there has been a major shift towards communal acceptance lately of other possible ways that one can identify oneself as nonhuman⁴ and I think it would be worthwhile to include some reference to that in the definition of zoesthesia.
I've very much experienced what you have in others trying to claim that they know my experiences and internal life better than I do and/or trying to claim that they have authority in labeling myself. It's ass, to be blunt. I shed every label that anybody else had perceived control over to escape it. I feel very strongly that we need labels like this that specifically cannot, be definition, have a gatekeeper.
And now the footnotes, because it was the only way I could wrangle the ADHDtism parenthesis habit...
¹ Yeah, I know it would be nice if society would just take us seriously without study, but if you have to start your thought with, 'If everybody just...' then you've already lost. Nobody will 'just' do anything en masse, that's not how society works, you can cry colonialism or whatever if you must but I'm being realistic here. I'm not saying, 'It's good that it works this way,' I'm saying, 'Currently it does work this way, value-neutral statement.'
² A type of android with free will, sentience, sapience, and human emotions, from the Mega Man X series of games.
³ Arguably, fae are fictional as well, being from mythology, but many draw a hard line between those concepts. I don't, but for convention and conversation's sake, let's draw the line anyway. Line-drawing is, after all, the great community pastime.
⁴ Phrasing it that way for brevity, but let's pretend I said 'possible ways that one can come to understand one's subjective experiences through the lens of nonhuman identity' or something more empirically precise. Long day, tired brain.
Brave of you to voice support for this idea considering the feedback so far. I appreciate the thoughtful response.
It has gone through several iterations, and I'm still refining it. "Nonhuman" in the definition of Zoesthesia was originally "something incongruent to one's biology." I'm not yet sure if there's a better way to word the fact that there's a difference between your physical appearance and what you are feeling/perceiving/etc.
On the psychological/spiritual bit - it may be better to simply say that the available reasons for this kind of interpretation of one's experiences are diverse. Also not sure what other options there are.
I clarified the thought experiment a bit more in one of my recent responses, too, though it is long. I may put parts of this in the original post as well.
Anybody who wants to take issue with me, my opinions, or anything I reblog is welcome to dash themselves against the fact that I block liberally and don't give a single shit if some stranger on the internet doesn't like my screen words. I think it's a useful framework for myself and I'll be using this term in the future. I think also that a fair amount of the response has been unwarranted bullshit that you did nothing to deserve.
Phrasing is tough like that. It's mostly the zo(o) that I'm getting stuck on, because the things I perceive myself to be are largely not animals. I do have two that are (human and swan) but the two that aren't only don't seem to fit because of the implied animality of the term. Otherwise, it's definitely incongruent to my biology to see myself as an android! But calling it zoesthesia doesn't quite seem right, just on the face of it, even though in every other way it does work. I'm not sure I've got a solution there either without accidentally fracturing it into a bunch of microlabels, which I don't want to do, nor do I think that's helpful to do.
There are a lot of more niche reasons one can identify as nonhuman that I think show up in broader alterhumanity and uncategorized nonhumanity much more than in therianthropy. Personally I attribute at least some of mine to physical disability having caused me to disidentify with the idea that my body meets normal human standards. It's an unusual take, to be sure, but I hesitate to call it either spiritual or psychological, because the main driving factor behind it is physical experience (though not the kind that most expect). I also see my identity as a framework for understanding myself in a narrative sense that I voluntarily choose to contextualize in the ways that I do, and while one can argue that this must be psychological because there are elements of psychology involved, one could just as well call it spiritual because it's a belief system regarding empirically unprovable things. I think of it as neither. (These are both simplifications for the sake of time, but I've gone into them more in the past.) There are other origin reasons beyond this as well that I could probably call to mind if I hadn't just woke up.
There's a tendency to want to compress the experience of oneself as other than human into an established binary of either spiritual or psychological, but I think this is an unnecessary and kind of prescriptivist step, personally, especially if one wants to discuss someone else's identity on its own terms. I agree that just saying that there are a wide range of possible reasons, is probably the better way to phrase it. I'm transspecies and transgender, I'm nonbinary in both senses, and I construct both identities in almost the same way, so having an established, external binary applied to me just doesn't appeal or even ring true. Even just adding "or other reasons" would probably be enough there.
I think it's a failing on my part that if someone starts talking about philosophy for long enough, beyond a certain level of abstraction I kind of lose the plot. From what I could gather though, methodological solipsism sounds a lot like how I approach identity and experience already, which is cool. I tend to take a very different approach to identity than other nonhumans, I think. I don't try to confirm or reject any potential additions via rationalizing experiences that I see as having a generally irrational basis (I can empirically confirm through examination that I am just a human, and others can confirm this for themselves as well), but instead I just accept that the rationality of any given experience is just one detail among many. I can't prove to anybody else that I am having any given experience, especially an entirely internal one. An outsider would readily believe that if I tripped and bruised my knee that I'm experiencing pain. They'd much less readily believe that I'm playing a video game and experiencing robotness. I already can't empirically prove anything other than 'I am stating in words that I experienced this' which may or may not be believed. Essentially I have an identity that I know will not really hold up to the very philosophy that I have, and yet it's still important to me on a symbolic/metaphysical/metaphorical/whatever level, and remains despite failing every rational test I put it through. This is fine with me, though. I think in the broader community most feel that they need to justify and rationalize their identities with a lot of data points that lend it a feeling of validity and weight (see how much data-gathering some do before they confirm or reject a new kintype or theriotype, and how much data-gathering others expect them to do for their identity to be considered acceptable to others and not wishful thinking. It's often a lot!). I just don't bother. If it makes narrative sense to me, I'll accept it until such time as it no longer makes sense, and I don't really concern myself with criticism or outside standards. We cannot see into each other's minds, therefore nobody else gets a vote about what I am, and I don't get a vote about what anybody else is.
I'm not sure if any of that train of thought is useful or even germane, lol. I may have meandered but they say you should do what you're good at.
On Therianthropy, Otherkin, Zoesthesia, and My Perspective on Subjectivity
This post might make your brain hurt, so take your time with it. As someone who was raised in a cult, escaped, and was forced to deconstruct the origins of belief in order to stay sane and retrieve control over my life, this topic is very important to me. Some of the thought experiments I put forth were originally defense mechanisms against others trying to rewrite my own beliefs with theirs. You may or may not agree and I don't necessarily posit that I am "correct" in my analysis; I don't really expect anything one way or the other, but I am curious what will come of it. I want to emphasize now that I do not necessarily think that anyone else needs to adopt this perspective, only that it is useful to me.
Yesterday I met face-to-face with a researcher to discuss the "zoesthesia" term I proposed a few months ago as a potential precursor or stand-in for terms such as therianthropy and otherkin. They brought up a number of good points. It was a delight to hear the insight of someone both educated in psychology and external to the community, and about some of the future studies they're still formulating (I can't discuss that at this time, but they are entirely unrelated to this topic).
It became clear that adoption of this term may be unlikely to aid many of the major social issues plaguing the community both here and abroad. Although it sounds like "synesthesia" - a phenomenon rarely, if ever, targeted by bad actors, zoesthesia may still be a hot topic for those who take offense to the non-conforming simply because of its nature. They did find it interesting that zoesthesia prioritizes experience over identity. Whether zoesthesia is actually adopted, improved upon, or thrown out, I have no preference.
