Dino's Corner @dinocanid - Tumblr Blog

Intro Post

I'm Dinocanid, polykin with 4 kintypes (black phased wolf, dragon, dromaeosaurus, undertale OC), transgender ftm (he/him pronouns), and endogenic system with 3 members (not including myself). I've been in and around the community for about a decade, and I am also the creator/main organizer/chairman/chairdog of Othercon.

(LINK TO DNI) "But Dino, DNIs don't work!", I honestly don't care if someone reads my DNI or not. It's simply a "don't be surprised if I block you" list.

I'll probably be pretty quiet since I'm not good at talking about myself unless prompted, but my ask box is always open!

Interested in me as an artist? Check out my website for links to my galleries!

#otherkin #fictionkin #alterhuman

dinocanid

Making the post here since it uses a link to my Ko-fi and that feels strange putting on the official blog, but it's been decided that the Othercon website will be moving to Nekoweb from its previous host, which would cut our yearly costs almost in half.

The funding goal is $52 USD. Because the funding goal is so low, I'm using my Ko-fi this time instead of GoFundMe. It felt odd making an entire campaign this time compared to what GFM is usually used for, so I opted for this. Once the goal is met, I'll be able to pay the subscriptions and get the site up and running and migrate the domain over.

The goal progress will go uo through regular "buy me a coffee!" donations or buying something from my shop, although be aware that if you buy a physical item then part of the price involves getting the item made and shipped.

Want to support my work? Consider buying me a coffee!

dinocanid

The goal has been met, thanks everyone that helped! Between tonight and tomorrow I'll be able to work on migrating.

Making the post here since it uses a link to my Ko-fi and that feels strange putting on the official blog, but it's been decided that the Othercon website will be moving to Nekoweb from its previous host, which would cut our yearly costs almost in half.

The funding goal is $52 USD. Because the funding goal is so low, I'm using my Ko-fi this time instead of GoFundMe. It felt odd making an entire campaign this time compared to what GFM is usually used for, so I opted for this. Once the goal is met, I'll be able to pay the subscriptions and get the site up and running and migrate the domain over.

The goal progress will go uo through regular "buy me a coffee!" donations or buying something from my shop, although be aware that if you buy a physical item then part of the price involves getting the item made and shipped.

Want to support my work? Consider buying me a coffee!

#alterhuman #othercon

beastlybardou

Once you stop defining your therianthropy in measures of dysphoria and focus on what brings you fulfillment as an animal, you start caring a lot less about where other people fall on the chosen kintype vs involuntary kintype axis. It opens you up to instead start caring about how people engage with their kintype, and what experiences it brings, which I think are far more valuable.

#dino's reblogs

fez-from-space

Since awakening as otherkin, I’ve found that I feel kind of disconnected to my fursona. I feel bad about it since she was my first sona that I made wayyyy back in middle school, when I became a furry.

My kintype, a tortoiseshell cat who is partially an OC (making me technically OCkin), feels like me, at least at a freaquent default. As an OC, I love her so dearly, and I use her as a ‘persona’ in communities where I’m not out as alterhuman. She *is* me, but when it comes to the furry fandom I find myself in a weird place- I no longer feel super connected to my fursona (and that saddens me; it feels like abandoning her), and using *myself*/kintype to represent me in a community where you typically use a character to represent yourself, makes me feel like I’m not participating in the fandom in the way that I want.

dinocanid

I can't tell you what to do exactly, but I can talk about a similar situation I had sort of. When I first decided to join the furry community "officially" (as in I clearly stated to myself that I wanted to try the fandom out), I created a fursona just based on what I could visualize in about 5 minutes lol. I thought the design was cool and used it for a few years, even came up with some side characters and lore and everything, but my fursona was at most just an avatar for interacting with the furry community. So it wasn't necessarily what I wanted to look like or even my aspired traits, just a character.

I've sunset my fursona for a long time ever since I re-evaluated my reasons for being in the fandom. I ultimately wanted the fandom to be an outlet for my nonhuman identity, to be myself, so using a fursona as an avatar felt inauthentic and kind of hollow. If I wanted to be myself and I'm inventing yet another mask just to be a proxy for my nonhuman identity then that kind of defeats my entire purpose for being a furry at all. Now I just use my kintype/fictotype in furry spaces, which was awkward at first because most furries assume that whatever you present is just a charactee and non-literal.

