Therian Guide: Forums

There are a LOT of labels floating around the therian community for different "types" of therianthropy, so i figured it would be beneficial to talk about this.

It is important to remember that individual experiences are significantly more important to focus on as apposed to the words that are designated to describe those experiences.

As an example; i am what is currently considered to be a "Sun therian".
The current definition for this term is variable by context. Some consider a "sun therian" to be a therian who does not experience shifts, others describe a "sun therian" as one who just doesnt shift back to just being "human" at any point.

I choose not to describe myself as a "Sun" therian, because of the variable nature of these types of labels.
I am a therian who DOES experience shifts in various intensities, but the phantom and mental aspects of my theriotypes have never been fully "gone"; there is, and always has been, some form of phantom part from my theriotype on my body, and my personality / outlook on life is heavily intertwined with the perspective of my types.

If i were to label myself as a sort of "sun" type, it would trivialize my experience and make others believe it to be something besides what it truly is.

Using a label might seem right to some, however it needs to be noted that there is nothing wrong with replacing a label with a longer description, especially when you're referring to such a deeply personal and little-researched topic such as therianthropy.

The advice i would extend out to anyone in the community is this - just don't sweat it.
There are absolutely 0 rules. You're allowed to explore your experiences to their fullest reaches, outside of whatever labels or constructs get created.

i get what your saying, and it makes complete sense, i mean we are really only shared by our expirence of therianthropy(or interest in therianthropy), everything else is our own unique thing, like i get a lot of shifts of many different kinds, but i am also almost never - not at all in a state of some kinds of shifting, like aura shifting

This!!!
Labels for more simple things amongst a community can be helpful, (eg: polytherian being the name for someone with more than one theriotype) but lots of labels do seem to be very blurred in their definition - there's not really much of a 'line' distinguishing it from another identity or label. The nature of therianthropy itself also means that everyone's experiences may be vastly different, so making more labels than necessary around it seems bit pointless.
(Not trying to put down anyone that uses these labels, just what i personally think ^^ )

I do think this is one of the biggest stumbling blocks in the Therian and Otherkin Community is the disastrously over-reliance on labels and people end up getting confused; thinking that they need a label or they are not this or that rather than contemplating their own thoughts and sensations.

The same can be said for experiences too, there is this implied notion that if you do not experience this or that then therefore you are not a therian or otherkin which again creates an atmosphere where people either lie about their experiences just so they can be part of the community or they just shut down because they feel that because they didn't experience what someone else told them they must experience in order to be therian that they are therefore NOT therian or even otherkin.

Labels are useful in limited applications but are generally not definitions in and of themselves of something.