Otherkin Criteria
There’s a lot of confusion in some parts of the Tumblr community as to what counts as otherkin and what doesn’t.
We have plenty of definitions, but I haven’t seen anyone lay it out quite like this, so I thought I’d make a sort of checklist to help clarify.
Definitions haven’t always been this clearly expressed, but they’ve pretty much always been this way.
Non-human identity. Otherkin are people who believe themselves to be partially or wholly non-human on a spiritual and/or psychological level. Explanations for why their identity is non-human vary, and this identity may be as anything non-human. Most otherkin either consider their identity spiritual/religious in nature, often correlating to past lives, or cite mundane psychological explanations. Only explicitly non-human identities count as otherkin. Some fictionkin may identify as human fictional characters, and while equally valid identities, these are not otherkin and are functionally little different from traditional beliefs in reincarnation. Feelings of similarity and affinity for non-human beings are excluded from the otherkin label. We identify as, not with.
Non-physical identity. Otherkin identities are spiritual and/or psychological only. Otherkin consider their physical bodies to be entirely human. Identities with any physically non-human component are excluded from the otherkin label. Beliefs in physical shapeshifting are not a part of the otherkin community.
Involuntary identity. There is no component of choice in being otherkin. This is part of why the explanations for why and how otherkin exist vary so widely; because there is no inherent connection between belief system and being otherkin. Not only is it not possible to choose to be otherkin, but it is not possible to choose not to be otherkin. Which means each of us must find a way to reconcile this involuntary identity with our existing beliefs about the world around us, leading to a variety of conflicting explanations.
If you answer yes to all of these criteria (and only if all of them apply), you may be considered otherkin.
I’m sorry, but the idea that you can’t control who or what you kin as is simply not true and that’s not coming from my personal opinion but from the nature of your own descriptions. If otherkin cannot choose what they kin as nor can they choose if they want to be otherkin or not, why do I never see an otherkin be an undesirable animal or entity?
Why do no otherkin dislike or hate what they are forced to kin as, if it’s not up to them? If their kin depends on a past life, almost every single otherkin would be an insect due to the high population and typically low-lifespan that insects have. If it’s entirely up to a re-incarnation system, it’d be extraordinarily rare for an otherkin to identify as a wolf or lion. Much less a dragon, demon or angel.
Even if though there are insectkin out there, they normally are idealized creatures like ladybugs or bees or praying mantises. No flykin or dung beetlekin or bed-bugkin. In addition there are no tape-wormkin or leech-kin either, assuming the re-incarnation cycle can go down to that level. Factkin and fictionkin are also invalid because how would a fictionkin knew who they were kinning before they knew about the character? And why don’t factkin know intimate questions about the people they are kinning with? Like “what did it feel like learning you/your S.O was pregnant? How did you decide if you did or didn’t want kids? What did it feel like holding your child? How do you deal with loss? What are stories the person you’re kinning with might never tell?”
Despite all this, otherkin seem to defy the normal issues that would come up if kinning worked the way you say it does. Nobody really contests their kin, they almost always kin with an animal or entity that is very romanticized and they seem to have any of the issues that would occur if kinning was defined by the parameters you set. This is why anti-kin and most non-kin people, including myself, do not believe you when you say such things.
Right from the start it’s clear that you don’t pay any attention to the otherkin community, and your last line makes it all make sense. It’s because you’re literally not part of the community.
The answer to most of your questions is “because you’re not paying attention.”
Some otherkin do dislike their kintype, and some are not any of these “romanticized” animals. There are insect otherkin. The most accepted answer for why certain animals are more common in the community than others is because those memories/experiences are easier to make sense of. Your brain wouldn’t know what to do with insect sensory input, so most people are unlikely to ever remember it even though it’s reasonable to suppose if you believe in reincarnation that most people have been insects in various past lives.
Factkin is a thing that was made up by trolls. They’re not even part of our community. Which you’d know if you’d even put in enough effort to read more than one of my posts on the topic.