You don't have to compromise with this; for the past year or so I've been very up-front when introducing myself that the artwork presented is me, not a fursona, because I saw plural furs and therian furs doing the same and it encouraged me to do so. Nobody has really batted an eye about it yet, everyone's been cool. Ever since I started doing this I've enjoyed furry spaces a lot more. Using a fursona to participate in the furry fandom is common but you don't need one. If you're nonhuman you can just be yourself and participate that way, leave out the middleman. Especially if you decide to dive into the fursuiting aspect, it's species-euphoric as all hell to have a fursuit of myself and go places and actually be seen how I want to be seen.

#dino's reblogs

dinocanid

"You can't choose to be a therian or otherkin" sounds more batshit if you swap it out with transgender

"You can't choose to be transgender, you have to be born that way--" Who the hell are you lmfao

anti-hero3

It's almost like...when you change the words...the meaning changes...🤯

dinocanid

Checked your blog and you seem like a real person instead of a bot, so I'll explain the post further before blocking since it doesn't seem like this response is in good faith

Someone can decide to identify as whatever gender they want at any stage in their life. Being transgender is not something you have to magically know about yourself from kindergarten age or whatever. You don't even have to be in your 20s. Someone can decide, at any point, "you know what, I'd rather identify as something else" and then do that and still be considered transgender. Anyone who tells them "lmao no you can't, it's too late/you're too old. You can't be transgender anymore you have to use something else" is an asshole and not worth your time. (See the hypothetical "womanlinker" example from one of the reblogs)

Same thing applies to being otherkin or therian. It's not something you magically have to know about yourself when you're in the single digits. Someone can choose to cultivate that at any point in their life, and if someone tells them "nuh uh, you missed the window buddy" then they can kick rocks

#dino's reblogs

dinocanid

"You can't choose to be a therian or otherkin" sounds more batshit if you swap it out with transgender

"You can't choose to be transgender, you have to be born that way--" Who the hell are you lmfao

actias-android

I've straight up seen people pull the 'it's like being trans, and you can't choose to be trans' thing and I love to jump out of the online bushes at them like, "Hello! I'm a transgender guy who decided to be a guy! I could have been happy as very many gender presentations including my original assigned one, but I picked this one myself and all my health care professionals even agreed that I could! I'm also voluntarily nonhuman, because you're right about at least one point: those two identities are very similar in many ways! Would you like to amend your statement in light of my being a real person who exists and is now in this discussion?"

And you know what, they never have a very clear response to that. They're always kind of banking on getting to use voluntarily trans people as a prop and don't expect one to show up and crash the party.

Like, transmedicalist ideology was rancid enough applied to being trans. It's not any better applied elsewhere and it belongs in a hole in the ground, not in the alterhuman and nonhuman communities.

Edited to add because it just occurred to me: For extra batshit-sounding opportunities, imagine someone being like, "You can't call yourself a trans woman. You have to call yourself a womanlinker, because you're choosing to be femme, and that's not the same thing as actually being femme!"

I'm sure someone THAT RANCID actually exists but I am choosing to believe that we can all recognize that it's a fucking atrocious take that nobody should have.

"You can't choose to be a therian or otherkin" sounds more batshit if you swap it out with transgender

"You can't choose to be transgender, you have to be born that way--" Who the hell are you lmfao

#alterhuman #otherkin #therian #“that's what linking is!” yes and they can also just use otherkin or therian

Remembering one of my most vivid memories as a canine, and I don't want to say I was Head Empty because that's too simplified (...tbf I do want to say that because it'd be funny), but thinking was very different than it was from my thinking as a human. I would describe my mind at the time as very quiet, because I wasn't thinking in sentences. I had no "inner voice", and the only words I thought of were those associated with routine objects like a bed or something.