What I proposed during that meeting was a slightly more refined version of the previously proposed definition, which does not necessarily try to include every form of alterhumanity, some forms of which I've learned may be entirely unrelated. After more discussion and thought, I refined the idea further. This is what I arrived upon:
Zoesthesia
Zoesthesia ('zo-esthesia') is the experience of sensations, perceptions, and behaviors subjectively interpreted as belonging to something incongruent to one's own biology. Interpretations and identities arising from these experiences are personal and diverse; zoesthesia can be present without interpretation, especially at early ages, but is often experienced as an embodied identity.
Individuals who experience zoesthesia have a wide spectrum of experiences, often leading to unique endeavors and forms of expression in social, artistic, literary, and professional contexts.
The experience of zoesthesia involves:
Experiences (e.g. sensations, perceptions, memories, behaviors, desires, social cues, states of consciousness, and/or involuntary urges) that are often subjectively interpreted as belonging to something other than one's own biological species,
Experiences that may vary in form and intensity, remain at a stable baseline, or become triggered by internal or external stimuli,
2. And may include any number of the following:
An identity or overarching sensation that embodies these experiences,
An understanding that one still has a human body,
Dysphoria regarding the incongruence between one's physical body and perceived embodied experience,
Dreams or trance-like states that are experienced through the lens of something incongruent to one's biology,
A strengthening or increased frequency of experiences after one becomes conscious of them,
And/or a personal interpretation of these experiences as non-human through psychological or spiritual means.
"Zoesthesia" is derived from "zoe" and "aisthesis" - Greek, literally "life perception" or "animal perception."
So why did I create this?
Obviously, this could technically be considered as a refined definition of therianthropy and/or otherkin. It does not deny the existence of spiritual experience or belief, but doesn't assert that anything we feel (whether interpreted as psychological or spiritual) is objectively "real" or "unreal." This avoids language that reifies belief as fact, since it is impossible to measure how objectively "real" something is in the first place. It also avoids the linguistic ambiguity present when someone says something like "I'm a nonhuman animal," which is typically inferred to be about one's subjective interpretation of reality, but can - from a purely linguistic standpoint, be confused with an assertion of objective reality. That kind of ambiguity has resulted in some individuals claiming that certain identities under the alterhuman umbrella are inherently delusional.
If I'd like you to have a clear picture of why this proposal exists so that we can have constructive discussions, I must assume that you're entirely unfamiliar with my worldview and deconstruct its basis for you. Before we continue, I would like you to consider the following terms and thought experiments and how I use them. I ask that you try to understand my perspective on these ideas. As I've said previously, some of these things are thought experiments informed by my upbringing and experiences. I cannot assert that they are objectively true.
If you would like to skip this, go to the "Current Definitions" section.
1 . Empiricism
In philosophy, empiricism is the view that all knowledge and belief is derived from firsthand experience, e.g. through the senses. This philosophy is the basis for the scientific method and the following thought experiment:
Consider that you may have already taken for granted the belief that a real person wrote this post and not just a collection of subatomic particles resembling a person. I believe it to be a fact that I wrote this because doing so is now within my memory and I believe that my memories were not placed there last Thursday. I might tell you that this is a "fact," but then you have to believe that I am a reasonably trustworthy person and that a "reasonably trustworthy person" is an inherently "real" fixture in your reality.
You also may believe or take for granted that the conversion of the letters you're reading on your device into concepts in your consciousness isn't just zeroes and ones but a complex process derived from quantum mechanics, psychology, or the amorphous idea of "the soul" that none of us can put a definitive finger on.
These beliefs are not empirically verifiable or unverifiable because we cannot physically sense the world on this scale (as far as is generally understood). Even if you use tools to measure the world on that scale, you then have to believe in the accuracy of your tools.
With this in mind, you may need to be wary of what you assert as "truth." The only thing you may truly be able to know without the need for reason is what you are currently feeling and thinking in this ever-present moment. Everything else in your head that you "know" (e.g. your memories) is made up with varying measures of belief. It is entirely possible that the past may not exist. Attempting to make judgements on that information can result in some pretty funky paradoxes, but there are ways to talk about experience without invoking belief. This is why I have structured the refined definition of zoesthesia to emphasize interpretation.
This thought experiment is a robust methodology known as methodological solipsism. If you still don't believe that any of this is valid or useful because you believe in another kind of philosophy, religion, or dogma...can you see where this is going? I cannot emphasize how important it feels to be precise in the language that we use so that we might avoid creating and promoting dogma while just trying to discuss and share our experiences.
Growing up in religion we are often taught that belief is virtue and that you must believe in one way or another. After all, taking the stance of "not believing" something is the belief that something is not. It seems like a circular dilemma on the surface and cults will often try to manipulate that intuition. I've since found that the responsible thing to do is to simply observe the moment and decline to believe in the first place. There are plenty of beliefs you can function without. The state I get into when I'm feeling particularly mental-shifted is a state in which belief and language is largely reduced or implicit, my inner dialogue is non-existent, and if I do think it tends to be in pictures. If one can exist and thrive in such a state, why don't so many of us ever leave that monologue?
2. Spirit
Often thought of as a force, being, consciousness, or presence
For the purpose of sticking to the concept of empiricism and the previous thought experiment, I would suggest that a spirit is no different from any concept that you can interact with in your head that is based in something you have observed externally or internally. It may also include any actual object or being in the external world (some would call beliefs related to this animism or panpsychism).
It is not possible to verify the "being-ness" of any particular object or animal, whether it is conscious or just a bunch of atoms playing the part. Just watch Vsauce deconstruct a chair's existence. You are free to believe that it is more than that, but that will dive us into spirituality, dogma, and paradox. I see "spirit" and "object" as synonymous with "concept."
3. Spirituality
A preoccupation with or capacity for understanding moral, existential, or metaphysical questions without the dictation of dogma.
Whatever you've experienced through your senses is something that you have come to know, and in that sense "spiritual experience" is just another way to describe firsthand experience that falls perfectly under the umbrella of empiricism. If you have the firsthand experience of going into trance and entering [what you believe to be] the astral plane, that is still received through your senses and is a part of your conscious experience. Even your mind's eye could be considered a kind of sensation. Your experiences, no matter how you see or discuss them, are inherently valid because you experienced them.
"Valid" in this context simply means that you experienced what you experienced and we are giving you the benefit of the doubt because we can't see inside your consciousness. To say something is valid is not necessarily to make the impossible assertion that your interpretation of your experiences is based in "reality." Good researchers try their best to maintain this perspective to respect everyone they study. To claim that someone else's experience is invalid is a just another belief that no one can definitively assert as truth.
4. Dogma
In religion, dogma is typically referred to as a collection of deeply held beliefs often passed down through generations. Those beliefs can seem "spiritual" in that they may have once been based in someone's firsthand experience, but this quickly leads people into a trap.
It can also be thought of as the rules, laws, and rituals you believe in. We create new rules all the time as we gain new experiences. If you're open to new experiences, you may find that it is possible to break whatever rules you've previously prescribed to existence. No law can be empirically verified as universal or eternal except maybe entropy - until even that breaks down at the event horizon of a black hole, which typically breaks our understanding of the laws of physics.