And finally, no, most people who are not otherkin do not agree with you. In fact I’ve literally never met anyone outside of a handful of social media sites who agrees with you. Not to mention the fact that people with PhDs in related fields have written books on this topic and I personally know people who’ve written college dissertations on this.
Your ignorance is showing, and you really should make an effort to know something about a topic before you try to educate the experts.
As one of the then-otherkin (now folcintera) who wrote about outsider misconceptions on otherkinity and what those misconceptions say about larger societal perceptions at play for their capstone, and who will be lecturing on the subject at OtherCon, let me further go in-depth on what Dove has said here in response to @void-is-vibing
If otherkin cannot choose what they kin as nor can they choose if they want to be otherkin or not, why do I never see an otherkin be an undesirable animal or entity? … If their kin depends on a past life, almost every single otherkin would be an insect due to the high population and typically low-lifespan that insects have.
There’s multiple theories around this, depending on who you ask and their own hypotheses or understandings behind their personal nonhumanity.
To give you some background knowledge that I am going to imagine you do not currently have, the otherkin community is largely divided into four subsets of understanding that I will informally label as: Spiritual-based, Psychological-based, Mixed-based, and Unknown-based. There are some small outliers, but this is where a majority of the community falls.
Spiritual-based: These otherkin attribute their nonhumanity to reasons spiritual, divine, magical, superstitious, religious, cultural, or otherwise belief-oriented in nature. This includes beliefs surrounding the idea of reincarnation, or misplaced souls, of having some sort of divine mandate, and so on and so forth.
Psychological-based: These otherkin attribute their nonhumanity to reasons psychological and neurological. This includes hypotheses surrounding imprinting at young developmental stages, brain maps gone awry, intersections with disorders or disorder criteria that the otherkin may already have and be diagnosed with, and just general brain weirdness. Check out A Comprehensive Introduction to a Psychological View of Therianthropy by Liesk (2007) for some further examples of understanding.
Mixed-based: These otherkin, as you can probably guess, attribute their nonhumanity to a mixture of reasons both spiritual and psychological. This includes ideas such as along the lines of “reincarnation, but then also growing up surrounded by cats just kind of cemented that identity beyond my control,” and similar. There’s no real basic rundown of examples I can give here because the reasonings here can be very complex from individual to individual.
Unknown-based: These otherkin don’t attribute their nonhumanity to anything in particular. Whether it’s because they don’t feel qualified to speculate about it, or they’re not particularly interested in the mechanisms behind it all, or maybe just feel uncomfortable with the idea of trying to find some sort of “origin” or “reason” for their reason, or something else entirely, these otherkin simply are otherkin and have nonhuman identities for reasons they don’t know of, don’t care about, or don’t wish to disclose.
Naturally, you’re going to get different perspectives on the “why is everyone a Cute or Cool animal?” depending on where the person you’re asking is understanding their (and other’s) nonhumanity from, and also how long they’ve been in the otherkin communities and how active a part they’ve been in them.
Spiritual-based otherkin may be more likely to take perspectives and ideas directly in relation to their belief-systems. You do occasionally see, as Dove said, some arguments that insect experiences are left out of the larger memories of reincarnation cycles for being too small. For an easy example from a Christian perspective (to pull from my recent short essay, Christianity & Therianthropy: A Hypothetical Theological Perspective and from Christian Therianthropy by Kai (2012)) one could potentially argue that the Abrahamic God chose more well-known animals for individual otherkin to “resonate” with due to the trying to influence a theoretical divide or chasm between mankind and the living world. As I said, this sort of perspective entirely comes down to the beliefs of the individual in question, and that’s just one example among many.
Psychological-based otherkin may be more likely to take perspectives and ideas directly related to ideas surrounding animal imprinting and the popularlity bias (what animals are people commonly exposed to as children vs. what aren’t they, sort of things). Ideas of nature versus nurture and the like.
