Why therianthropy should be divorced from Alt-H and possibly "otherkin" - "identity"?

If anyone needs me I'll be over here under the umbrella with the DID and Schizophrenic patients who are more rational than altercreeps.

(2020-09-29 9:02)PinkDolphin Wrote:  I’d disagree on this use/definition of “umbrella term.”
To me umbrella term does not mean “a collective history”. It doesn’t mean things originated from eachother, that one is a subset of another or the like.
It is a term that applies because of commonalities/simularities of anything within the umbrella.

This is a fair point, PD. My view regarding "umbrella" suggesting an assertive hierarchy may indeed be exclusive to individual perception.

I believe it's a question worth asking, however. How do others regard the term?

(2020-09-29 9:02)PinkDolphin Wrote:  Did DID or furry or vampire originate from otherkin? Certainly not. But they are considered under alterhuman (as long as the individual deems themselves alterhuman, as the Alt-H+ site says)

Alterhuman, according to Alt-H is nothing more than a fandom.

The Daily Do Wrote:Alt+H, an advocacy group “dedicated to increasing awareness and acceptance of alterhuman people,” encourages a loose definition: “You are alterhuman if you decide to call yourself alterhuman.”

This clearly is nothing similar to thetianthropy or the serious side of otherkin and should by no means be used as an "umbrella" term to describe our actual experiences.

Lyc

(2020-09-29 15:12)LycanTheory Wrote:  

The Daily Do Wrote:Alt+H, an advocacy group “dedicated to increasing awareness and acceptance of alterhuman people,” encourages a loose definition: “You are alterhuman if you decide to call yourself alterhuman.”

This clearly is nothing similar to thetianthropy or the serious side of otherkin and should by no means be used as an "umbrella" term to describe our actual experiences.

Lyc

Wording of the definition is an issue here. The dangers of a loose definition are the same as its benefits: it is open to interpretation. As written, it justifies snowflakes, roleplayers, and other non-serious individuals under the term alterhuman because anyone -is- alterhuman -if they decide- they are. The definition itself is an issue as it clarifies nothing: anyone can be alterhuman even if they have nothing in common with what's alterhuman, promoting further ambiguity when the word is used.

If you want the definition to be loose, okay, but saying that you are something because you say you are is about as useful as me saying I'm all powerful because I said so. Perhaps they intended it to be more specifc, but -as written- that's how it came off. There needs to be a cut-off between those who take the experience seriously and those who don't. Otherwise any roleplayer can say they're alterhuman because they play an animal character in an RPG, and no one could refute them due to the definition. Such misuse would dilute all meaning out of the term.

(2020-09-29 16:26)TigerAcolyte Wrote:  

(2020-09-29 15:12)LycanTheory Wrote:  

The Daily Do Wrote:Alt+H, an advocacy group “dedicated to increasing awareness and acceptance of alterhuman people,” encourages a loose definition: “You are alterhuman if you decide to call yourself alterhuman.”

This clearly is nothing similar to thetianthropy or the serious side of otherkin and should by no means be used as an "umbrella" term to describe our actual experiences.

Lyc

Wording of the definition is an issue here. The dangers of a loose definition are the same as its benefits: it is open to interpretation. As written, it justifies snowflakes, roleplayers, and other non-serious individuals under the term alterhuman because anyone -is- alterhuman -if they decide- they are. The definition itself is an issue as it clarifies nothing: anyone can be alterhuman even if they have nothing in common with what's alterhuman, promoting further ambiguity when the word is used.