It sort of acts like an example on the stark distinction between anthropomorphic and not, because I have at least 2 anthropomorphic kintypes and the way I processed things as those versus my other ones was not the same

#dino rambles #alterhuman #otherkin

insectoidvoid

man the alth community here is kinda cooked with this update, huh? we have so many wonderful longform public discussions on here. I know I'm often too shy to add on outside of the tags, but I do really love that about this little corner. but now the Fuck All Longform Discussions Forever update has been pushed.

signofthesignless

y'all, nows the time to start doing more.

a lot of you have responded to the attacks on therians in multiple countries in south america (and apparently europe now, from what i'm hearing) with tucking your tail between your legs and going "see, we are oppressed!"

so? what are you going to do about it? we cannot just sit here and idle. even if you cannot be there in the moment, we need to start building a foundation of which we can make a change. and that foundation is not built off of vibes-based politics. we have to actually start thinking about how we will reach our own liberation.

think about the physical attacks that have happened in our community. who are the victims who have been injured? is there any way we can provide financial aid towards them in regards to getting medical treatment? have they spoken up about anything? how are we going to handle this going forward?

who are the people who are actively in areas that have had these attacks? have they talked about what the environment is like? we need to start giving folks who are actually directly harmed by this a platform to elevate their voices. by learning more from those who are actually directly having this happen to them, we can start to build a foundation in which we learn how to go forward.

the answer to this situation is not to keep hiding in the shadows, hoping that there is a part that is dark enough to hide us for good and for people to forget about us. there is no more shadow to hide in. so what will we do now?

we cannot let the community continue to just be a fun little space for people to hide away and ignore the troubles of the world. this has harmed members within our own community, primarily those racialized, and it is now more than ever a behavior that will hurt the whole community.

change starts with you. so let's actually try and make some productive change.

dinocanid

Yes to all of this. I feel like some are changing from "this is terrible" to "well, they'll forget about us in a month and everything will be back to normal" way too fast. It's also probably not knowing what to do, since a lot of people probably don't know much about organizing or activism besides "get local government to pass a law" (extremely surface-level understanding that's also difficult to achieve). Offline is also different from the internet, so there's probably also the fact missing that the work done now might not be seen immediately, which is very normal (you yourself may or may not reap the benefits, but those younger than you should years down the line).

I haven't made an original post for it since it's still in the very early drafting stage, but I'm working on a free e-booklet (/document/pdf) that others in the community can hopefully use as a springboard for organizing

#dino's reblogs #we can't let action be a passing hypetrain

alterfest

EDIT: time is 12-4 pm, and it is also FREE Official poster is here! You can dm me @meowing-creature for the address too. There will be snacks and water, music, and a restroom and playground at the location. I hope to see you there! Ps, if you save this image to your photos there will be an option to scan the barcode.

A strange part about having lived multiple lives is taking an art history class and a theory you had is now accepted as plausible in the field, when a couple decades ago it was ridiculed in that same class.

Edit: actually, this was gonna be a short blurb but I have some more thoughts on it. I've been going to the same college across several lives since at least the 90s (maybe also the 80s, but I'm less certain on that), and seeing how things change while also hints of what used to be there is a pretty indescribable feeling. A professor might describe how a building used to look back in the day, and in my head I can be like "oh yeah, I loved when it was decorated like that!", but I can't say that obviously since this body wasn't alive yet back then. Or I'll suddenly get hit with a flashback in class about the same course several years ago, and see how similar-yet-different the lecture is now due to events that used to be future-tense are now referenced in past tense. Or the professor will give examples of finished projects and I'll remember being in the class with the person who made it. Under normal circumstances these can be extremely average experiences, but it's made strange when seperated across multiple lives.

#alterhuman #dino rambles

mimzykitty

hot take but the more i think about it, the more age regression, therianthropy, and otherkinity all sound like types of plurality. i'm too stoned to explain why but i swear there's good reason.

dinocanid

Idk anything about age regression, but therianthropy and otherkinity have a "sliding scale" of integration so-to-speak where on one end it can be extremely plural adjacent. I say plural adjacent because typically ppl with that "totally seperate from their (kin/therio)type" experience don't consider themselves plural. There are some that do though!

If you want to read more about the integration levels thing, you can check this link out:

This was originally put together by Lenowill and shared on the Werelist forum on June 6th, 2009. [1] [2] This list may still not cover all e

(Usually not a fan of fandom wikis, but the original post is/was on Werelist and can only be accessed with an account. So it's unreadable to non-members)

It's especially interesting with therianthropy, since it stems from werewolf/werecreature culture and werewolves in media are also occasionally depicted this way with the animal essentially a different entity from the human.

