Alterhuman is a big umbrella, my dudes
Just figured it’s time for the reminder that ‘alterhuman’ isn’t strictly synonymous with ‘nonhuman’ and is especially not synonymous with ‘kin.’
It’s encompasses those identities, sure, but here’s a list straight from OP’s post coining the term of others it was meant to include, which is by no means the end-all-be-all of who this umbrella may fit.
-Therian, phytanthrope, otherkin, and fictionkin identities
-Multiple, plural, median, and walk-in identities
-Spiritual self-identities which may still include degrees of humanity such as angelics, celestials, starseeds, god shards, reincarnated gods, vampires, etc
-Identities involving shared self-identification with nonhuman or other alternative human entities/concepts such as animal-hearted, godspouse, soulbond, and spiritual medium identities
-Identities of alternative humanity through dissociation, trauma response, or non-neurotypical mental status
Nowadays it’s expanded and may also include
-Transhumanists
-Furries and post-furries who often identify more with their fursona than humanity (mentioned in the original post but not the list)
-Voidpunk identities (the voidpunk movement is generally separate but we’re starting to see some overlap)
-Daemons & daemonism (as described here)
-Coping/otherlinkers
-And a bunch more probably!
‘Alterhuman’ is meant to encompass anyone who identifies with it (that means even if you belong to one of the groups it can encompass you don’t have to call yourself alterhuman!) on the basis of experiencing humanity ‘alternative’ from the norm (the assumed ‘norms’ of humanity being proposed by OP quite well), or something ‘alternative’ to humanity altogether.
I know it’s too easy to write about it as if ‘alterhuman’ encompassed one nice, neat group of communities with lots of shared terms and experiences in common (like awakenings, shifts, etc, you know where I’m going with this), but there’s plenty of SoulBonders, plurals, godshards, daemians, and “i don’t know what I am but it’s alterhuman”-IDing folks who don’t share those experiences! Lets not exclude these people by forgetting them when we talk about alterhumanity!