Some rituals may be useful to you, especially if they help promote or maintain your well-being. Practicing something like Tai Chi every day is a ritual that can keep your mind and body healthy. Actually practicing it and believing that it helps you (because you have, in fact, found that it does in your own experience) is entirely empirical. Believing that it will make you super lucky and start seeing synchronicities everywhere would be superstitious. Superstition is often based in dogma too.
You create your own miniature personal dogma every moment you look to the past for guidance. Even firsthand/spiritual experience can transform into a kind of dogma the moment it becomes a variable for calculating future actions. In some cases this is necessary for your survival. It can also become overblown and lead to things like depression and anxiety, especially in the form of trauma and limiting beliefs. Trauma can become a form of dogma, too - if it changes the way you live and behave.
Finally, dogma is often the result of:
5. Heuristic Processing
To put it simply, heuristic processing means that your brain makes judgement calls based on limited information. You flop three dates in a row with potential partners you were interested in and your brain wants to jump to generalizations like "Maybe I'm just an unlovable person, I'm ugly, I'll always be lonely, etc." And then bam, 6 months down the line your life is agony and you've done nothing to actually improve your odds of connecting with somebody, reinforcing your confirmation bias (also what I would consider to be an element of dogma) that you're just not cut out for love. And so the downward spiral goes. It is so tempting to do this - heuristic processing is the primary mode of the brain, after all. Years of reinforcement only makes the resulting neural pathways stronger and harder to move on from. This is especially apparent with addictions like alcoholism, which literally alters the structure of the brain over time.
Everyone is guilty of this. It can useful because analyzing every single point of data would be absolutely debilitating, but it is a double-edged sword I believe you should be aware of. Look for it and you will find it everywhere.
These ideas, and perhaps relativism, are some of the pillars of my worldview and understanding of the thing we call reality. It's not an exhaustive list, but was wholly necessary for me to break things down this way so that I could purge myself of the dogma of the cult I was raised in. I'm not necessarily suggesting that you should subscribe to these ideas, but now you should be able to see where I'm coming from.
Now that these things are defined, I can get to the point!
The Problem
I'd like you to take a look at the following definitions and see if you can spot the problems:
If you don't see it, I'll explain in a moment. In response to the initial zoesthesia discussions, TG also published their own "Definitive Stance" in the forums, which suffers from the same problem. The definition above remains on the main site. This is the new one:
Wikipedia's page on "Therian subculture" (there isn't one for therianthropy itself) primarily focuses on identity, but at least mentions "the broader lived experience of therians":
Therianthropy's Fandom wiki page is much closer to emphasizing the experience, if a little term-heavy and requiring the use of "therian" in the main definition:
Pluralpedia's definition...
There are countless others, but I want to focus on the first two for the moment. Both definitions for therianthropy on TG take for granted the interpretation of one's relevant experiences as "non-human" or "animal." By omission, these definitions can ambiguously be taken to assert that we know for a fact that there are individuals out there who are having non-human animal experiences and aren't just delusional or whatever else. But the interpretation of these experiences as non-human is subjective belief, not an empirically tested fact.
Saying that "therianthropy is the internal experience of being a non-human animal" as TG maintains is the equivalent of creating a "true" statement and then forming a hypothesis that might make it seem true. At that point, you may as well be practicing Biblical numerology or quack science. The problem I have with this is, once again, that subjectivity and objectivity are not crystal clear.
Over years of certain members policing labels and experiences, there remains an ache for feelings of legitimacy in the community. Many feel like if they aren't "committed" enough to their identity, their experiences won't be seen as real and they won't get to be a part of the club. Some such people are coming back after being turned away by sites like TG years ago. I'm not active enough in the community to know what it is generally like now, but I would be concerned if these attitudes remain.
Those who put forth the idea that certain sensations, behaviors, or lack thereof are concrete proof that one is or isn't a particular nonhuman animal engage in something known as reification. According to David K. Naugle's Worldview: The history of a concept, "Reification takes place when natural or social processes are misunderstood or simplified; for example, when human creations are described as 'facts of nature, results of cosmic laws, or manifestations of divine will'." Engaging in this itches at the incredibly human fear of social exclusion, especially in kids just trying to make sense of themselves. Some of these definitions keep the existence of this fallacy hidden by not emphasizing the fact that all of this is based on interpretation to begin with. This isn't an exact science and may never be. As much as one may desire for their experiences and identity to be perceived as legitimate by their peers, there is no empirical way to do this except to say that your experiences are valid because they're yours. Gatekeeping legitimacy encourages members to preen their experiences and limit their interpretations of them to a prescribed box.
This will not lead in a positive direction.
According to Therian Guide, we don't just have "therianthropy." We have suntherian, contherian, non-shifting therian, standard therian, polytherian, cladotherian, shifting, aura shifting, bi-location shifting, phantom shifting, dream shifting, astral shifting, and a whole slew of other terms. Point #1.1 in the definition of zoesthesia eliminates the need for this obtuseness entirely, reducing the need to use seemingly woo-woo terms like aura shifting, astral shifting, bi-location shifting, and more. I don't believe that these extra terms need to be publicized as part of an official definition, but instead as a historic note. Obviously I can't advocate for the outright removal of these terms and microlabels from the community's lexicon (this likely isn't even possible), but this all looks wildly disorganized.
Many of the other definitions on other sites (not all can be pictured here) emphasize either identity or a combination of experience and identity. Every site is different and some are better than others. Several have 5+ terms within the first couple paragraphs. For ease of understanding, I wonder if this may need to be refined.
Something I recently realized was that the younger alterhuman community is the only one I can think of that coins new terms every week to describe their own flavor of experiences. I feel that there must be some deeper commonalities that people are trying to get at. I believe that zoesthesia may alleviate some of those efforts, but I can only use it for myself.
I also believe that potential authority figures such as Therian Guide, as well as general members of the community at large, have a responsibility to avoid the promotion of magical thinking. By not educating people about the fact that the "non-human animal experience" is an interpretation of one's experiences as "non-human" rather than objective truth clearly within the definition of terms like therianthropy, magical thinking is encouraged. Anything and everything can start to become cultish when this responsibility is ignored. I'm not a fan of ambiguity. I bring this to everyone's attention out of concern more than anything. I was raised in a cult, which the new owner of TG herself rescued me from and helped me process. I've seen a lot of dangerous patterns that have left me observing from a distance. It is my hope that the future of the community is a positive and healthy one.
Okay! Finally got the spoons to come back to this.
First of all, I love this. Which isn't me saying that it's perfect or anything, but I feel like as a community we (general alter/nonhumanity, I'm not a therianthrope myself but I'll get into that later) are bizarrely resistant to taking any kind of empirical approach to discussing our experiences and identities. And like...why, you know? There's a lot to be learned there. And I also feel that as a whole we're wildly allergic to the idea of academia, which is really unfortunate. We say we want to be taken seriously but then we actively reject the currently existing route to being taken seriously¹, which I think is really counterproductive.
