Could you elaborate on the internalized misogyny/autistic/ADHD component of that recent post? It sounds really interesting, and I'd like to know more about how those things correlate to gender (and species?) identity.
Okay so basically that was a really summarized version of saying:
We can agree that being AFAB and desperately wanting to be a boy is a sign of being a trans man. I can’t speak for being AMAB and desperately wanting to be a girl, because I’m not AMAB, so ask someone else about that.
However, being AFAB and desperately wanting to be a boy is 50/50 a sign of “I want to be a boy because I am a boy” versus “I want to be a boy because I hate being a girl, because girls are treated badly and I want respect”
So being AFAB and desperately wanting to be a boy is either a) trans stuff or b) internalized misogyny
So thus the parallel goes, if wanting to be a different gender is a sign of being trans, shouldn’t it mean that wanting to be a different species is a sign of being alterhuman?
Yeah, absolutely! But also, you have to remember a few things.
One of the many reasons of the changeling myth was folks not recognizing autism / ADHD, because psychology wasn’t that great at the time, and small child suddenly acting Fay and Weird (knows words they shouldn’t, asks weird questions, gets really fixated) is not unlike ‘autism / ADHD mommies’ saying “autism / ADHD stole my sweet normal child!!”
As well, a lot of autistic / ADHD / other neuroatypical folks feel nonhuman simply because they don’t get Western societal conventions.
Now, I’m not saying that being otherkin psychologically because your neuroatypicality makes you feel nonhuman is wrong. I am absolutely not, and I welcome those people wholeheartedly. We need their voices.
But what I’m basically saying is that as thus AFABness + wanting to be a boy is 50/50 trans stuff versus misogyny, thus it also goes wanting to be nonhuman could very well be 50/50 alterhumanity versus neuroatypicality.
That’s how that thought process goes. I can’t say for absolute certain, I don’t have a degree in psychiatry, but it seems like it wouldn’t be all that surprising if that were the case.
Now, a lot of people really like to say “hurr durr being otherkin has nothing to do with being trans don’t compare them!!!”. Unfortunately to those people who really dislike the concept intersectionality, I am both. And I will note when they’re similar.
The main hypothesis for why so many otherkin and alterhumans are queer is because if you’re questioning your species identity, it kind of makes sense you’d also question your sexuality / gender, as you really can’t view those in the exact same lens as a normal human because well, you’re not.
Being trans and being otherkin, from the inside, do feel pretty similar. I’m ignoring society here - transphobia and kin-hatred are very, very different on a societal level, and nobody is comparing that - but from the inside, when it’s just me? Yeah, they’re two aspects of basically the same thing.
So if they present on the inside rather similar, then lines of thinking would also be similar, just swap the language and you’ve got a pretty good idea. They’re both of identifying as something different than you physically are. They both tend to come with dysphoria and/or euphoria. There is a level of transition there, up to the person in question. So it’s not surprising to me at all if things line up between them. We can agree wanting to be a different gender is a sign of being trans, so of course it follows the same for species.
Why wouldn’t it?
