"Gatekeeping" in the therian community

I agree with HCP.

It would be ridiculous to call myself gay if I was in no way attracted to the same sex for example.

And yet, there are folks who do just this because they have friends who fall into a specific category or perhaps it would give someone a sense of status within their social circle.

Whatever their reasoning, if a person is not "X" and someone who is "X" points out observations and questions why they are identifying as "X" I don't find this unreasonable or somehow prejudiced in the slightest.

I've said it before and I'll say it again - folks need to be honest with themselves and about themselves and stop angsting so hard over what their peers or social group thinks.

Lyc

(2021-04-23 23:42)LycanTheory Wrote:  I've said it before and I'll say it again - folks need to be honest with themselves and about themselves and stop angsting so hard over what their peers or social group thinks.

It is simply human nature or instinct for people in late teens to try and figure out where they belong in the world (aka "angsting over what their social group thinks"). They do this through play: They try on an identity, try some variations and see if it works for them.

The reason this comes up so much in Therian circles is because we are an online community dealing with instinct. People do not know if the instincts they are driven by are human or animal in nature and ultimately it IS the role of communities like Therian Guide to help them sort that out.


I think rather than trying to prevent people from expressing what is natural to them (which has never worked), we should try instead to minimise the negative consequences of such activities:

It's okay to let people play and explore, but it's not okay for their games to be taken into "therian canon" if you will. We must draw a line between those who are still learning and those who speak from experience. (I think this works on TG and is more of a problem in online communities where you can't tell people's age.)

It's okay to let people find their place in the world by forming a clique, but it's not okay to let the resulting tribalism cause some therians to be unfairly excluded.

etc.

LP,
Dusty

(2021-04-16 22:34)LycanTheory Wrote:  So... I am minded that more recent usage of the word is an attempt to chalk up mindful observations to a very vague, oversimplified term with a negative connotation because a given individual does not wish to face observations about themselves or their group that others have made.

I read that and it got me wondering if the prevalence of this term could be related to the new forms of therian communities. Therian Guide is an older style of community with generally long form responses, to interact here you have to put in the time to sit and think. Then you have to wait possibly days to get a response.

The newer communities like twitter encourage fast and rapid fire discussion. It also has the character limit which would encourage the use of generalized words like "gatekeeping" to express a big idea. The quality of the discourse suffers though for reasons you pointed out.

There is a huge push in society focusing on being inclusive and open and accessible. That is a hard fight because humans will naturally self sort into groups of people that are like themselves. Growing up, people in the cafeteria would sort themselves by skin color. There were a few people that would bounce between the groups, but overall, we did it to ourselves. There was no assigned seating.

I think this inclusivity push is why gatekeeping is now a buzzword used to shutdown conversations. If you question whether someone belongs in your community, they will play the victim, claim they are being oppressed, and potentially try to rally some social media mob after you. It doesn't matter if the person hasn't done any introspection, actively lying to themselves, trolling, or just desperately wants to fit in.

All of that nonsense just dances around the point that you need to be honest with yourself. You have to realize that it's not the end of the world if you don't fit into every community ever. Part of growing up is learning things about yourself you don't like. It's up to you to change those things, if they can be changed, or just learn to live with them. In the long term, it'll do you more good to get over this habit of lying to yourself to fit in.

That aside, I see gatekeeping as keeping out people who don't belong in the community. It serves a purpose of encouraging people to be honest with themselves and us. Do we even have a community if we don't stick to a basic idea of what a therian is and what a therian isn't?

I do remember the days of being grilled when entering a new therian forum, and honestly I don't miss them. I think gatekeeping should be reserved for extreme cases, if someone signs up thinking they are going to make a character and just role play, they need to go somewhere else.

As Dusty has pointed out in the thread, it's okay to have a place where people can play and explore. If someone thinks they are therian or has a genuine interest in what makes therians tick, I'd say let them in and figure it out for themselves. If they whine and complain that the community won't reorient itself to fit them, then let them whine. Chances are they're going to lose interest after a few weeks anyway.

That said, I enjoy the variety of experiences people report here. I think sharing them is a great step towards determining if you fit here or in some other branch of the larger community. Which I think is the point of self discovery in the first place!

Ultimately, no one here, or anywhere should certify you as therian or non therian. That is a choice for you to make by comparing your experiences to what is shared by the community. Above all, I can't say it enough, just be honest with yourself!

I've sort of gotten the impression that therianthropy is somewhat arbitrarily defined and fickle. For example you have to "identify as" an animal to be therian, or you can't perceive your theriotype in the third person, or you can't have too many theriotypes, etc. If people can know "what's not therianthropy," how do you know?

What @LycanTheory said about empathy or your perception of your theriotype's personhood does make sense to me. A therian would have a high degree of empathy for animals. I'm actually surprised anyone would contest that idea and call it gatekeeping. A lot of non-therians are empathetic toward animals too though.