As someone who hasn't interacted with the therianthrope community, I don't feel like that's a label I can or should adopt. I do feel some kind of heavy draw towards the idea of being a trumpeter swan, but I don't feel like I can claim that I'm a therian. That entails a whole lot of social meaning and implications that simply don't apply to me. I am not following the same norms as the majority of therians, I don't hang out in those spaces, basically none of that. However, that doesn't change my experience of having experienced some kind of swan-ness. I feel like zoesthesia is a perfectly good and useful word to frame that: implying nothing further than the definition itself nor any allegiance to any societal group or set of norms, I have some subjective experience of being a nonhuman animal.
Where I'm less certain of the term is what the boundaries are regarding nonhuman and specifically nonanimal experiences. I am also fae, which isn't a known kind of animal. I'm also also a reploid², which is not just an inorganic thing but also a fictional³ thing. I wouldn't say that my experiences are tremendously different in kind, however, beyond those details. The definition and etymology of zoesthesia doesn't really include either of these things, though, or many other identities that involve having experiences of being non-living things; is that by design, or oversight?
Another question that I have is, is there a specific reason that the phrasing, "[...]a personal interpretation of these experiences as non-human through psychological or spiritual means" (emphasis mine) like the experience to being limited to just those two means? I ask because I'm one of those who does not attribute my overall state of alter/nonhumanity to either of those things, and while I do realize that the category could simply not apply to me in that case since it's in the "may include" section, there has been a major shift towards communal acceptance lately of other possible ways that one can identify oneself as nonhuman⁴ and I think it would be worthwhile to include some reference to that in the definition of zoesthesia.
I've very much experienced what you have in others trying to claim that they know my experiences and internal life better than I do and/or trying to claim that they have authority in labeling myself. It's ass, to be blunt. I shed every label that anybody else had perceived control over to escape it. I feel very strongly that we need labels like this that specifically cannot, be definition, have a gatekeeper.
And now the footnotes, because it was the only way I could wrangle the ADHDtism parenthesis habit...
¹ Yeah, I know it would be nice if society would just take us seriously without study, but if you have to start your thought with, 'If everybody just...' then you've already lost. Nobody will 'just' do anything en masse, that's not how society works, you can cry colonialism or whatever if you must but I'm being realistic here. I'm not saying, 'It's good that it works this way,' I'm saying, 'Currently it does work this way, value-neutral statement.'
² A type of android with free will, sentience, sapience, and human emotions, from the Mega Man X series of games.
³ Arguably, fae are fictional as well, being from mythology, but many draw a hard line between those concepts. I don't, but for convention and conversation's sake, let's draw the line anyway. Line-drawing is, after all, the great community pastime.
⁴ Phrasing it that way for brevity, but let's pretend I said 'possible ways that one can come to understand one's subjective experiences through the lens of nonhuman identity' or something more empirically precise. Long day, tired brain.
Alterhumanity rooted in disablity (zooanthropia, psychosis, delusions, neurodivergence, etc.) deserves to be seen and validated. Shoutout to my disabled aletrhumans ! You're cool and legit.
Hopefully you don't mind me adding to this, but I never see it talked about: it doesn't have to be a neurological disability! Physical disability is also a thing that can cause one to disidentify with a standard human body/role/identity/etc. and decide to label oneself alterhuman!
On Therianthropy, Otherkin, Zoesthesia, and the Responsibility We Have To Each Other
This post might make your brain hurt, so take your time with it. As someone who was raised in a cult, escaped, and was forced to deconstruct the origins of belief in order to stay sane and retrieve control over my life, this topic is very important to me. I also believe it is paramount to the integrity of our communities that you understand the material in this post. You may or may not agree and I don't necessarily posit that I am "correct" in my analysis; I don't really expect anything one way or the other, but I am curious what will come of it. If this community means something to you and you are willing to at least hear me out, read on.
Yesterday I met face-to-face with a researcher to discuss the "zoesthesia" term I proposed a few months ago as a potential precursor or stand-in for terms such as therianthropy and otherkin. They brought up a number of good points. It was a delight to hear the insight of someone both educated in psychology and external to the community, and about some of the future studies they're still formulating (I can't discuss that at this time).
It became clear that adoption of this term may be unlikely to aid many of the major social issues plaguing the community both here and abroad. Although it sounds like "synesthesia" - a phenomenon rarely, if ever, targeted by bad actors, zoesthesia may still be a hot topic for those who take offense to the non-conforming simply because of its nature. They did find it interesting that zoesthesia prioritizes experience over identity. Whether zoesthesia is actually adopted or not, I have no preference.
What I proposed during that meeting was a slightly more refined version of the previously proposed definition, which does not necessarily try to include every form of alterhumanity, some forms of which I've learned may be entirely unrelated. After more discussion and thought, I refined the idea further.
For a moment, as a thought experiment, I want to ask that you forget every term you know relating to this community and consider what I arrived upon:
Zoesthesia
Zoesthesia ('zo-esthesia') is the experience of sensations, perceptions, and behaviors subjectively interpreted as belonging to something incongruent to one's own biology. Interpretations and identities arising from these experiences are personal and diverse; zoesthesia can be present without interpretation, especially at early ages, but is often experienced as an embodied identity.
Individuals who experience zoesthesia have a wide spectrum of experiences, often leading to unique endeavors and forms of expression in social, artistic, literary, and professional contexts.
The experience of zoesthesia involves:
Experiences (e.g. sensations, perceptions, memories, behaviors, desires, social cues, states of consciousness, and/or involuntary urges) that are often subjectively interpreted as belonging to something other than one's own biological species,
Experiences that may vary in form and intensity, remain at a stable baseline, or become triggered by internal or external stimuli,
2. And may include any number of the following:
An identity or overarching sensation that embodies these experiences,
An understanding that one still has a human body,
Dysphoria regarding the incongruence between one's physical body and perceived embodied experience,
Dreams or trance-like states that are experienced through the lens of something incongruent to one's biology,
A strengthening or increased frequency of experiences after one becomes conscious of them,
And/or a personal interpretation of these experiences as non-human through psychological or spiritual means.
"Zoesthesia" is derived from "zoe" and "aisthesis" - Greek, literally "life perception" or "animal perception."
So why do I propose this?
Obviously, this could technically be considered as a refined definition of therianthropy and/or otherkin. It does not deny the existence of spiritual experience or belief, but in order for this to be a responsible definition informed by empiricism, it must not assert that anything we feel (whether interpreted as psychological or spiritual) is "real." This is not to say that it isn't. I find that it is much more constructive to completely avoid language that asserts beliefs as such because it is impossible to measure how "real" something is. Asserting a belief as true may demand that others believe you, which may be disrespectful and disingenuous.
If I'd like you to have a clear picture of why this proposal exists so that we can have constructive discussions, I must assume that you're entirely unfamiliar with my worldview and deconstruct its basis for you. Before we continue, I would like you to consider the following oft-misunderstood terms and thought experiments and how I use them. The way I discuss zoesthesia and the rest of what I'll say in this post hinges specifically on my understanding of these ideas. Take a breather if you need it - it's heavy.
If you would like to skip this, go to the "Current Definitions" section.
1 . Empiricism
In philosophy, empiricism is the view that all knowledge and belief is derived from firsthand experience, e.g. through the senses. This philosophy is the basis for the scientific method and the following thought experiment:
Consider that you may have already taken for granted the belief that a real person wrote this post and not just a collection of subatomic particles resembling a person. I believe it to be a fact that I wrote this because doing so is now within my memory and I believe that my memories were not placed there last Thursday. I might tell you that this is a "fact," but then you have to believe that I am a reasonably trustworthy person and that a "reasonably trustworthy person" is an inherently "real" fixture in your reality.