But, of course, then also have otherkin who have been particularly active within otherkin, alterhuman, and nonhuman communities over extended periods of time, who have perspectives on the matter completely separated from the ideas of “why” people are otherkin, and instead focus more on the ideas of “how” individuals are otherkin.
Relevant history lesson: Historically, grilling (a form of cyber-hazing used to remove what is described as “fluff” and “roleplayers” from groups) has been a massive issue within online therian communities. Therians are individuals who 1) identify as an earthly, extant or extinct, animals, or 2) experience a nonhumanity marked uniquely with what they determine to be animality, ferality, etc. This is relevant because the individuals you’re directly asking about–insect-identifying people–would be classifiable as therians, and are likely to be found in those circles. Because of that historical precedent within the therian community and the way it continues to shape the therian communities today, insect therianthropes are largely pushed out of therian circles. These communities have now been curated over the years for individuals with what has been enforced to be the “status quo” of theriotypes: canines, felines, bears, etc., which makes them automatically not a good fit for insect therians and their experiences right off the bat, both in the actual way these communities are outlined and their priorities, but also in the fact there is little to no sharing of similar experiences to be had. On top of that, the potential for ridicule, grilling, bullying, etc. because of those latent attitudes is also high, which further disinclines insect therians from seeking communities.
So some of the intracommunity politics and relevancies at play; let’s move on to outsider community politics.
Otherkin, as you already are aware, invoke what seems to be what one academic described as a “pathological anger” in non-kin (Joseph P. Laycock. “We Are Spirits of Another Sort”: Ontological Rebellion and Religious Dimensions of the Otherkin Community Pg. 88). Otherkin are heavily mocked and belittled by non-kin, even postmortem, sometimes occasionally to the point of real life harassment and doxxing. There is fundamentally no advantage for someone to socially commit suicide without a community or support network to make it worth doing such. It’s all the “con"s without any of the “pro"s. And that is also something to consider when talking about this: you, as a non-kin (as an anti-kin?) don’t venture further than these public spaces. You’re not seeing the semi-public or private spaces where most discussions around nonhumanity and nonhuman experiences are going on; you are very much seeing the tip of an incomprehensibly large iceberg in this scenario, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that you, personally, have rarely seen individuals openly displaying what you constitute to be "undesirable” kintypes. It should make perfect sense that you haven’t seen such.
To bring my personal understandings and anecdotes to the field, I would like to state that I am no greymuzzle, but that I have a reasonable amount of experience and understandings: I have been active in the nonhuman communities since 2014, and have been researching and writing about them since then. I also run a small and relatively new nonhuman forum.
I have met insects! If memory serves, I have met a moth, a few bees, multiple ants, and a fruitfly. I have also met people with arguably “undesirable” theriotypes, kintypes, and fictotypes: a leech, worms, various vehicles, a broomstick, many farm animals that claim to have been killed for meat, a violin, etc. Also, unsure if they constitute as “undesirable” in your eyes, but I have met a lot of phytanthropes since opening up my forum.
Relevantly, after opening up the forum, it’s been immensely eye-opening to see the different identities and experiences of everyone who has joined. I really, truly believe that a large amount of the standardization we seem to see argued for or of existing of by non-kin and some nonhumans is nothing more than a myth pushed by the centralization of the nonhuman communities to immensely public social media platforms and several small forums with intimidating or outright harmful histories; more and more I look around and realize that it’s not that people aren’t there with these experiences. They’re just nervous about sharing them, or talking about them, for completely understandable reasons!
But, that’s just my experiences. Take them with a grain of salt, of course.
For further examples touching on the specific subject of there being more Cool AnimalsTM than not, check out Why So Many Wolves? by Elinox (2007).
Why do no otherkin dislike or hate what they are forced to kin as, if it’s not up to them?
There’s multiple layers to this, some of which Dove already has mentioned–that such people do, provably, exist–but let’s dive deeper than that.