(2021-04-25 5:13)Tdae Wrote:  What @LycanTheory said about empathy or your perception of your theriotype's personhood does make sense to me. A therian would have a high degree of empathy for animals. I'm actually surprised anyone would contest that idea and call it gatekeeping. A lot of non-therians are empathetic toward animals too though.

The empathy part, I admit, I didn't have words to fully describe what made me "feel like an animal" until I read through WolfVanZandt's Therian Timeline so.. I am a big fan of giving credit where credit is due.

That said, do non-therians actually share a sense of how an animal might feel? Do they express themselves in the same way? Or do they simply for feel some sort of emotion for animals, not with them?

I feel as if there are some important distinctive lines, here.

Lyc

I was subjected to this Gatekeeping on Therian Facebook. Grilled, told my therian experiences "were human". (Aren't all experiences human?) I was also mocked, verbally attacked, shunned, told "I wasn't a therian", that I was "Fluff" (their term for fakes, or "wolf-a-boos". So after pushing back enough I was kind of accepted. However I too had taken on a slight grilling aspect to speaking to other newbies. I later would stop and leave that part of Facebook all together and start (then assume admin role of), another huge therian group on Facebook. To which I allowed folks to be themselves, within reason of course. Don't be a dick. I know I'm still considered fluff by many. Seen as not "legit". However my insecurity/self doubt was put to rest by @BearX who said; "You was the wolfiest wolf I know". Very much "legit". Seeing my therianthropy and species dysphoria plague me daily, I would agree. I just try to go day by day.

But I think Gatekeeping is a tactic only used by the real FAKE therians who want to control the community, and say who can "be in the club", and who can't. To have folks looking up to them as "leaders". Real leaders don't want worship, and loyalty. They simply show the way, and provide that path for those who wish to follow.

(2021-04-25 14:52)Azi_MexyWolf Wrote:  But I think Gatekeeping is a tactic only used by the real FAKE therians who want to control the community, and say who can "be in the club", and who can't. To have folks looking up to them as "leaders". Real leaders don't want worship, and loyalty. They simply show the way, and provide that path for those who wish to follow.

This is a good point and it brings me to something that I have said elsewhere as of recent.

Noting first and foremost that the term is most often associated with older therians who are more set in our views, this association is false as the younger, more militant tribes of the community will stop at nothing to "gatekeep" in the name of respectability politics. In essence, the term "therian" is a resource. It's something that we've used and we do use to connect us with others who are similar. It is a gateway to finding support and fellowship, to meeting an essential social need.

When we think about the term "therian" as a resource and we consider that there are many groups of us who use this resource, I think gatekeeping comes into play subliminally, perhaps, as it is human nature to go to war with other groups over shared resources in order to ensure our survival. This is unfortunate because a resource such as a term or word is certainly never going to diminish in it's abundance. Nonetheless, it is a behavioural pattern that can be evidenced by thousands of years of history.

I suppose my personal issue with "gatekeeping" is the hypocrisy in which I see it used. We all look out for our own and we always will. This is something that's hard-wired despite humanity's best efforts to transcend it. The irony here is that accusing another individual or group of gatekeeping is being used often as a form of gatekeeping unto itself.

Food for thought.

Lyc

(2021-04-25 7:39)LycanTheory Wrote:  The empathy part, I admit, I didn't have words to fully describe what made me "feel like an animal" until I read through WolfVanZandt's Therian Timeline so.. I am a big fan of giving credit where credit is due.

That said, do non-therians actually share a sense of how an animal might feel? Do they express themselves in the same way? Or do they simply for feel some sort of emotion for animals, not with them?

I feel as if there are some important distinctive lines, here.

Lyc

Reading WolfVanZandt's Therian Timeline was on my to-do list, and kind of rolled off and was forgotten... oops.

It could be reasonably argued that white people have more empathy for dogs than for black people. Not a political statement but just an observation. Empathy is energetically expensive and there is a limit how much it can be extended and toward how many others. There are wide variances between people and even within one individual, but people generally empathize with only a few. The limitations on empathy is about survival of course, because we're animals competing for limited resources. This is one thing that frustrates me about humans and being human, but this is the state of animals too. I can relate to the unicorn named Lady Amalthea when she said, "I can feel this body dying all around me."

I don't believe empathy for animals is exclusive to therians. There are some "animal-people" who are not therian. And there are some people who are naturally highly empathetic and their empathy extends to animals.

(2021-04-25 18:03)Tdae Wrote:  I don't believe empathy for animals is exclusive to therians. There are some "animal-people" who are not therian. And there are some people who are naturally highly empathetic and their empathy extends to animals.

I agree that empathy with animals is not exclusive to therians. I believe it is a fundamental block in the foundation, if you will and that it can likewise be a block in other foundations, too.

Lyc

I've arrived at the conclusion that "gatekeeping" in the therian community - the term itself has become little more than a buzzword thrown around when someone wants to disagree or call another individual or group prejudiced without outright saying it.

Prejudice in the therian community is a problem, a rampant one, especially amongst those who are overly consumed by their own humanity.

If we simply let go of the social inclinations which make us human, we can do better.

Lyc