You also may believe or take for granted that the conversion of the letters you're reading on your device into concepts in your consciousness isn't just zeroes and ones but a complex process derived from quantum mechanics, psychology, or the amorphous idea of "the soul" that none of us can put a definitive finger on.
These beliefs are not empirically verifiable or unverifiable because we cannot physically sense the world on this scale (as far as is generally understood). Even if you use tools to measure the world on that scale, you then have to believe in the accuracy of your tools.
With this in mind, you may need to be wary of what you assert as "truth." The only thing you may truly be able to know without the need for reason is what you are currently feeling and thinking in this ever-present moment. Everything else in your head that you "know" (e.g. your memories) is made up with varying measures of belief. It is entirely possible that the past may not exist. Attempting to make judgements on that information can result in some pretty funky paradoxes, but there are ways to talk about experience without invoking belief. This is why I have structured the refined definition of zoesthesia to emphasize interpretation.
This thought experiment is a robust methodology known as methodological solipsism. If you still don't believe that any of this is valid or useful because you believe in another kind of philosophy, religion, or dogma...can you see where this is going? I cannot emphasize how important it feels to be precise in the language that we use so that we might avoid creating and promoting dogma while just trying to discuss and share our experiences.
Growing up in religion we are often taught that belief is virtue and that you must believe in one way or another. After all, taking the stance of "not believing" something is the belief that something is not. It seems like a circular dilemma on the surface and cults will often try to manipulate that intuition. I've since found that the responsible thing to do is to simply observe the moment and decline to believe in the first place. There are plenty of beliefs you can function without. The state I get into when I'm feeling particularly mental-shifted is a state in which belief and language is largely reduced or implicit, my inner dialogue is non-existent, and if I do think it tends to be in pictures. If one can exist and thrive in such a state, why don't so many of us ever leave that monologue?
2. Spirit
Often thought of as a force, being, consciousness, or presence
For the purpose of sticking to the concept of empiricism and the previous thought experiment, I would suggest that a spirit is no different from any concept that you can interact with in your head that is based in something you have observed externally or internally. It may also include any actual object or being in the external world (some would call beliefs related to this animism or panpsychism).
It is not possible to verify the "being-ness" of any particular object or animal, whether it is conscious or just a bunch of atoms playing the part. Just watch Vsauce deconstruct a chair's existence. You are free to believe that it is more than that, but that will dive us into spirituality, dogma, and paradox. I see "spirit" and "object" as synonymous with "concept."
3. Spirituality
A preoccupation with or capacity for understanding moral, existential, or metaphysical questions without the dictation of dogma.
Whatever you've experienced through your senses is something that you have come to know, and in that sense "spiritual experience" is just another way to describe firsthand experience that falls perfectly under the umbrella of empiricism. If you have the firsthand experience of going into trance and entering [what you believe to be] the astral plane, that is still received through your senses and is a part of your conscious experience. Even your mind's eye could be considered a kind of sensation. Your experiences, no matter how you see or discuss them, are inherently valid because you experienced them.
"Valid" in this context simply means that you experienced what you experienced and we are giving you the benefit of the doubt because we can't see inside your consciousness. To say something is valid is not necessarily to make the impossible assertion that your interpretation of your experiences is based in "reality." Good researchers try their best to maintain this perspective to respect everyone they study. To claim that someone else's experience is invalid is a just another belief that no one can definitively assert as truth.
4. Dogma
In religion, dogma is typically referred to as a collection of deeply held beliefs often passed down through generations. Those beliefs can seem "spiritual" in that they may have once been based in someone's firsthand experience, but this quickly leads people into a trap.
It can also be thought of as the rules, laws, and rituals you believe in. We create new rules all the time as we gain new experiences. If you're open to new experiences, you may find that it is possible to break whatever rules you've previously prescribed to existence. No law can be empirically verified as universal or eternal except maybe entropy - until even that breaks down at the event horizon of a black hole, which typically breaks our understanding of the laws of physics.
Some rituals may be useful to you, especially if they help promote or maintain your well-being. Practicing something like Tai Chi every day is a ritual that can keep your mind and body healthy. Actually practicing it and believing that it helps you (because you have, in fact, found that it does in your own experience) is entirely empirical. Believing that it will make you super lucky and start seeing synchronicities everywhere would be superstitious. Superstition is often based in dogma too.
You create your own miniature personal dogma every moment you look to the past for guidance. Even firsthand/spiritual experience can transform into a kind of dogma the moment it becomes a variable for calculating future actions. In some cases this is necessary for your survival. It can also become overblown and lead to things like depression and anxiety, especially in the form of trauma and limiting beliefs. Trauma can become a form of dogma, too - if it changes the way you live and behave.
Finally, dogma is often the result of:
5. Heuristic Processing
To put it simply, heuristic processing means that your brain makes judgement calls based on limited information. You flop three dates in a row with potential partners you were interested in and your brain wants to jump to generalizations like "Maybe I'm just an unlovable person, I'm ugly, I'll always be lonely, etc." And then bam, 6 months down the line your life is agony and you've done nothing to actually improve your odds of connecting with somebody, reinforcing your confirmation bias (also what I would consider to be an element of dogma) that you're just not cut out for love. And so the downward spiral goes. It is so tempting to do this - heuristic processing is the primary mode of the brain, after all. Years of reinforcement only makes the resulting neural pathways stronger and harder to move on from. This is especially apparent with addictions like alcoholism, which literally alters the structure of the brain over time.
Everyone is guilty of this. It can useful because analyzing every single point of data would be absolutely debilitating, but it is a double-edged sword I believe you should be aware of. Look for it and you will find it everywhere.
These ideas, and perhaps relativism, are some of the pillars of my worldview and understanding of the thing we call reality. It's not an exhaustive list, but was wholly necessary for me to break things down this way so that I could purge myself of the dogma of the cult I was raised in. I'm not necessarily suggesting that you should subscribe to these ideas, but now you should be able to see where I'm coming from.
Now that these things are defined, I can get to the point!
The Problem
I'd like you to take a look at the following definitions and see if you can spot the problems:
If you don't see it, I'll explain in a moment. In response to the initial zoesthesia discussions, TG also published their own "Definitive Stance" in the forums, which suffers from the same problem. The definition above remains on the main site. This is the new one:
Wikipedia's page on "Therian subculture" (there isn't one for therianthropy itself) primarily focuses on identity, but at least mentions "the broader lived experience of therians":
Therianthropy's Fandom wiki page is much closer to emphasizing the experience, if a little term-heavy and requiring the use of "therian" in the main definition:
Pluralpedia's definition...
There are countless others, but I want to focus on the first two for the moment. Both definitions for therianthropy on TG take for granted the interpretation of one's relevant experiences as "non-human" or "animal." By omission, these definitions assert that we know for a fact that there are individuals out there who are having non-human animal experiences and aren't just delusional or whatever else. But the interpretation of these experiences as non-human is belief, not an empirically tested fact. It's dogma (see point #4 above).