#dino's reblogs #therianthropy #plurality

dinocanid

Ever since 2020 I've had to deal with the community seeing a version of me they invented from expectation, like I'm only an extension of the things I've made and not my own person. It's isolating, and it's exhausting.

alterhuman-art

[Image description: A sketch comic.

Panel 1: At the center of the panel is Dino, a canine monster with raptor-like features, sitting with his face blotted out. Multiple speech bubbles surround him. They read: Disappointing... Who's that again? Isn't he suspicious? I feel like I can't talk there anymore. Sounds threatening. It's definitely not safe. Look out, the admin's typing. I bet he'll just ban me. Hate.

Panel 2: The speech bubbles multiple and are closing in on him.

Panel 3: A close-up of Dino as he snarls, "Shut up!"

Panel 4: We see Dino sitting down again, face no longer obscured. He is looking over his shoulder at an angry looking shadow rising behind him. He says, "I'm tired of everyone jumping at my damn shadow..."

Panel 5: This panel is black with white line sketches. Dino now has his back to the viewer and is hanging his head. Text surrounding him reads, "I'm either the irresponsible admin...or the scary con chair...It's like I don't exist and I'm tired." Artwork (c) Dinocanid. End description.]

dinocanid

Hadn't thought about this post in a while, but reblogging since it still feels relevant (and also image description)

dinocanid

(I originally posted this on bluesky, but I'm expanding on it where higher word counts are easier)

As different facets of alterhumanity gain more of the public eye with each passing year, the more I ask "Ok so, what are we going to Do sociopolitically. When are we going to organize and start advocating for ourselves". Because eventually that will be necessary, and "let's bury our heads in the sand and hope we become obscure again" isn't realistic in any way. We've gotta start organizing and teaming up with our allies (queer groups, neurodivergent groups, mad pride, etc.) that we are heavily intermixed with.

Therianthropy for example, for the longest time has relying on the niche nature of the concept while hoping that they'll always be forgotten about by the public eventually. They keep popping up though, and visibility has been a rising line on a graph, it's never once returned to the obscurity that it had in the 90s-early 00s. By now, a majority of information that (for lack of a better term) "normies" have about therians is all bullshit.

There was an attempt at alterhumans organizing one time in the form of AltH, but they're already defunct and have left nothing behind except "AltH" as a convenient acronym for "alterhuman". Outreach and advocacy just kind of died in the water before getting anywhere.

I've seen the argument "alterhumanity faces no issues on its own, so advocate for other things instead and it'll help us by proxy". On one hand, yes, their fight is our fight. At the exact same time, alterhumanity is its own thing, it doesn't only exist as the sum of other groups. Using nonhuman identity as an example, there are people calling therianthropy a psyop and also trans people believing that nonhuman identity is made up by transphobes and not real. "Let's go along with it and wait for this to blow over" isn't an acceptable conclusion, we need to go "yes we are real, no will not be weaponized".

Our voices are important. Our identities deserve to be respected. Neither of the two will just fall into our laps, we have to work for it.

anendoandfriendo

!!!!

Adding nuance from our experiences alert:

This may or may not be why we have such hard lines on how we specifically use -genic terms and use -orma as a headmate specific term, and ALSO why when we say "disordered system" we usually mean CDD systems.

Because many many plural communities are online, and we gave yet to see anyone besides ourselves be open and loud about their plurality in an offline space.

Of course there is more nuance, dipped shit (general, not OP&), but singlets don't have that nuanced and assume "plural = traumagenic = CDD" with no exceptions whatsoever.

So. Like. We understand. But also. We're sorry to say it, but when speaking with ignorant majority "normie" crowds and interfacing with the external offline world, you do in fact need to get down to their level, at least a tad.

LIKE WE MEAN. WE AGREE WITH OP BUT WE FEEL THE NEED TO ADD THIS.

We can't get what OP wants unless we start taking baby steps to get that respect. The online discourse would break most peoples' brains we feel like.

