It's time to get serious. I rarely write posts like this, but now I feel the need to speak my mind.
This whole discourse is driving me crazy.
Some say that others are bad rep. Others say that other others are bad rep. And once again, the general word "therian" is being equated with some childish, immature people who do nothing else but just run around taking everything from everyone. "The therians have stolen our term," "The therians have ruined our community," "The therians are eroding our experience." It’s a whole different story with the words "nonhuman" and "holothere" - they’re seen as "serious", "mature", "cut off from these little therian kids". What the hell does that even mean?! These are just other labels for specific personal experiences, there isn't some "what's less and what's more" factor in all these terms, is there? All terms just exist, and they shouldn't compete with each other "in coolness" or whatever!
Once the word "therian"/"therianthrope" used to be taken seriously! And that was enough! If you consider yourself an animal, then you’re a therian. And that was enough: both 100% animal and 1% animal folks were considered therians! There used to be a few subtypes like contherian or suntherian etc., but now other identities have crushed the general term "therian" so much that people are SCARED TO EVEN USE IT, for fear of looking like TikTok kids?
What have we come to, fellow animals? To the point of fearing a word that once belonged to us, to all of us - spiritual, psychological, biological, physical, clinical zoanthropes - everyone who identifies as an animal to some degree. And what do I see now? I see posts along the lines of "Oh, those foolish therians, they’ve ruined everything, pushing us out and leaving us no room."
Now even I have no idea how to describe myself from this labyrinth of words. I personally believe that I have some sort of genetic inheritance from a were-marten in my lineage, I have the corresponding genes and altered DNA, and I experience physical shifts from time to time. I have no idea which specific category my identity fits into. Physical, biological - I don’t know! And guess what, I’m totally fine with the word "therian"! It’s upsetting when I see people treat the term this way - like they’re actually afraid to use it!
We’re all animals here, some for 1%, some for 100% - let’s just treat each other’s experiences with respect! Let’s not bash other terms! What word is left that hasn’t been dirtied up? What the hell word is left untainted by bad rep? I don’t know. And it’s already hard for me to even begin to understand what’s going on, what kind of split is happening in our animal community. It’s making me sick.