If you want the definition to be loose, okay, but saying that you are something because you say you are is about as useful as me saying I'm all powerful because I said so. Perhaps they intended it to be more specifc, but -as written- that's how it came off. There needs to be a cut-off between those who take the experience seriously and those who don't. Otherwise any roleplayer can say they're alterhuman because they play an animal character in an RPG, and no one could refute them due to the definition. Such misuse would dilute all meaning out of the term.

agree, the definition is surely an issue: as an umbrella term works for all what has commonalities (in my opinion of what 'umbrella term' represents).. it doesn't ever work in the definition of 'anything which deems themselves this'. There are no commonalities, so it cannot be within the same umbrella term. So if they stick to this definition: it's not an umbrella term.. but indeed more like a fandom or community: if you deem yourself part of it, you are part of it.

a 'term' should always have some sort of red line within it: something that defines that term (ex: not complete standard human experience.), THEN one can say 'if you feel THAT experience is what you experience, this term applies to you'

Also, as can be evidenced by the article in the OP, "Otherkin" as a community are trending toward defining themselves as an identity construct rather than as a group of people who feel like, have experiences as, or a strong connection and kinship with animals or creatures.

This is in direct contradiction to what most therians and many otherkin here regard as animality/otherkinity.

If "otherkin" continues in this direction, it is not befitting nor is it sensible for us to use an "umbrella" term which contradicts what we actually are.

Lyc

(2020-09-29 15:12)LycanTheory Wrote:  

The Daily Do Wrote:Alt+H, an advocacy group “dedicated to increasing awareness and acceptance of alterhuman people,” encourages a loose definition: “You are alterhuman if you decide to call yourself alterhuman.”

This clearly is nothing similar to thetianthropy or the serious side of otherkin and should by no means be used as an "umbrella" term to describe our actual experiences.

I did not realise they ended up doing all this, when I said Alt+H was an okay umbrella term.

My own information is back from before they tried to be their own community and instead just stuck to providing a common ground between Therians and Otherkin. In my eyes, a neutral umbrella of Alt+H was better than the alternative, which was that the Otherkin are an umbrella term that encompasses Therians.

As you put it:

(2020-09-29 21:05)LycanTheory Wrote:  Also, as can be evidenced by the article in the OP, "Otherkin" as a community are trending toward defining themselves as an identity construct rather than as a group of people who feel like, have experiences as, or a strong connection and kinship with animals or creatures.

This is in direct contradiction to what most therians and many otherkin here regard as animality/otherkinity.

If "otherkin" continues in this direction, it is not befitting nor is it sensible for us to use an "umbrella" term which contradicts what we actually are.

I 100% agree with this, though I do not think the Otherkin community is at fault in any shape or form. The fault, I think is in the attempt to merge Therianthropy into a group that is only superficially similar.

This is well demonstrated by the fact that the Otherkin themselves react poorly to attempts to be merged with Fictionkin, who are again a very different experience, which is only superficially similar.

---

You know, the irony is that we had all of these conversations before. I think you @LycanTheory no doubt remember the conversations about this we had with Kara and Nasu, who insisted that all it took to be Therian was to decide to be one -- the exact same argument as above.

There was always a push to make Therianthropy some kind of a fan-club where everyone could be a member, because not all people are actually therians, but they don't want to feel excluded.

Superficial understanding and populism -- the doom of Therianthropy.

LP,
Dusty

Why is there such pushback against describing Therianthropy as an identity..? When you read the wikipedia page for identity, it seems like it describes Therians pretty well. "The qualities, beliefs, personality, looks and/or expressions that makes a person." Yeah, I'd say my brain is trying pretty hard to emulate, or at the very least desires having those categories of my Theriotype. To the point where shifts are a thing.. I can barely stand being physically human, honestly. The emotes this website uses aren't even human, because the majority of people here don't see themselves as human. I kinda wish walking on all fours didn't make me more upset. It seems like it's what the majority of Therians are psychologically doing, nothing to say about what they think.

If they're saying anyone who says they identify as alterhuman has that experience, but obviously with different identities, personally, I don't see the problem. I'm fine calling myself that, but I know why people would be skeeved out about the 'choice' part. I don't think one can choose to be a Therian (so far, I think if you did make a conscious decision to be Therian it wouldn't be healthy) but I know for a fact there are factions within that umbrella that could absolutely choose to be plural, for instance.