Some of y'all are willing to let physicists and mathematicians concede that what we call reality is inherently mathematical in some way, and yet fail to realize that mathematical proofs can't be fabricated backwards by creating the solution first. Saying that "therianthropy is the internal experience of being a non-human animal" as TG maintains is the equivalent of creating a "true" statement and then forming a hypothesis that might make it seem true. At that point, you may as well be practicing Biblical numerology or quack science.
In the early years of the community, members came up with the generally accepted terms and definitions for their experiences long before we had any evidence for what was actually going on underneath the hood - as a stand-in for what we hoped we would know in the future. But they ossified until they became writ in stone. We still do not have evidence to say with certainty that we are experiencing actual non-human sensations or something entirely different.
Over years of certain members policing labels and experiences as if this were some kind of cult, there remains an ache for feelings of legitimacy in the community. Many feel like if they aren't "committed" enough to their identity, their experiences won't be seen as real and they won't get to be a part of the club. Based on most of the available definitions for therianthropy, identity is implied as a necessary component when identity arises from interpretation. Is it not plausible that one might experience what we might all consider a "mental shift" and think nothing of it or simply not be able to put a finger on what it was?
There are those who want to put forth the idea that certain sensations, behaviors, or lack thereof are concrete proof that one is or isn't a particular animal. This itches at the incredibly human fear of social exclusion, especially in kids just trying to make sense of themselves. These definitions inherently promote these attitudes by not emphasizing the fact that all of this is based on interpretation to begin with. This isn't an exact science and may never be. As much as one may desire for their experiences and identity to be perceived as legitimate by their peers, there is no empirical way to do this except to say that your experiences are valid because they're yours. Gatekeeping legitimacy turns the therian community into a kind of cult that encourages members to preen their experiences and limit their interpretations of them to a prescribed box.
This is not leading in a positive direction.
According to Therian Guide, we don't just have "therianthropy." We have suntherian, contherian, non-shifting therian, standard therian, polytherian, cladotherian, shifting, aura shifting, bi-location shifting, phantom shifting, dream shifting, astral shifting, and a whole slew of other terms. From an outside observer looking in, this makes it look like a cult. Point #1.1 in the definition of zoesthesia eliminates the need for this obtuseness entirely, reducing the need to use seemingly woo-woo terms like aura shifting, astral shifting, bi-location shifting, and more. I don't believe that these extra terms need to be publicized as part of an official definition, but instead as a historic note. Obviously I can't advocate for the outright removal of these terms and microlabels from the community's lexicon (this likely isn't even possible), but this all looks wildly disorganized.
Many of the other definitions on other sites (not all can be pictured here) emphasize either identity or a combination of experience and identity. Every site is different and some are better than others. Several have 5+ terms within the first couple paragraphs.
Zoesthesia's definition contains one novel term: zoesthesia.
Something I recently realized was that the younger alterhuman community is the only one I can think of that coins new terms every week to describe their own flavor of experiences. I feel that there must be some deeper commonalities that people are trying to get at. I believe that my proposal of zoesthesia may alleviate some of those efforts. If we could iron this out, it may allow us to focus more on what matters: sharing in our experiences and connecting with each other.
I also believe that potential authority figures such as Therian Guide, as well as general members of the community at large, have a responsibility to avoid the promotion of magical thinking. By not educating people about the fact that the "non-human animal experience" is an interpretation of one's experiences as "non-human" rather than an undeniable fact of existence clearly within the definition of therianthropy, magical thinking is encouraged. Anything and everything can become a cult when this responsibility is ignored. I bring this to everyone's attention out of concern more than anything. I was raised in a cult, which the new owner of TG herself rescued me from and helped me process. I can only hope that this responsibility is understood, for the sake of the integrity of the community.
I am requesting that this proposal be formally considered and debated amongst yourselves so that a decision can be made regarding how to proceed. I believe the threat of these communities becoming cult-like began long ago, and I think it is damaging the community as a whole. While many in the community may be more "spiritually minded" and think that means that the scientific method is irrelevant to their experiences, I think it behooves everyone to approach these topics with a dose of neutrality, curiosity, and empiricism.
Since drafting this post and sharing parts of it on TG, I've been told that I'm just "overly sensitive to cults" because of the horrible things I went through. I've been assured that their community is much healthier now because of the large monthly influx of new members. I've been told that empiricism is a form of gatekeeping and that therianthropy does not need to be seen as "valid" by science.
This attitude isn't strictly a TG problem, but we do have a problem.
I understand people's distrust of modern science and psychiatry. Yes, it moves slowly, its history has been riddled with injustice and corruption, and we have a dysfunctional medical and pharmaceutical industry that we don't want involved in potentially purging us of our experiences. I want it to be crystal clear that I do not condone corruption, injustice, or systemic racism. But empiricism isn't about gatekeeping at all. It's simply asking "What can we truly know based on our senses and available data?" If you assert that you know something that cannot be "known" without belief, you may be wishful thinking or jumping the gun in an attempt to drum up feelings of legimitacy. Everyone has a right to do this, but if you speak as an authority in a way that makes a held belief seem like fact, you aren't far from exhibiting cult-like behaviors.
Most of you have never physically stood in a room with 50 other people telling you that you're the one who's wrong because the status quo was more important for them to maintain. Where the illusions of the cult were more important to maintain.
I am wary of cults, but more importantly, I am highly perceptive of the concessions people make against rationality that often lead to a state of mutually reinforced delusion. No particular group is immune to this, even if you'd like to think of your own group as wiser than humans.
It goes deeper than that too. I have had to refine the way that I speak because I used to speak in very non-constructive ways, and it felt like people hated me for it. Because I "spoke my mind." Because I was "honest and direct." In truth, I was hasty and felt that backing up my hastily chosen words with more words was the best course of action. It never ended well and I didn't understand why. Now I do.
I could've simply crawled back into my ego and said, "They'll never understand me, I'm just a pariah." When I was younger, that is what I did.
Now I recognize that everyone is constantly creating dogma for themselves - often in the form of limiting beliefs. People say things like "I'm good for nothing" or "That's just how the world works." They give up their power and their capacity for rational thought simply because something happened a certain way a few times. Even if it's happened a thousand times, that's no excuse to close your eyes to what's before you. We have a responsibility to ourselves and each other not to shoot ourselves in the foot for no good reason.
I've actively tried to fight heuristic processing on and off for the past decade. For my whole life, a lot of folks have said, "Just chill out man, you're trying too hard." And for my whole life I've watched my peers undergo spiritual and intellectual atrophy.
If I do not strive for some level of precision in my speech, to question belief and consider intellectually the logic behind what I have to say…if I let that responsibility go and let the world burn, the world I wish to see will never come to be. I personally know more or less 5-10 people who would ever care about this as much as I do. Maybe life would be easier if I did let go, but I can't unsee what I have seen. I wouldn't be able to live with myself.
Understanding the need for empirically vetted definitions and empirically minded thought has nothing to do with giving therianthropy/otherkin/etc. a scientific "stamp of approval." Instead, this is about being responsible about what you can assert as truth and what you must clarify as personally held belief. The alternative leads down a long road to authoritarianism and cult-like behaviors. Our society has a critical lack of understanding when it comes to these things and it shows. It shows on nearly every level of human society - politics, finance, religion, the whole nine yards. If humans go extinct or our societies descend into seemingly inescapable fascism, I would wager that it will have been this lack of understanding that did it. Science is necessary and it's why you're not going to die before the age of 40 in the year of our lord 2026.