It's like how most non-queer people have their definitions of lesbian just be "women like women" and in the queer community there's like "men can identify as lesbians for many reasons including plurality, being multigender, or having that previous community connection" like. One of these is for advocacy and one of these is for internal discussion.

dinocanid

No yeah I agree there, I don't think drowning normies in community jargon and discourse would do much of anything but confuse. My main issue is that even the surface-level understanding is wrong a lot of the time. Like "therian = ppl who run around in animal masks and/or Furry: The Sequel", "kinning = you vibe with a character and/or think they're hot", "hearted = oh you just think [thing] is kinda neat", and the list goes on. Doesn't have to be "two philosophers meme" levels of info, but they should at least be able to distinguish that it is different from other things. Like with nonhuman identity, that's going to break their brains a little bit because it's new to them, but that's also something that can't really be made simpler because it's foundational to the concept. "Therians identify as nonhuman animals" is the baseline, while anything further like "here's all the shifting terminology, different microlabels, discourse, etc." is advanced level and not really what they need to understand it.

If I could explain it, if someone theoretically made a pamphlet meant to be handed out pride events, schools/colleges, seminars, etc. it would contain as little community jargon as possible and focus on explaining the experience itself. How it feels, how it's expressed, how to accommodate, common misconceptions (surface, not advanced), things like that. Educational stuff without having to get into "community politics" so to speak.

watcherwingedcat

I was just talking about this with my roommates, actually. I don't want to bash on anyone on the community, but the recent view that outsiders have of the community is... not great. In part because, well, we are already a minority, we're all going to be seen as "weird" and "unusual" no matter what we do. And right now, if you talk about therianthropy to anyone, the first thing they are gonna view us as "people with masks that do quads" because that's the popularized version of the community that's been spread from tiktok, a big part of the community.

Right now, that's how we're seen by outsiders, we like it our not. And yeah, we can keep to ourselves, but the floodgate has already been opened. We are already well-known by people. The least we can try to do is control where the stream goes from this point forward. And that's the beautiful thing about it, isn't it? We have the opportunity (and duty, we like it or not) of making ourselves known by correcting misinformation, educating where we can, advocating for ourselves. We are already known, and we couldn't control the reaction it had on people outside of the community then, but we can take our chance now and use it to stop living in hiding. To show what alterhumanity, otherkinity, theriantrophy, etc means. It's gonna take time, and it's not that realistic to say we will succeed, but we can do it, little by little.

We are real, here, and not going anywhere. The community as a whole should work together (as I said, not really realistic since we're spread between various social media platforms, and the community from tumblr is very different from thr community from tiktok, for example) to minimize the hate this may bring us, and advocating for our right to be ourselves. We should be respected no matter who we are.

smol-paw

I whole heartedly agree that we need to "take control of the stream" and start to advocate for ourselves.

But I want to ask

What exactly are we advocating for?

With Gay liberation its the right to legally and openly love eachother

With Black liberation its freedom

With Gender its about equality

These are all extremely simplified, but you get the point.

What would our movement be about?

While yes, we are verbally abused and slandered by normie humans, I cant particularly think of any cases where an Alterhuman is being systemically and uniquely targeted for being Alterhuman. I dont know anyone who's been fired or evicted for being Alterhuman. And I certainly havent heard of anyone being killed for being Alterhuman specifically. Not to say it definitely doesnt happen, just that I havent heard of it. If it is happening, we just arent talking about it.

And all this isnt to say we shouldnt have a movement, or advocate for ourselves.

Its just to get people thinking- What is our message? What do we want?

Education?

Representation?

More bodily autonomy?

Equal treatment of some sort?

Protections?

Just something to think about

dinocanid

In addition to the food for thought, I think a good way it would theoretically be tackled is for each to organize depending on their needs. Alterhumanity as a whole is extremely vague, so if someone wanted to create an outreach group or something then it would be more practical to have a focus (otherkin for example). They can all still work together in an alterhuman "network" of sorts, but dividing it makes it more comprehendable as individual concepts.

a-dragons-journal

I also would frankly argue that we absolutely are discriminated against when being openly alterhuman, particularly nonhuman, fictional, or plural - the only reason we don’t see examples of that is because the vast majority of us aren’t open about it, because we know what will happen. It’s because the vast majority of us stay closeted, and thus the vast majority of people don’t know we exist, that we don’t see it happen. (Which is why this mindset of “just keep our heads down” has been so prevalent - but Dino’s right that it won’t work for much longer, and arguably already isn’t working.)