In online spaces that are public, where otherkin are at best lightly bullied and at worst are encouraged to commit suicide or have their personal identifying information taken and publicized, why would someone metaphorically put blood in the water? People largely aren’t going to be lounging across their daises, weeping loudly in front of the assembled; that’s begging to get a knife (or 23) in their side.
Part of the reason you, personally, may not be seeing that is because such woes are largely kept to private or only semi-public, nonhuman-focused spaces. It’s no surprise that when someone is embittered or otherwise wants to share their woes, they want to share it with sympathetic, understanding audiences; not with strangers who historically have a history of blood-thirst.
Reasons I’ve personally seen people talk about why they hate being otherkin or having a specific kintype includes:
Issues with species dysphoria
Difficult to manage or tolerate phantom limbs
Difficult to manage or tolerate mental shifts
Desire to be “normal”
Personal dislike of their kintype/theriotype/fictotype
Other people’s dislike of their kintype/theriotype/fictotype
Lack of resources, research, and understanding
Ridicule by peers and families
Inability to openly share in experiences/identity for fear of rejection or harm
…and etc.
This is by no means an extensive list, just some of what I’ve seen off the top of my head. But most forums I’ve been on actual have entire threads dedicated to the subject of “what do you dislike about your kintype/being otherkin?” if that tells you anything– it’s not exactly a rarely discussed subject within the communities by any means.
Factkin and fictionkin are also invalid because how would a fictionkin knew who they were kinning before they knew about the character?
Factkin aren’t considered to be under the otherkin umbrella; as they identify as human, that just doesn’t realistically make sense. Do you perhaps mean to aim your criticisms to factkin towards alterhuman groups or factkin groups?
I’m not personally going to get into the politics of factkin; having talked to some myself and heard about their experiences and why they classify their identity the way they do, while also having been around when factkin was “coined” by an anti-otherkin, I have my own personal opinions on the matter. Personal opinions which, while more informed than yours, I still feel like I need to formally write down on paper and scrutinize myself regarding before I go about sharing them as legitimate.
Regarding fictionkin, you seem to have a misunderstanding. To steal a quote from my essay, To Pokemon or Pokemon’t, “Fictionkin are definable as individuals who internally identify as a fictional individual or species on an integral level.” There is community debate on whether all fictionkin are categorically otherkin, similar to the debate if all therianthropes are categorically otherkin, so keep that in mind as well.
Fictionkin are also largely dividable into the spiritual-based, psychological-based, mixed-based, and unknown-based methods of understanding I defined and described earlier, so also be aware that your criticisms may largely not apply to fictionkin who do not view their identity in any way as spiritual or religious; an atheist fictionkin is likely to laugh your qualms right out the door, rightfully so since they’re utterly inapplicable to them. Additionally, I find it useful to categorize fictionkin into a secondary grouping: Character-specific, and species-specific.
Character-specific: These fictionkin identify as specific or identifiable characters from fictional pieces of work. This can include anything from the main character of a show, such as Ash’s Pikachu, to significantly lesser-known or not-shown-at-all characters, such as some poor sap who lived a town over from Gravity Falls.
Species-specific: These fictionkin identify as a species specific to a fictional piece of work or utilize the fictionkin label because their nonhuman identity is so similar to the fictional species as to be functionally the same. This would include, for example, a non-canonical Pikachu, or for the latter someone who happened to identify as a yellow electricity-producing rodent with red cheeks, brown stripes, and a zigzag tail and just took on the label of “Pikachu” for ease’s sake. For examples of the latter, check out HouseofChimera’s Fangs Flesh and Flight and Comparing One Name to the Named essays.