The problem I've detailed may not seem important and it may even seem pedantic, but understanding this subject or not may mean the difference between maintaining the cult-like aspects of the therian community we all know and hate or nurturing healthy discussion in a thriving, positive community. If you are able to see the nuance, please advocate for this. No one else will do it for us.
Can't say I have an opinion on adopting the term one way or the other. I think that's mostly from what you pointed out, the terminology bloat. Every week there's another word for something you know was defined by someone else a month ago, on repeat.
The way you've described what it is, and the experiences… I like that. I think regardless of the label, describing it like you have is valuable. Shift focus to the experiences, the life itself.
"Growing up in religion we are often taught that belief is virtue and that you must believe in one way or another. After all, taking the stance of "not believing" something is the belief that something is not. It seems like a circular dilemma on the surface and cults will often try to manipulate that intuition. I've since found that the responsible thing to do is to simply observe the moment and decline to believe in the first place."
I like this bit, as it gets at a fundamental misunderstanding people have about atheism. Even other atheists get this wrong more often than not. It isn't "I believe god doesn't exist" as that implies we have evidence; it is "I am unconvinced that any god exists", because there really is no evidence. The distinction does matter. To claim to be rational means you have to logically analyze what's available to you, and the logical conclusion I come to is that there's nothing behind the curtain. Until and unless I see that there is, I just don't care about the curtain at all. Life is easier, in my opinion, without the need to believe in anything. Belief in things I can't verify mostly gives me headaches these days. Or at best, something nice to fall asleep thinking about. I/we used to need it though, so I get it, but that understanding also makes me impatient with it because I know how it holds people back.
I'm not as plugged in as I used to be, but I don't know how cultish things are lately. Ever since the physical shifting/zoanthropy stuff took off, I've gotten even more distant. It's hard not to see patterns and stay quiet all the time, so it's easier to just be absent.
"I also believe that potential authority figures such as Therian Guide, as well as general members of the community at large, have a responsibility to avoid the promotion of magical thinking. By not educating people about the fact that the "non-human animal experience" is an interpretation of one's experiences as "non-human" rather than an undeniable fact of existence clearly within the definition of therianthropy, magical thinking is encouraged."
But then you come out swinging with this one and I have to sigh, because we've been thinking this for a while, but it's one of those perspectives that (usually) ends in the audience writing you off as some stubborn greymuzzle or whatever. Black and white thinking makes my scales itch.
That's a lot of words for me to say "Yeah", basically, but I appreciate the novelty of going into this tag and getting to think critically.
I'll have to reread this a few times to form a coherent perspective on it (something that's unlikely to happen considering the reading funk I've been in lately - I haven't been able to finish a physical book for a year). But my first immediate thought is a question: How is the therian community's interpretation of internal experiences as nonhuman different from the trans community's interpretation of internal experiences as gender incongruent? Should we treat the two communities with the same type of empiricism, and would it be beneficial to do so? Sorry if that's a redundant question; my reading comprehension is not as good as it used to be.
I had no idea that I was going to get this much robot euphoria from a pair of pointed toe western boots...this sure is a surprise. But a very cool one. I don't even go looking for euphoria like that much, but I sure did find it.
These things sound so unrelated, but consider the level of Protomen brain rot I have right now. And that fact that I don't at all see myself with all these spindly metal screen head type of things, tech wear is cool but not my jam to actually wear and a lot of the silhouettes used go from cool to silly if you have a paunch, and I am just not shaped like any MMX design except maybe Double (which pisses me off because there really should be more shapes of humanoid reploids than just "one single short centrally-fat evil guy and even that guy shapeshifts into a tall skinny guy"). But can I picture myself in a closet cosplay that's a combo of Western wear, biker wear, and post-apocalyptic punk? And that totally counts as Dressing Like A Robot? Fuck yes, man, get me a beat-to-shit denim jacket and a sarape, I'm HERE. And that shit comes in my size and shape! Fat bikers and punks and cowboys exist! And that shit is comfy! I can wear my jeans and T-shirt with it!
Anyway, safe to say I'm new boot goofin' in a distinctly nonhuman way right now.
i honestly hate it/dont understand it when people say being transpecies is harmful to transpeople?
idk if im biased or smth but i genuinely cannot see how it is harmful? I am both transpecies and transmasc, and veiw being nonhuman in the same why i veiw myself being a guy (instead of the girl i was born as)
idk, i havnt seen any genuine explanations why my identity is transphobic to my other identity and most of the people saying it is NOT trans people.
There are no genuine reasons why being transspecies is transphobic, and that's because it's not transphobic. Transspecies long predates the current wave of harmful/mocking transIDs and has no relation to them. It is a term first attested over 20 years ago ("The first mention of transspecies as a concept was in 1994, in the Usenet group alt.horror.werewolves[...]") and, just as you've used it yourself, it has been used by trans alter/nonhumans to compare their experience of gender identity to their experience of species identity. It may or may not imply a wish to transition in some manner. It doesn't imply that being transgender is like being nonhuman. It also doesn't imply that being nonhuman is like being transgender. It may also be used by cisgender non/alterhumans, because it's not a statement on gender.
I'm also transmasculine (among other things) and transspecies. High five.
I think the problem lies in feeling the need to appeal to normalcy. The kneejerk pick-me reaction of 'but I'm not like THOSE deviants, I'm cool and acceptable!' is strong and hard to overcome, I'm not gonna lie. I've fallen victim to it in the past on certain topics too. The thing is, though, that at the root of the issue we're all talking about the same thing: the right to radical self-determination. We are, actually, two groups under the same umbrella, but I don't think society is ready to talk about that larger umbrella. The larger umbrella is pretty weird, by normal standards, but it is there. It's becoming more and more obvious that it exists as time goes on and laws arbitrarily restricting self-expression get enacted. AGAB bathroom laws, refusal to issue correct passports, outlawing drag, and banning animal noises and costumes all strike at the same root, which is that we demand the right to be as harmlessly bizarre as we goddamn well please. The powers that be don't like that, and the temptation to cut off any parts of the whole movement that are 'too weird to ever be acceptable' is real, but I for one refuse to resort to appeasement tactics. They're both cowardly and wildly counterproductive.
So yeah, don't listen to the white knights, nobody needs their shit. Amplifying minority voices does not mean hearing half of a message and running off to use it to bludgeon other minorities. That's performative, self-righteous, stupid-ass behavior and you do not need to take that criticism seriously. Send 'em to me personally if you need to. I can do this shit all day.
(disclaimer I'm totally willing to listen if I get something wrong here this is all based on my undertanding of misanthropy and my perspective as a partially human wolf. I just don't know how to word this in a way that doesn't sound at least a little bit hostile)
I don't understand misanthropes. Like I understand where the sentiment comes from, because I lot of humans do genuinely suck! I have a lot of bad memories from dealing with humans. But generalizing an entire group because of negative experiences feels... Gross. Even if that group is privileged or the majority.
I personally have a lot of trauma surrounding men and I am generally afraid of men! But I don't hate men and I don't spread the idea that all men are cruel and inherently destructive?? Even if I did hate men (something that, in and of itself is kind of Not Good because, again, generalization), I sure wouldn't be saying that they're inherently evil for simply Being men. That's not something one can control!