Like - what do you think would actually happen to a doctor or lawyer who openly identified as a dragon or angel or dog, statistically? How likely would most employers be to hire someone they knew “thinks they’re a cartoon character”? How quickly do you think I’d get fired for “inappropriate, unprofessional behavior” for the crime of wearing scale makeup and horns to express my draconity, hypothetically? (Because I can say with confidence that it’d be pretty fucking fast.) Never mind if we stopped presenting as a singlet. They barely know we exist and don’t really understand that we’re not just furries, and already they’re trying to pass laws banning nonhuman self-expression in schools and the like. It absolutely is out there, unfortunately.

So: defenses for freedom of expression would be a pretty good start for preventing that - preventing people from discriminating based on either nonhuman/fictional identity or self-expression (barring safety concerns, of course; you can’t wear a tail in an environment where it could get caught in machinery, for example). Plurality requires a whole suite of advocacy for acceptance that I honestly don’t even know how to approach. Beyond that… I don’t honestly know. A lot of it is covered by other advocacy movements; what isn’t isn’t occurring to me right now.

dinocanid

I don't have much to add to this, but yeah there are definitely repercussions for being too alterhuman (specifically nonhuman or fictional) in public, which is why so many are afraid to do it outside of their homes or dedicated meets. You can get fired from jobs, or institutionalized, or experience physical or emotional harm from harassment. Hangouts have to be careful because people are joking about showing up with guns and "hunting" them. It's literally a danger to some people to "come out" too, because they can in an instant be ridiculed or met with hostility from friends and family, completely isolating them socially outside of maybe online communities. There aren't really any protections or support groups in place for this.

PS: I forgot to add this to my reblog initially, but I plan to try being openly a dog as a professional animator. I also know that will be difficult for me to do at most companies, which is why I'm forging my own path with the indie route. It'll be difficult, but I also don't want a craft I'm passionate about to be mutually exclusive with my sense of self and who I am as a person.

dinocanid

(Hope you don't mind me pinging you @sprucewolverineblogs, I was going to reply as a comment but hit the word limit--)

Since the post was meant to kickstart community discussion, I recommend looking to the reblog responses for this since there's been some very good input. A-dragons-journal brought up freedom of expression being an important one to strive for, with lizardywizard and 375-six bringing up examples of how dressing up can currently get you harassed by law enforcement. Education is another one I personally brought up, having educational material that is readily available to orthohuman (read: non-alterhuman) audiences. Pamphlets, lectures, booths at events, getting books into libraries, etc. There are online archives that exist, but those are moreso for community use and not great for orthohuman entry-level learning (and they're also, well, online).

Avoiding mockery is kind of impossible, even today there isn't a minority group that goes unmocked by bigots. The difference is between letting that mockery control the narrative (like what's been happening historically) and solid foundations to push back against that.

It would be really easy for me to say "ok, you and me let's make something right now", but I've seen too many defunct groups try to dive headfirst into something like this with both no plan and zero input from the same community they're trying to represent. Either that or they're not serious about it, and their "advocacy" just amounted to "let's get into a bunch of arguments on social media and #Ratio them". I could also be remembering wrong, but iirc there were at least 2 attempts at a community-made documentary (an otherkin one and therian one respectively) and they both fell through because it was a spur-of-the-moment "wow that idea is so cool!" decision without an understanding of how large of a commitment something like that is and how much effort and coordination it takes to create.

I'm trying to turn the gears to get some serious thoughts going, because unfortunately discussions like this aren't really had much. I don't expect anything overnight, that's unrealistic, but it's important to go "we need to start thinking about this now" and encourage things to sprout from that.

dinocanid

(I originally posted this on bluesky, but I'm expanding on it where higher word counts are easier)

As different facets of alterhumanity gain more of the public eye with each passing year, the more I ask "Ok so, what are we going to Do sociopolitically. When are we going to organize and start advocating for ourselves". Because eventually that will be necessary, and "let's bury our heads in the sand and hope we become obscure again" isn't realistic in any way. We've gotta start organizing and teaming up with our allies (queer groups, neurodivergent groups, mad pride, etc.) that we are heavily intermixed with.

