So I've been working on a project all day. Basically just finding a ton of alterhuman terms, from the most common stuff like therianthropy, otherkin, and alterhuman itself, to extremely obscure ones like Otherchain, Circukin, Fractic and more. Listing them in a google doc, and then trying to find their origin. Making sure it's archived on at least the wayback machine (you'd be surprise how even common terms don't have their origin saved! Like the first use of copinglink wasn't even saved), and just listing it all out.
There's something so special, so calming, about archival work. Something so exciting about finding the history of terms (for example, did you know the earliest record I can find of speciesless is from 2011? Aspecies as a term from 2020), that get so buried and lost. Knowing that no matter how much time has past, those experiences remain.
The alterhuman community doesn't get the same rich background as a lot of other communities do. We don't have poems about wanting to be a bird flying gracefully in the wind dating back to the 1600s. We don't have diary entries of those who saw themselves in the character from Shakespeare's play, in more than a metaphorical sense. Most of our early recorded history, as it stands today, is the late 1900s. The earliest date for *anything* I can find is *potentially* the late 1960s, and confirmed somewhere between 1972 and 1974 (that being the The Elf Queen’s Daughters (EQD), the early part of the otherkin community). Therianthropy's history starts in 1992, though the term didn't come around until 1994 at the latest point. Transspecies dates back to 1994 as well. And that's most of our early history. That's as far back as we can trace most of it, to my knowledge anyways (I could totally be unaware of things).
Still, there's something special about being able to discover where a term started. Making sure a piece of history for a community that lacks so much isn't lost to time. And maybe we don't risk the lost of the history of things like therianthropy and otherkin. But what about aspecies/speciesless? Altervexo/Altervex/Alterspite? Hell even such a wide use term like Endel doesn't have the original coining post saved anywhere from our research (again, it *might* exist somewhere still, but we sure as hell can't find it). These are things that describe folks existence, their experience. In a way that's been put to words to try and describe in the most basic form something that is often near impossible to fully explain the depth of.
I do plan on making the document available to the public at some point. It's still in very early stages so I'm not comfortable sharing it anywhere beyond close friends currently. But my point is, archival is important. We don't get to choose what terms were made. And whether we agree with them or not, they matter. They describe something someone somewhere experiences. And in communities that so often have so much of their history looked over, lost, *erased*. We should strive to save as much of it as we can.
Terms I mentioned, and the origin I referenced. All links have been archived on the wayback machine as of June 2nd, 2025 or earlier, should they break in the future.
Therianthropy, and its history dating back to 1992 is taken from this pdf: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jDmjl78hQ2BiQtzQMTV3yRQkrIgB9eUZ/view
Otherkin, The Elf Queen’s Daughters (EQD), and its history dating back to potentially the late 1960s is from this pdf: https://frameacloud.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Scribner_Timeline2p0.pdf
Alterhuman's coining post can be found here: https://phasmovore.tumblr.com/post/98482696958/this-will-probably-be-my-last-post-on-semantics
Otherchain's history, and recoining on tumblr can be found here: https://web.archive.org/web/20241210230712/https://www.tumblr.com/shadowbandshub/763884852524302336/idk-if-ive-ever-made-a-coining-post-with and here: https://alterhumanity.fandom.com/wiki/Otherchain
Circukin's original coining post appears to have been deleted, as the coiner wishes to be removed from the community. However a reupload of what was on the coining post, as well as history on the original coining post can be found here: https://www.tumblr.com/nyctohyloph0bia/755458471273627648/circukin?source=share
Fractic's coining post can be found here: https://www.tumblr.com/empyrangel/704274200484003840/fractic
The first use of copinglink can be found here: https://www.tumblr.com/who-is-page/127897905604/demonicprinceofsin-no-idea-what-term-id-use?source=share while it's official coining can be found here: https://who-is-page.tumblr.com/post/139871297049/clinkers-and-copinglink
The first recorded usage of speciesless I can find dating back to 2011 can be found here: https://www.tumblr.com/solipsistful/11133858784/speciesless, while aspecies I can only find records dating back to 2020 found here: https://www.reddit.com/r/otherkin/comments/ent6pk/aspeciesspeciesless/
The original coining post of Altervexo/Altervex/Alterspite appears to have been deleted and lost, however there is an archive of the first page of the carrd found here: https://web.archive.org/web/20220606042844/https://altervexo.carrd.co/ and the full definition along with record of original coining date and coiner found here: https://alterhuman.miraheze.org/wiki/Altervexo#cite_note-:0-1
As stated, the original coining of Endel was confirmed to be deleted, and I can find no lasting reblog of it, however there is this carrd: https://endel.carrd.co