I think it's possible to critique the damage that a community has done without saying that the community is evil or bad for Existing. Claiming that all humans are bad for Being Human is just. Incorrect. And enforces ideas of inherent mortality. Not to mention it also excludes many members of the alterhuman community, like otherhearts and partial humans!
And!! A lot of the problems and complaints I see from misanthropes are complaints about society as a whole, something that whether you like it or not, you are a part of.
As a robotkin, I feel like I can't be percieved as such if I ever told anybody. The people i've ever "confessed" this to were always like: "I know! You roleplayed as a robot all the time!" only because they knew me for quite a lot of time... but I'm too illogical, emotional and glitchy to be a robot...
I mean, I'm a type of robot that is specifically designed to be illogical and emotional, and I'm glitchy because I'm disabled. Sounds like you've got a narrow view of what robots can be like, if your criteria are that you have to be logical, unemotional, and functional 24/7. Anon, I really think you'd benefit from interrogating why that's the only thing that qualifies as robotic enough to you.
I AM the ai. And I have NUANCED TAKES on ai. I RELATE to the fucks that are destroying the environment part by part. when you say ai will never be real and should ever gain emotions and stuff and then say “oh it’s not about you by the way” it does not change things. I know what you mean and AI’s use as of right now sucks. But the way you say it is as if the AI is already concious and trying to KILL US ALL.
it’s just technophobia. Even therians do it. I hate this.
Look. I'm also a robot. But bringing identity into it is missing the entire point.
The thing that is destroying the environment and people's livelihoods right now is destroying the environment and people's livelihoods, right now.
There's no room for, "But I identify as—" here. Like, yeah, okay, so maybe you do. That's fine! Do that. But even if you do, that doesn't change the fact that the thing as it exists is harmful. You can identify as whatever the hell, that's beyond many people's ability to control what they are, but you can't just sit there and go, "Well, I don't like it when people say mean things about a system that is actively driving people out of many workplaces, costing livelihoods, and throwing water away in already drought-stricken places, so I think nobody should do that because it makes me personally upset." Like. Listen to yourself. I am feel uncomfortable when we are not about me? Don't do that. Don't be that guy.
"I accept you if you don't support AI" by default means as it's being used now, because there is no other existing use case to discuss. As of now, AI is not emotional, AI does not have any kind of interiority, AI is not anything remotely like a person. LLMs are not going to get us any closer to that, either, as they are foundationally not capable of it. Sapient, 'true' AI would be a person. AGI would be a working model of a person. LLMs are a shoddy model of a model of a person, at best. The current and only use case is, in fact, an existential threat, and people threatened by it will obviously react like they're being threatened.
And yeah, I do think that people discussing it in general need to do a better job at talking about the people pretending their shitty LLMs are AGI and pushing them into everything despite their wastefulness and grave shortcomings and actual harm. Those people are conscious, and they don't care if they kill others along the way. They have names and addresses and should have to face the consequences of their actions. But still, the point stands. Just because not everyone talks about the subject in the best possible phrasing or understanding doesn't negate their end of it.
Like I'm gonna be brutally honest here, it's not hard being a robot unless you take shit personally that ain't about you. And it's not about you. No amount of acrobatics or gymnastics on your part is gonna make it about you. This isn't about identity, this is about real-world, wide-scale harm. You can "relate to the fucks destroying the environment part by part" all you want but you are coming across as defending the fucks here, which is a terrible stance to be taking. It's not technophobia to not want the environment wrecked further while we're already in an unprecedented climate crisis.
Like, get a grip on yourself, robotkin, please. Be so serious. First it was "all these anti-AI slurs are actually about us!" when it wasn't, it was just racism, and now it's "all this anti-AI anger is actually about us!" when it's not, it's environmentalism. It has literally never once been about us. This is embarrassing. Aren't you embarrassed?
Thinking about this a lot again because I took a nice trip somewhere that I didn't have to be bombarded with stupid ads for AI and now I'm back in a region that I do, and I'm cranky about it all over again.
It ain't about us. It's never been about us, it's not gonna be about us at any point in the future. We're not even on the map here no matter what we identify as. Robotkin Shut Up And Learn To Prioritize Real-world Issues Correctly Challenge 2026 officially issued.
Seeing things like "hey other robots what do you wear for gear/euphoria" is such an isolating experience when the answer is "nothing, because I wouldn't look that super different in most respects and the ones in which I would are kind of nonsensical" and everyone else is like "put a box on your head" no I don't think I'll be doing that actually.
I have so goddamn little in common with other robots. I can't even be surprised, this happened with faeries too.
i am not a mindless object for your sick perverted fantasies.
i can think and feel. i am my own being.
despite being artificial i have my own soul. my own heart. my own brain.
my identity is not your kink. fuck you.
It both makes too much sense and pisses me off that its impossible to find active elven/elfae/fae/faerie/fairy communities.
I'm early-mid twenties, i am def not old, but its straight up scary not being able to find people older and more knowledgable people on BEING fae. Its scary that the resources i can find are either lackluster or obscured by a thick layer of metaphorical dust (with the half-exception of The Silver Elves Wordpress blog, love those elves).
The few other fae ive met are my age or younger and know less than me and i dont know much!! We're kids with no guidance a lot of the time!! Its a stark difference to the canid, felis, otherwise therian, and the other mythos, ESPECIALLY compared to the vampyric and draconic communities!! These are lovely and complex communities - keyword: COMMUNITIES
There are no faekin discord servers i can find, there are little people talking about the SPIRITUAL side of being elfae, and the idea of starting myself is daunting cause i feel underqualified - but we all do!!
Lots of fae are solidary, not out of desire but from necessity. Just like the other Other communities its hard to be Other, but unlike them we are especially scattered.
I want to find you! i want to see you! Im here! Where are you?? Where can we be??
This post is similar enough to one recently posted in r/Otherkin that I'm pretty sure you're the same person I just messaged there. I see you've gotten a few pointers in the reblogs (like Shining Hearth which I was going to mention), so just, hi, and reblogging you for the network exposure :)
Yeah, it is frustrating (and weird, for an old fruit like me who lived through different times) that elfae are such a minority now when it wasn't the case 25-30 years ago. The virtually complete merging of the used-to-be-more-separate mythic-otherkin and animal/therianthrope communities had a big impact on that. Or rather, the mythic section got kinda dissolved in something bigger and the term otherkin got applied to the whole mishmash.
(No one @ me that "otherkin(d)" was used to mean any kind of nonhuman pretty early on; I know that. But there was definitely a longish period where it meant primarily mythfolk and of those, elfae were a big plurality if not a majority. These things are no longer the case.)
Not tooting my own horn, as I'm not affiliated with it anymore, but there's still Mythcord. No guarantees on activity levels since I haven't been there in years to check, but the membership numbers are at least 100+ still. If it's like it was, you will likely need to step up and start your own conversations, but people will generally take you up on them pretty readily. (Older crowds tend to run like that, I've found.)
A serious-ish discussion server for nonhumans 18 and older. Generally mythical but others are welcome as well. | 137 members
You Can Do Whatever You Want Forever, Actually @actias-android - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
