I want to be a dog in a field
And roll around in the grass and smell the humidity in the air and taste the soil and play with the worms and beetles and flies and mud and feel free and wag my tail in motion with the wind.
To feel my fur and pawpads and run and jump and run more.
I recently saw that viral video of the therian laying down in the street and someone throwing food at them mockingly. The human gaze, above all above all. And the therian's, undeterred and profoundly honest. The way they tossed the food away, then lied back down so beautifully. Honestly.
There's such deep honesty in the act of embracing one's own felt truth so fully. This video changed a lot in me.
I've always known I felt something other than human. Ever since I was a kid, I've always had vivid sensations disconnected from my human body. There's a dream, a pure and blissful feeling, of feeling my fur and my claws, my tail, my snout. It's intensely sensorial too. It's all there, just not here.
My place in the furry community has always been something more than aesthetic, deeper than the surface. It's always been identitarian, ideological too.
I've also always looked at the therian community with great respect and admiration. The kind that is born out of a feeling of homeness, of feeling deeply seen. And yet, that also came with the paralyzing fear of feeling transparent, naked, no longer protected by a layer of disconnection.
This fear has stayed with me and guided me almost as much as the feelings of belonging and self discovery have.
After watching the video over and over, marveling at the beautifully canine movements and body posture, and the tragic context of social ostracizing, I think that for the first time I no longer want to hide in my own body. I've hated it for too long.
I am a therian. Not by choice.
The exact shape of my therian identity I'm still exploring. And I want to write more as I explore. I am not a very spiritual person. I construct my identity, as a therian and, much as I'd like not to be, a human, from an ideological framework that I work hard to keep healthy and fluid.
I have no ill will towards the spiritual culture and understanding of therianthropy, but in my case I rationalize my own experience as inextricable from my gender-queer identity. Something akin to a trans*speciesism. If I had a button to turn me into a dog, I would press it. Yet I am deeply aware of my humanity.
The 'origin argument' has haunted LGBTIA+ communities since its inception. If *only* being born a certain way justifies society's acceptance of an identity, sexuality, et cetera, then what becomes of experimentation and growth? It's useful to persuade a bigot, but not much more.
Whether I was born a therian or I was made one, it makes no difference to me. I have felt these feelings since I have memory, and therianthropy is just a word to describe them.
I am sure I am some kind of dog.
And bark and crawl and run in circles and bark again and feel, feel, feel.
I am wagging my tail right now, you just can't see it.
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