Therianthropy for example, for the longest time has relying on the niche nature of the concept while hoping that they'll always be forgotten about by the public eventually. They keep popping up though, and visibility has been a rising line on a graph, it's never once returned to the obscurity that it had in the 90s-early 00s. By now, a majority of information that (for lack of a better term) "normies" have about therians is all bullshit.

There was an attempt at alterhumans organizing one time in the form of AltH, but they're already defunct and have left nothing behind except "AltH" as a convenient acronym for "alterhuman". Outreach and advocacy just kind of died in the water before getting anywhere.

I've seen the argument "alterhumanity faces no issues on its own, so advocate for other things instead and it'll help us by proxy". On one hand, yes, their fight is our fight. At the exact same time, alterhumanity is its own thing, it doesn't only exist as the sum of other groups. Using nonhuman identity as an example, there are people calling therianthropy a psyop and also trans people believing that nonhuman identity is made up by transphobes and not real. "Let's go along with it and wait for this to blow over" isn't an acceptable conclusion, we need to go "yes we are real, no will not be weaponized".

Our voices are important. Our identities deserve to be respected. Neither of the two will just fall into our laps, we have to work for it.

anendoandfriendo

!!!!

Adding nuance from our experiences alert:

This may or may not be why we have such hard lines on how we specifically use -genic terms and use -orma as a headmate specific term, and ALSO why when we say "disordered system" we usually mean CDD systems.

Because many many plural communities are online, and we gave yet to see anyone besides ourselves be open and loud about their plurality in an offline space.

Of course there is more nuance, dipped shit (general, not OP&), but singlets don't have that nuanced and assume "plural = traumagenic = CDD" with no exceptions whatsoever.

So. Like. We understand. But also. We're sorry to say it, but when speaking with ignorant majority "normie" crowds and interfacing with the external offline world, you do in fact need to get down to their level, at least a tad.

LIKE WE MEAN. WE AGREE WITH OP BUT WE FEEL THE NEED TO ADD THIS.

We can't get what OP wants unless we start taking baby steps to get that respect. The online discourse would break most peoples' brains we feel like.

It's like how most non-queer people have their definitions of lesbian just be "women like women" and in the queer community there's like "men can identify as lesbians for many reasons including plurality, being multigender, or having that previous community connection" like. One of these is for advocacy and one of these is for internal discussion.

dinocanid

No yeah I agree there, I don't think drowning normies in community jargon and discourse would do much of anything but confuse. My main issue is that even the surface-level understanding is wrong a lot of the time. Like "therian = ppl who run around in animal masks and/or Furry: The Sequel", "kinning = you vibe with a character and/or think they're hot", "hearted = oh you just think [thing] is kinda neat", and the list goes on. Doesn't have to be "two philosophers meme" levels of info, but they should at least be able to distinguish that it is different from other things. Like with nonhuman identity, that's going to break their brains a little bit because it's new to them, but that's also something that can't really be made simpler because it's foundational to the concept. "Therians identify as nonhuman animals" is the baseline, while anything further like "here's all the shifting terminology, different microlabels, discourse, etc." is advanced level and not really what they need to understand it.

If I could explain it, if someone theoretically made a pamphlet meant to be handed out pride events, schools/colleges, seminars, etc. it would contain as little community jargon as possible and focus on explaining the experience itself. How it feels, how it's expressed, how to accommodate, common misconceptions (surface, not advanced), things like that. Educational stuff without having to get into "community politics" so to speak.

watcherwingedcat

I was just talking about this with my roommates, actually. I don't want to bash on anyone on the community, but the recent view that outsiders have of the community is... not great. In part because, well, we are already a minority, we're all going to be seen as "weird" and "unusual" no matter what we do. And right now, if you talk about therianthropy to anyone, the first thing they are gonna view us as "people with masks that do quads" because that's the popularized version of the community that's been spread from tiktok, a big part of the community.

Right now, that's how we're seen by outsiders, we like it our not. And yeah, we can keep to ourselves, but the floodgate has already been opened. We are already well-known by people. The least we can try to do is control where the stream goes from this point forward. And that's the beautiful thing about it, isn't it? We have the opportunity (and duty, we like it or not) of making ourselves known by correcting misinformation, educating where we can, advocating for ourselves. We are already known, and we couldn't control the reaction it had on people outside of the community then, but we can take our chance now and use it to stop living in hiding. To show what alterhumanity, otherkinity, theriantrophy, etc means. It's gonna take time, and it's not that realistic to say we will succeed, but we can do it, little by little.

