Alterhuman Studies

A blog focused on cunducting and sharing studies on alterhumanity and encouraging further study into alterhumanity.

[alterhuman-studies]

Welcome to Alterhuman Studies

This blog focuses on creating and sharing studies of the alterhuman community and the communities that it encompasses (such as the therian, otherkin, and plural communities).

As this blog is for research and educational purposes, some studies will involve topics that can be controversial (such as physical alterhumanity) and I ask that discourse surrounding controversial topics remain outside of this space.

Terminology:

Alteranthropology is the term I use to describe the study of alterhumanity. It combines the word Alterhuman with Anthropology (the study of humans, human cultures, and societies)

Why use the term Anthropology instead of something else, like Zoology?

Zoology is the study of animals, which not all alterhumans are. I chose Anthropology because alterhumanity is considered a subculture of human society, despite many alterhumans not being human. Because alterhumanity is a subculture in human society and alterhumans live in a human society, I felt that using the word Anthropology could be appropriate for alterhuman studies in a cultural and societal sense, without putting the focus on any one alterhuman group.

If you would like to share a survey or study, or propose one, please reach out via asks or direct messages.

I will do my best to make sure the information I share is as accurate as possible. If you notice something in one of my posts that is inaccurate, please politely correct it via a reply to the post or an ask and I will fix it as soon as possible.

Tags:

#alt+h survey - for surveys relating to alterhuman studies

#alt+h findings - for information found from studies and surveys

#alt+h info - for general information about alterhumanity

(you can find my personal alterhuman blog, where I discuss my own experiences, here: @a-snow-leopard)

[alterhuman-studies]

Alterhuman Neurodivergence Survey

We've been aware of overlaps between the neurodivergent and alterhuman communities. The purpose of this survey is to get a rough estimate of how big that overlap is (at least in online spaces). The purpose of this survey is NOT to make claims about the relationship between neurodivergence and alterhumanity.

I acknowledge that the scope of this survey may be limited and that because of this the results may not represent the alterhuman community as a whole, but gathering information about alterhumanity can help us to understand it better.

All submissions are anonymous. Please only submit once.

fill out the survey here

If you don't mind, please share this survey with other alterhumans so that we can get as many responses as possible.

Submissions are open until August 31st 2025, results will be posted after all submissions have been analyzed.

[a-dragons-journal]

Forgive the cheekiness of the meme, but in all seriousness, if you're open to a little feedback - I recognize that Google Forms probably has a limit on how many answer options you can have per question, but if that's an issue here I think the "what alterhuman labels do you use" question probably would have been better served by including more labels outside nonhumanity than by including subsets of labels that already have an option (plantkin and conceptkin in particular, which are already covered by otherkin and I'm not really sure why those specifically are given separate options when no other group of kintypes is?) and fairly obscure nonhuman labels (such as were). There's a lot of alterhuman terms that aren't on this - archetrope, hearthome, daemian/daemon, etc. - that got skipped in favor of these. And to be clear, I don't mind these nonhuman terms being included - but by including sublabels and relatively obscure nonhuman terms and not including almost anything outside of nonhumanity, you've kind of made what reads like a nonhuman survey with a couple other things tacked on as an afterthought. The fact that there's a write-in "other" answer does help a lot, I wouldn't necessarily say it necessitates a rewrite entirely (or else a rename to nonhuman instead of alterhuman) like some surveys I've seen really should have, but just - something to think about for any surveys you may run in the future.

That being said, I am interested to see the results of this one - it's something I see talked about periodically, but it's always interesting to see numbers put to community discussions. Thank you for running this!

[alterhuman-studies]

thank you for your feedback! This is the first of many more surveys to come, so constructive criticism like this is genuinely really helpful. I'm still new to this and I want to get better at it, so I'll definitely keep this in mind for the next one!

[alterhuman-studies]

Alterhuman Neurodivergence Survey

We've been aware of overlaps between the neurodivergent and alterhuman communities. The purpose of this survey is to get a rough estimate of how big that overlap is (at least in online spaces). The purpose of this survey is NOT to make claims about the relationship between neurodivergence and alterhumanity.

