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Poll: Should we create terms to draw distinctions between causes of therianthropy?
Yes.
No.
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Should we make a distinction between the different causes of therianthropy?
balticisstrange
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Should we make a distinction between the different causes of therianthropy?
So, I've been thinking on what causes therianthropy, and how to come up with an explanation of it that encapsulates the different root causes. And then I realized that is a near impossible task. And I was thinking, and then I realized that we have terms for how we experience therianthropy (Contherian, Suntherian, etc.) but not for where our therianthropy comes from. So, I have a proposal:

We should coin more specific terms that define the reasons why people believe they are therians. I am aware that we have terms that vaguely describe this (Psychological Therian and Spiritual Therian), but those two terms are very vague. Instead of only using these terms, why don't we use these existing terms as umbrella terms and create new ones that describe different root causes? That way, we have more specific terms to use when we want to specify "people who experience therianthropy as a result of ____".

One of the issues I can see with this is that it could cause division in the community. Therians may use this as a way to say "you need to fit into one of these camps or you aren't a real therian". It's also probable that people could start isolating themselves to only therians who have the exact same experiences that they do, thus creating a bunch of echo chambers. It may also give rise to the " faunalune" issue, which is basically making terms that are so hyper specific that nobody knows what they mean, therefore making them useless.

But I think terms to describe root causes could be useful, too. It would make discussion of the causes of therianthropy easier when you can pinpoint exactly what cause you're talking about. It would also resolve the question of "what causes therianthropy?" There's no one right answer, so instead of trying to generalize the entire community into one description, why don't we just embrace that among ourselves, our reasons differ? Creating and using terms to define different reasons for therianthropy sends the message that "there is no one right cause for being a therian, but here is a subgroup who have similar reasoning to you".

And finally, to wrap this up: this does not mean "anyone can be a therian". For the purposes of this discussion, I am going to define what I mean when I say "therian":

An individual that identifies as a non-human animal and does so because of nonvoluntary experiences.

So, what do we think? Is this a good idea? Can this be realistically executed? Are there any consequences that I didn't think of, positive or negative?

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