Hi! I have a question about the description you gave of the term “alterhuman” on the phasmovore blog. Some are speculating on your intentions in including starseeds in the alterhuman definition, but since you’re still active on tumblr I thought, why not just ask?
Starseeds are anti-semitic/Nazis (https://www.philosophyforlife.org/blog/starseeds-nazis-in-space) so people are using your inclusion of starseeds as an excuse to exclude endogenic systems from the definition of alterhuman because “endos are just as harmful as starseeds”.
I just wanted to know your thoughts on this, not tryna accuse you of anything (/genuine). Sorry to pull you into this whole syscourse stuff!
Heya! Thanks for the ask! I really appreciate you reaching out.
Re: Starseeds: The term alterhuman was coined... ten? years ago now? And at the time, while I'm sure some circles were aware of potential issues with the concept of starseeds as you share, at the time the term was something used a bit more broadly, especially by divine and extraterrestrial identified individuals. I was not part of the starseed community, but I followed a lot of those who identified with the term on social media/especially Tumblr, as well as kept up with posts by self-identified (at the time) starseeds on various otherkin forums. I don't think most of those folks had an understanding of those roots of the term and instead were using it to describe a type of identity that we have other words for today.
I do think at the time I was on the fence a bit about it because I didn't have much info about it, but from the experiences I had it was describing something else. Perhaps a better way to phrase it now is "those with identities related to divinity or extraterrestrials."
I'm not the arbiter of what is or isn't alterhuman, but the idea of the term was not "here's a bunch of groups, by name, who are allowed", and more "hey I noticed a lot of groups of those with overlapping identities are fighting each other over stupid shit even though a lot of what they say and feel seem to be really similar, I wish there was some term that people could use as an umbrella to refer to their shared experiences rather than get mad at each other over precise terminology". I don't think that antisemitism is very conducive to understanding each other and our similarities and meaningful differences, so, if I were to remake the original post today, I would not include a concept like that. The original post was admittedly a frustrated reaction to infighting and I didn't, like, vet it with anyone else because I was annoyed and pretty much immediately after disappeared to go do college classes and came back a year later really confused to hear that people had actually taken to it.
That said... while I try to avoid syscourse here, I am not opposed to being clear when I have to be: the entire point of "alterhuman" is to have a term to unite those with similar experiences which fall outside of the socially accepted concept of humanity. Endogenic exclusion is inherently opposite to that idea. I've in many places and many ways gone on and on about my opinion on syscourse, but - while I understand the pain and frustration of disordered systems (we have DID, and are traumagenic, in case anyone is unaware,) there is no universe where "cruelty against Jews" is the same as "having a similar experience to a psychological disorder but with different symptoms".
But if there is one thing I have learned in all the years since the term alterhuman was created, it's this: while you can give others endless tools to connect and understand each other and their experiences, both similar and disparate, no terminology will ever reach the people who want to draw a line between themselves and others. "Endogenic" and "Traumagenic" exist because the terms that existed beforehand were not considered appropriate, and so "better" terms were created to help the community get along. "Alterhuman" was created because otherkin and therians and plurals and fictionkin etc etc were all fighting each other over terminology. Back then I barely ever saw anti-endo sentiments - I'm sure they existed, but not nearly like they do now. I'm not surprised people are trying to use starseeds being listed in the alterhuman coining post that I wrote in a frustrated huff listing any communities I could think of off the top of my head as I went to close tumblr for the night and go do my homework as a way to excise people - that sort of aggressive "us vs them"-ism was bound to crop up anyways.
I suppose, to those who are using the inclusion of starseeds to be exclusionary, maybe consider the following discussion questions:
What was the social landscape of what we now call the alterhuman community like at the time of the post's publishing?
What do you think the author's intention was when listing a wide range of communities and ideas, and do you think that the list was meant to be exhaustive, complete, or otherwise?
Why might a 19 year old college student not be aware of the intricacies of a till-then non-unified collection of identities?
Do you think my friends being scared of experiencing violence when existing in public while visibly Jewish is equivocal to someone saying they think they have more than one person in their head even though a doctor didn't give them the OK to think that?
Actually forget all the other discussion questions and answer the last one. If you answer wrong, I will become the evil alter.
Anyways. Back to you, who asked: Thank you for asking and I hope that maybe sheds some context on the post!
