"Dog" as a gender

Hi everyone

One of the more recent trends I have observed (coming from Tumblr, Amino, ect) is the notion that a theriotype or a kintype is one's gender or can be one's gender.

To me, these are completely separate facets of what make up an animal-person even if there are some comparable similarities. I have already witnessed confusion and retaliation from the LGBTQ community over this trend as some of them feel that we are misappropriating their gender experience by suggesting that kintype/theriotype can be a gender and I, personally, do not disagree with them. I believe it is misappropriation of both gender and animality.

This seems to me like yet another attempt to water down the therian and otherkin experience to make it more relatable to mainstream society and "normalize" our experiences at the cost of stripping them of any real substance or depth. It also seems to place emphasis on the human aspect of animal or creature-person and at that point, why bother considering oneself anything but human to begin with?

I would like to know what others feel about this, in all honesty.

Do you think "animal" as a gender is representative of your experience?
If so, why?

Do you feel offended by the suggestion that "dog" can be a gender?

Does it not matter to you?

No right or wrong answers and please, feel free to disagree with me. I'm trying to figure out where everyone is with this and how they feel about it.

Lyc

I do not consider my gender wolf or dragon. I have not seen this for real yet, but I have seen the controversy. My gender is female, not wolf. I don't really think that makes the most sense- unless someone does not identify as a specific gender and are therian, therefore simply identifying as their therian type for both gender and theriotype??
I agree, when outsiders do not understand a topic or community, they tend to alter definitions to make it seem more normal , or understandable.
Thank you for starting this discussion, I am eager to see what other people have to say

Species and gender are two totally different things. My gender is male, transgender male to be more specific. My species is human, although I do indeed identify as a horse and a polymorph as well. I would not say my species is male, because that is not my species, that is my gender. I would not say my gender is human or horse, as those are species, not genders. It shouldn't be that complicated

Well my perspective on the matter might be a bit of an outlier when you go to plot the data points. But on the other paw...maybe not.

It makes no sense to me lumping gender and species identity together, but this is coming from somebody who still doesn’t fully understand all these new gender and orientation terms.

At first glance, the only thing gender ID and species ID have in common is that we’re talking about something nobody else can see with their eyes. Beyond that, it’s a different bone entirely.

Besides, why would anyone want to make the experience of therianthropy any more complicated! I mean can you imagine where this might be going....

“Hi my name is X pseudo therian, my gender is male Pitt bull, my orientation is female poodle but with a ten percent leaning towards neutered Dashund”..WTF?

How does this simplify or normalize anything? Oh and does anybody see how easily mainstream will interpret this as proof of rampant beastiality in our community or something?!

Sorry if I stepped on any paws...just trying to have some fun with this bizarre concept. Overall I don’t think this is a good trend at all!

Blayz

Hi,

I can't help but feel like we wouldn't be having this conversation if age were more commonly outwardly apparent on the Internet.

Identity is important to young teenagers as they are driven to explore it by human instinct, but Therians (and probably LGBT) do not appreciate, terms they use to actually mean something, being misappropriated, by people who barely understand what it all even means. I'm afraid the Internet at large does not provide any framework, to allow people to actually receive feedback, when they are doing something wrong.

If at least age was more apparent, I do believe people would gravitate towards taking into account the comprehension and experiences of older community members. However if age is unknown, those who are completely new to a topic seem just as credible as those with years of experience and understanding. Comprehension gets lost and strange interpretations are perpetuated.

LP,
Dusty

The whole dog thing is weird to me, not really offensive but I am curious why people would want to choose that for a gender. I guess they are implying that dogs somehow don't have genders? I guess I just don't understand their point on it.

Edit: I dunno if it's watering down but hopefully this dog gender thing is a fad and will fade away in time.

(2020-08-17 18:57)JessyeD Wrote:  Species and gender are two totally different things. My gender is male, transgender male to be more specific. My species is human, although I do indeed identify as a horse and a polymorph as well. I would not say my species is male, because that is not my species, that is my gender. I would not say my gender is human or horse, as those are species, not genders. It shouldn't be that complicated

I agree !

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(2020-08-17 19:14)Blayz Wrote:  “Hi my name is X pseudo therian, my gender is male Pitt bull, my orientation is female poodle but with a ten percent leaning towards neutered Dashund”..WTF?

Blayz

Omg this made me laugh
I totally agree. This would lead to a lot of confusion, and it does not make sense. You can be any gender that you want to be, but things that are not real genders .... ya it’s just confusing lol

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(2020-08-17 20:18)Alliana Wrote:  The whole dog thing is weird to me, not really offensive but I am curious why people would want to choose that for a gender. I guess they are implying that dogs somehow don't have genders? I guess I just don't understand their point on it.

Edit: I dunno if it's watering down but hopefully this dog gender thing is a fad and will fade away in time.

Ya it’s pretty confusing XD

Well, what I actually imagine it to be, is that it means your gender identity is affected by your animal side, not that your gender identity is that animal. We've seen folks around before who said they believed they were trans because their theriotype's sex was different from their biological.
...At least, that's what those animal genders SHOULD mean. If it really is referring to their theriotype being their gender, things are going to get very confusing. Especially if someone likes me comes around.

"Hi, I'm Michen. My body is human, but unless that's relevant I prefer to snow leopard. My theriotype is throwing gender out of the window."

Now that is some nightmare of an introduction, innit?

Personally I can understand Michen's argument, but as someone who's theriotype has effected my gender identity I don't think that's what's going on here.

It's a pretty extreme trend, and I've personally only heard of it rampantly on Tumbler. I think it stems from the larger inability in the "kinnie" community to differentiate between what you are and what you like.
Personally my take on it is I won't use a noun as a pronoun. I'm pretty tolerant of pronouns, but this is (part of) why I have an issue with neo pronouns. When you can make up anything you like there's nobody saying let's be reasonable.

Similarly to me gender is about the balance of masculine and feminine energy and also the social role we assume in context to that. I do believe in that regard that gender is a spectrum. But "dog" is not a place on that spectrum. I also feel like people get waaaaay to caught up in talking about that all the time. Correct pronouns are important, but I'd like to think we are capable of directing ourselves into the role where we belong without constantly talking about it. I think if more people viewed gender as a personal alignment issue rather than some massive talking point, we would never have things like mirror gender, dog gender, star gender etc; because making up a crazy identity wouldn't make you special.

I will be slight harsh here while leaving some things out...for reasons....

Species and gender are two completely different things. Letting children change reality, structure, science and centuries of communities building their rights just to "fit in" is outright ridiculous. People shouldn't have taken it so seriously...