Furries are from Mars, otherkin are from Venus

(2026-01-28 0:33)Zero Wrote:  Some interesting observations here Lopori. I think I can largely agree that they're true as far as generalizations go. They're tendencies, not absolute rules.

Agreed with @Zero as quoted above: Generalizations exist for a reason, but they don't describe everyone.

Otherkin/therians are small fraction of the size the furry space occupies, and there's also substantial overlap between the two. Of Othercon 2026's roughly 482 attendees, 335 identified as otherkin, 313 identified as therians, and 330 identified as furries; this means at least half of the otherkin/therians identified as furries.

The male/female trends in behavior are also something reinforced by different spaces/societies in different ways. @Wulfra highlights some trends I've seen in dragon spaces, though it seems they are more an exception in the broader spectrum of otherkin.

Your observations seem to be on-point for most folks in the space though, @Lopori .

I must say, it's incredibly disappointing to see people use AMAB/AFAB in this way. Some people are even buying into incredibly false "socialisation" theories that are used to bully trans people, particularly women, into believing they will never "escape" the way they started their lives. I highly encourage people to do some research into why this particular thing is completely inaccurate, as well as discourage people from the terms AFAB/AMAB unless absolutely, strictly necessary (a.k.a., discussions about being intersex specifically).

I believe what a good number of you are observing (along the lines of "women are more introspective/emotionally aware") is taught behaviour. You might be thinking, "didn't you just say socialisation isn't real?", but the reality is that there's a lot of nuance to the punishment/reinforcement cycle of gender roles and the socialisation argument tends to be made to deny or delegitimise a trans person's identity. But when someone transitions, they do tend to display more characteristics associated with their true gender than with what was (wrongly) assumed previously. Even before transition, this can very much be the case; often, this is what leads to someone understanding themselves as transgender. Additionally, there isn't actually any significant data that I'm aware of that states men's and women's brains are any different, and gender roles and expectations - therefore, behaviour - can change wildly depending on the individual, culture, generation, etc.

Based on my personal experience:

The people I've met in both communities have been a pretty even mix of men and women, primarily cisgender. However, the further you get into the ranks of popularity and authority, the less women there are and the more men there are. This is true in many other communities as well as careers/occupations. A good example I always give is in medicine; you'll often see a lot more female junior nurses, and a lot less female surgeons and specialised doctors. This sort of "filtering" occurs pretty much everywhere you look.

I do agree that certain organisms are assigned masculine/feminine. In my culture, cats are more "girly", dragons are definitely more "boyish". I was thinking about horses a bit ago, and it seems that their perception differs depending on the "seriousness" of their involvement in a given situation. For example, professional horse riders? A lot of men. But when we think of a child being interested in horses, we probably think of young girls. It makes me wonder if in other cultures aside from mine in Western Europe, there are unexpected associations that I'm not aware of.

I also agree that it's expected (at least in my culture) that women are more in touch with their emotions, a warped and more positive spin on "women are over-emotional" (which is entirely false). That may be part of the reason why there appear to be more women in the otherkin and therian communities. However, I don't think there is any one answer to this. Perhaps it's also worth considering how these communities first began and were built up, and by whom, if anyone with better knowledge of history could provide some insight!

Another thing that I wonder about: we're assuming an awful lot about people who may choose not to divulge the information that they are transgender. Have people been presuming that a woman who does not actively say she is trans is cis? What about the surveys? Even if they stated "sex" in these surveys (which many people falsely understand as "sex at birth"), some trans people may have put their current sex, no?

I do wonder how these surveys would look today, and how people would answer them.

(sorry for any typing errors, shitty coordination issues)

This forum called my attention since I was curious about the therian community's stance on gender roles, I am very new, fresh from the furry fandom, which I've been part of for 5-7 years.

Humans remarkably lack sexual dimorphism, as mammals and even as primates/primate related (whatever you ineterpret). Our sexual differences related to behaviour are essentially social, not social in the biological way but social in the intricate way the human world works, with the influences of powerful people and organisations, no conspiracy theory here! Just politics. Recently there has been a recon on most if not all human prehistoric skeletons for sex re-assignment, when determining the sex, archeologists would immediately assume that a individual with hunting tools was male, while individuals with artisan or gathering items female (that being less often than the male=hunting tool). Female human beings are remarkable for their resilience, that is biological, and turns out human hunting before societal formation relied on resilience! Female humans hunted and led hunts just as much as males did, and male humans actively partook in foraging and caretaking just as much as females did. Sperm being wasteable and eggs beig precious is also not an entirely true scientific stance! it is heavily influenced by human pre-conceptions on gender rather than true data, just as how prehistoric human skeletons were archived.
Why sexism exists and why certain roles are implied to male and female is a long story, and a very interesting one! But women being sentimental and men being "sportsy" or "activity based" is something forced upon and not natural. I think this demographic in the therian and furry community is built the same reason why a lot of "out of the closet" therians and furries are in places like west europe and north america. The societal pressure is much less in these places. I know there IS nuance!! but Im saying this as someone who lived in south america, east europe and west europe. Punishment an dconsequence is different in these places, while in some places parents will think that a boy playing with dolls and a girl playing football(soccer) is "just a phase" in other places they can be punished for that.

I can't really add on the discussion if there are more male sor females in the therian or furry communities since I am very blind to gender (SOmetimes I take months to consistently remember someone's gender, regardles sof them being cis, trans, non conforming, straight or lgbt+, im just stupid lol). But I did notice a lot of misconception here, I've met just as many trans women as trans men, and both genders incline to being lgbt+ equally. I do feel like the teenage trans girls I've met are much more secretive about them being trans than teenage trans boys, and that got stronger in recent years due to the intoxication of male spaces with harmful stances. I guess this also plays a role on the therian community, I see more older male members compared to female members where minors and adults are a more balanced demographic.
I also personally don't find the furry community more activity based than the alterhuman, specially nowadays, I actually find it cool how alterhumans actively engage in sports and physical activities.

Also @fairyhill I liked your analysis!! Indeed some of the things said here are transphobic, I think maybe people may have said them more out of misconception than malice, not justifying them, I still think it's a bad view on gender roles and sex behaviour, and it's important to break out of it!! I was actually surprised of what some people think, I was expecting the alterhuman community to be more open about gender. It saddens me how gender roles are so heavily ingraine din human society, personally they make no sense to me and seem more harmful than anything

I'll say with full confidence that the differences here can be attributed to social conditioning, because furry and therianthropy are internal/personal and external/social experiences that mix together, not something bound to physical traits. The differences between people who are AFAB and AMAB, that is, the effects of hormone differences, do not meaningfully impact someone's ability to be into one thing more than the other, and honestly, the more time I spend in queer spaces, the more obvious that becomes.

There's something to be said about how existing groups and someone's experiences might lead them to sway one way vs another, but again, making it a "men vs women" thing is just stating generalizations and pointing towards things that are obvious for as to why they exist. There's a reason that the artists in the furry fandom tend more often to be women, vs those who commission art often being men, and we could look towards the gender pay gap as at least a partial explanation for this.

As always, they're rooted in societal structures, rather than intrinsic qualities to one birth sex vs another. And, if it wasn't implied already, doesn't even take into account intersex people and how they can't easily fit within one box vs another (nor should they have to, and nor do all cis people for that matter).