The idea that it’s important for someone to know who or what they are by name before stumbling across media which matches it word-for-word and experience-for-experience doesn’t fundamentally apply to anyone besides spiritual-based(specifically spiritual explanations which harnass ideas around souls, soul shards, reincarnation, experiencing multiple timelines, etc.), character-specific, canon-matching fictionkin, and even then it’s incredibly arbitrary to try and place someone on a ValidationTM pedestal for such. It’s picking out a single type of fictionkin that you, personally, have issues with and disregarding all fictionkin experiences based on that; it’s a flawed and illogical position to hold at absolute best. At worst, it’s just maliciously ignorant.
This is why anti-kin and most non-kin people, including myself, do not believe you when you say such things.
Actually, that’s incorrect– and I should know, since I wrote near 20 pages on exactly that topic! I’m not going to write 20 pages here to prove what I’m saying, but I’ll do a quick summarization and some self-plagarizing– I can see my partner giving me “Hey, let’s make dinner already!” looks from across the room and don’t want to make this any longer than necessary.
Non-kin and anti-otherkin don’t “believe” what otherkin tell them because of how otherkinity is commonly misunderstood: “not as a true identity per se, but instead as an extravagant, animal-related religious belief. This is notably despite the fact that otherkin openly deny this (Laycock 66), offering numerous websites dedicated to otherkin writings and resources in order to help refute this misunderstanding and others in the form of online archives over a decade old such as Project Shift and The Werelibrary (Leaf, “Werelibrary”), as well as personal otherkin-related blogs filled with individually written and personally applicable essays (House of Chimeras, “Personal Essays”). Through this continuous pattern of misrepresentation in the face of long-term otherkin-published documentation, the dehumanization of community members visibly in online dimensions, notably those pertaining to social media, and the attribution of unrelated identifiers which often come alongside social stigma, such as that of mental illness, specific narratives are formed around otherkin which mark them as simultaneously child-like, feral, and non-progressive in nature. This narrative is all too-familiar within American religious contexts, echoing historical religious hierarchies inherited from Britain and modern and colonialist interpretations of indigenous religious identities. The acknowledgement of this narrative’s consistent application to such a small and relatively new subculture and the visible, recorded consequences of such opens up new implications regarding the invisible cultural smokescreens which cover Americans’ understandings of what they interpret to be nature-based or animal-related religions or spiritualities. Through examining and recognizing this continuous narrative of equating animal-related and nature-related religions to childishness and primitiveness in outsider conjecture regarding the otherkin community, we can better acknowledge its greater prevalence within American society as a whole and begin to recognize the ways in which hidden prejudices still permeate our country, helping us to address larger issues of bigotry and work towards potential solutions” (Shepard 4).
The TL;DR of that is that people don’t believe what otherkin say because they purposefully misunderstand what being otherkin means, and they refuse to deviate from that misunderstanding because it’s culturally embedded. Western society’s tendency to be an absolute dick to anything perceived to be non-monotheistic, religious/spiritual, and animal-related, regardless of if the thing in question actually is (in this case, it’s not), is so horrifically ingrained that you can see it even in effect here! It’s fascinating and awful, all in one, and, no offense meant, but you’re a walking, talking, typing example of exactly what I’ve said here: a majority of what you’ve spoken about is based in misinformation, and what isn’t based in misinformation relies entirely around not how someone is otherkin, as in their nonhuman experiences, but the theoretical why someone is otherkin– as in, their personal beliefs surrounding it, not the identity itself. And when criticizing fictionkin, note how you immediately defaulted to specifically spiritual-based fictionkinity as a group criticism! You’re also completely disregarding everything a well-known otherkin, Dovewithscales, said in favor of your own misunderstandings even though it is fairly obvious that you yourself do not actually know that much about otherkin in general and have done no research on the subject. You are immediately willing to lean on your own uninformed perspective before even considering questioning the insider of the group further, or doing your own research– it’s ingrained in you to assume that otherkin are pseudo-religious, and even despite evidence contrary coming directly from the crow’s mouth, you still defaulted to such and made judgements based on that misaligned position.
You’re not a perfect functional example of course, but you come pretty damn close given everything.