I acknowledge that the scope of this survey may be limited and that because of this the results may not represent the alterhuman community as a whole, but gathering information about alterhumanity can help us to understand it better.

All submissions are anonymous. Please only submit once.

fill out the survey here

If you don't mind, please share this survey with other alterhumans so that we can get as many responses as possible.

Submissions are open until August 31st 2025, results will be posted after all submissions have been analyzed.

[qremlin]

A Brief Alterhuman History

Here is a quick recap of the history of the alterhuman community, from 1972 onwards.

1972-1990

Communities of beings who believed themselves to be elves began to appear in the 70s. In 1990, the word “Otherkind”/“otherkin” is used for the first time in Elfinkind Digest, coined to include non-elf “others”.

1990-1999

Alt Horror Werewolves (AHWW) newsgroup is created to discuss werewolves; it became a place people felt safe to discuss identifying as an animal. Those in this group referred to themselves as “weres” and “lycanthropes”. The original users of this group became known as “greymuzzles”. Later, “therianthrope” would be coined as a more general version of lycanthrope. In 1999, “phenotypes” was used to discuss what “type” of therianthrope someone was.

In 1994, the first “howl”, was organized by a were in Ohio for members of the AHWW community to get to know one another. After this, several “howls” would be held multiple times a year, both by the AHWW community and other therian communities.

For otherkin, gatherings (or “gathers”) would be held by a variety of ‘types including elves, dragons, and unicorns.

2002-2004

The seven-pointed star (septegram) was used as a symbol to represent otherkin. Later, the theta-delta was created to represent therians.

Fictionkin was first used in 2004 on LiveJournal. However, for many years after this, “otakukin” and “mediakin” were the primary terms. “Fictionkin” was not the primary term until the 2010s.

2010-2011

The subreddit r/Otherkin is created. In 2011, the otherkin community blossomed on Tumblr. The community was reportedly focused on activism and validation and the term “non-human” was in use at this time. “Otherhearted” is coined on The Daemon Forum in 2011.

2014-2017

“Alterhuman” was coined by phasmovore on Tumblr to describe those who “differ from the common societal use of humanity”; it is now seen as an “umbrella term for otherkin, therians, fictionkin, dragons, vampires, plurals/systems, copinglinkers, and otherhearted individuals”.

Copinglink was coined by who-is-page on Tumblr in 2016, who defined it as “a nonhuman identity which is consciously created”.

In 2017, “Otherkin” was added to the Oxford dictionary.

2020-2024

The now widely used alterhuman flag was created in 2020 by Quiznoscoyote on Twitter and consists of green, white, and purple stripes with the theta-delta and septagram symbols interlocked.

In 2024, “holothere” was coined by Defrostedvertebrae on Tumblr to describe physical nonhumans.

——————————————————

Our history is in the making, where it goes is up to us. Keep in mind that some day, someone will look back at the community now and call us part of their history.

Sources

The House of Chimeras, Addendums to Scribner’s The Otherkin Timeline (November 2021). www.houseofchimeras.weebly.com

O. Scriber, The Otherkin Timeline (September 2012). www.orion.kitsunet.net/nonfic.html

The Otherkin Wiki. Alterhuman. www.otherkin.wiki/alterhuman

The Otherkin Wiki. Otherhearted. www.otherkin.wiki/otherhearted

The Otherkin Wik. Copinglink. www.otherkin.wiki/copinglink

[zoanthroclawz-deactivated202601]

I wanna add something, The term "Transspecies" (Well, Trans-speciesals) was first used in july 21, 1994 suggesting acceptance of people being born in the wrong species!

My guess is thats the first time physical alterhumans were mentioned in a way. Sourced from : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9Y-YaRS0Go&list=PL1dN9GTwxwPrcz4tme0oBSxNUVA-ivAtf at the timestamp around 7:12 (though the description says its inaccurate, ive personally seen this thread but i forgot where the link was)

and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miSyXSesyzw&t=10s