I live with a tulpamancer who purposefully became plural more than a decade ago. It was only thanks to his tupperware that he ended up going on to get his master's in psychology, and I ran a lot of this post (first paragraph in particular) past him before posting it. So in that context, yeah, someone would have chose to be alterhuman, because plurals are alterhuman. I don't think they're saying every group under the alterhuman umbrella has that option, though. I certainly don't think Therians do.

Gatekeeping Therians based on levels of integration sounds pretty cringe too. It sounds like everyone is trying to keep things in their own neat little boxes, but that's not how real life works, especially the ego.

And now for an actual hot take:
I really don't care about culture. I just don't. I care about the health and wellbeing of Therians as they exist, mental and physical. My impression of Therian culture is different from PD's, which is different from BearX's. Am I less Therian because of that? Of course not. Because my Therianthropy isn't predicated on having a culture. Cultures will change, Therianthropy as a phenomena will likely stay the same.

(2020-09-30 8:13)Rosy_Spex Wrote:  Why is there such pushback against describing Therianthropy as an identity..? When you read the wikipedia page for identity, it seems like it describes Therians pretty well. "The qualities, beliefs, personality, looks and/or expressions that makes a person." Yeah, I'd say my brain is trying pretty hard to emulate, or at the very least desires having those categories of my Theriotype. To the point where shifts are a thing.. I can barely stand being physically human, honestly. The emotes this website uses aren't even human, because the majority of people here don't see themselves as human. I kinda wish walking on all fours didn't make me more upset. It seems like it's what the majority of Therians are psychologically doing, nothing to say about what they think.

There's been an ongoing conversation on Therian Guide since 2018, that to Therians the experiences are much more relevant than the identity. We don't think we are therians because of "qualities, beliefs, personality, looks and/or expressions". We think we are therians because of our experience of animality, which comes in the form of shifts, an animal mindset and such.

We DO (mostly) identify with our theriotypes, but that is secondary to making sense of the animality. We look up Therianthropy online because we are trying to figure out what and why this is happening to us (@Zefer Nezumi). We seek out other Therians to compare experiences, not to find an in-group. Some people have posted stories regarding how they struggled to understand their Therian experiences before finding the community, in their journals here on TG, you might want to look them up.

On the other hand, when you look at Fictionkin, Tulpas, some Otherkin, etc, they all center around identity and look these concepts up primarily because they want to identify a certain way, or want to belong in a clique. You said it yourself people choose to have Tulpas. People don't end up with that idea because they'd experience the Tulpa mindset involuntarily, not knowing what was going on and were trying to find answers.

So it looks like most of Alt+H (and what they are actively advertising) is fundamentally different from Therians, so perhaps we don't belong in that umbrella.

LP,
Dusty

(2020-09-30 8:13)Rosy_Spex Wrote:  Why is there such pushback against describing Therianthropy as an identity..?

At least in the United States, it is connecting into "identity politics" and the associated movements. While it may meet the dictionary definition of an identity, the word has been hijacked politically and thus is something of a hot potato. For me, that's enough to distance myself from it.

(2020-09-30 8:13)Rosy_Spex Wrote:  I really don't care about culture...

In my mind, culture is the most important thing after experiences. It is how we manage dysphoria, how we celebrate Therianthropy Day, how we find each other to ease the loneliness of therian experience... culture is what makes us a community. If not for culture, we're just a bunch of random people who experience peculiar animal things. How do we transmit the very health and wellbeing ideas you are concerned about without a culture? It is literally the means of transmission.

(2020-09-30 8:13)Rosy_Spex Wrote:  Why is there such pushback against describing Therianthropy as an identity..?

Identity has to do with your role in a group, not who you are on the inside. It's a card you carry in your pocket. Identity is a shallow understanding of therianthropy. Furthermore, it's problematic because it has to do with politics and is divisive. Personally I'm convinced that identity is a method of crowd-control to get the people to tow the line. Unfortunately the psychology they teach at university is fluff designed to serve the economy and not humanity imo.