We are real, here, and not going anywhere. The community as a whole should work together (as I said, not really realistic since we're spread between various social media platforms, and the community from tumblr is very different from thr community from tiktok, for example) to minimize the hate this may bring us, and advocating for our right to be ourselves. We should be respected no matter who we are.

smol-paw

I whole heartedly agree that we need to "take control of the stream" and start to advocate for ourselves.

But I want to ask

What exactly are we advocating for?

With Gay liberation its the right to legally and openly love eachother

With Black liberation its freedom

With Gender its about equality

These are all extremely simplified, but you get the point.

What would our movement be about?

While yes, we are verbally abused and slandered by normie humans, I cant particularly think of any cases where an Alterhuman is being systemically and uniquely targeted for being Alterhuman. I dont know anyone who's been fired or evicted for being Alterhuman. And I certainly havent heard of anyone being killed for being Alterhuman specifically. Not to say it definitely doesnt happen, just that I havent heard of it. If it is happening, we just arent talking about it.

And all this isnt to say we shouldnt have a movement, or advocate for ourselves.

Its just to get people thinking- What is our message? What do we want?

Education?

Representation?

More bodily autonomy?

Equal treatment of some sort?

Protections?

Just something to think about

dinocanid

In addition to the food for thought, I think a good way it would theoretically be tackled is for each to organize depending on their needs. Alterhumanity as a whole is extremely vague, so if someone wanted to create an outreach group or something then it would be more practical to have a focus (otherkin for example). They can all still work together in an alterhuman "network" of sorts, but dividing it makes it more comprehendable as individual concepts.

a-dragons-journal

I also would frankly argue that we absolutely are discriminated against when being openly alterhuman, particularly nonhuman, fictional, or plural - the only reason we don’t see examples of that is because the vast majority of us aren’t open about it, because we know what will happen. It’s because the vast majority of us stay closeted, and thus the vast majority of people don’t know we exist, that we don’t see it happen. (Which is why this mindset of “just keep our heads down” has been so prevalent - but Dino’s right that it won’t work for much longer, and arguably already isn’t working.)

Like - what do you think would actually happen to a doctor or lawyer who openly identified as a dragon or angel or dog, statistically? How likely would most employers be to hire someone they knew “thinks they’re a cartoon character”? How quickly do you think I’d get fired for “inappropriate, unprofessional behavior” for the crime of wearing scale makeup and horns to express my draconity, hypothetically? (Because I can say with confidence that it’d be pretty fucking fast.) Never mind if we stopped presenting as a singlet. They barely know we exist and don’t really understand that we’re not just furries, and already they’re trying to pass laws banning nonhuman self-expression in schools and the like. It absolutely is out there, unfortunately.

So: defenses for freedom of expression would be a pretty good start for preventing that - preventing people from discriminating based on either nonhuman/fictional identity or self-expression (barring safety concerns, of course; you can’t wear a tail in an environment where it could get caught in machinery, for example). Plurality requires a whole suite of advocacy for acceptance that I honestly don’t even know how to approach. Beyond that… I don’t honestly know. A lot of it is covered by other advocacy movements; what isn’t isn’t occurring to me right now.

dinocanid

I don't have much to add to this, but yeah there are definitely repercussions for being too alterhuman (specifically nonhuman or fictional) in public, which is why so many are afraid to do it outside of their homes or dedicated meets. You can get fired from jobs, or institutionalized, or experience physical or emotional harm from harassment. Hangouts have to be careful because people are joking about showing up with guns and "hunting" them. It's literally a danger to some people to "come out" too, because they can in an instant be ridiculed or met with hostility from friends and family, completely isolating them socially outside of maybe online communities. There aren't really any protections or support groups in place for this.

PS: I forgot to add this to my reblog initially, but I plan to try being openly a dog as a professional animator. I also know that will be difficult for me to do at most companies, which is why I'm forging my own path with the indie route. It'll be difficult, but I also don't want a craft I'm passionate about to be mutually exclusive with my sense of self and who I am as a person.

Trending Blogs

Recently Viewed Blogs

Dino's Corner