(2025-02-23 11:19)DustWolf Wrote:  But I would like the reader to consider why the above is what we see? If online gender identification is genuine in the sense of someone claiming to be trans male being male, why does the majority of them seem to adhere to female behavioural stereotypes? If they didn't, the correlation mentioned above should be tied to gender and not sex, no?

I want to touch on what you've said here about "online gender identification" (don't like that phrasing because I assure you I am still trans off of the internet) being genuine. Am I genuine in believing that I'm trans? Of course, but I do not truly claim that I am actually male. It is not about actually being male in any way, I simply feel better about myself when I'm seen as male. It causes me dysphoria to be seen as female. I understand that this could be compared to any number of things. Someone will probably feel better if you call them "strong" and "smart," but you won't just because they want you to. This is, however, not a goal that I will stop striving for if someone calls me a boy. It isn't preventing me from improving myself and isn't harming anyone, it is only helping me.

It's not dissimilar to how I view my therianthropy. I've had this discussion before. I do not think I'm truly a fox, I just desperately wish I was and I feel as if I should be. I am not truly male, you can't expect that I will be exactly like someone who is cis. My gender describes the set of sex characteristics that won't make me miserable, not an observation of which expectations I fit best. I understand why people feel that trans people are not truly their genders when they act more like the one corresponding to their sex, but ultimately our biology and how we are raised does affect us and that doesn't mean it isn't the most beneficial thing for our perceived genders to be treated as reality.

(2025-02-23 11:19)DustWolf Wrote:  But I would like the reader to consider why the above is what we see? If online gender identification is genuine in the sense of someone claiming to be trans male being male, why does the majority of them seem to adhere to female behavioural stereotypes? If they didn't, the correlation mentioned above should be tied to gender and not sex, no?

Other queer folks have already commented on this, but as an AFAB trans guy I wanted to pitch in too.

Imo, to understand trans identities biology and gender should be considered separately. Biology is as we know strictly physical and it defines whether someone is traditionally male, female, or possibly intersex. Our physical systems, hormones and all, are the ones generally dictating how we naturally act and react.
Gender on the other hand is a social construct based off of biology, an idea that has evolved with humans that dictates how male and females should act, what they should like, etc. etc. It has always changed throughout history and it tends to differ from community to community. Because of trans identities being relatively new as far as their proper documentation goes tho, it can be difficult to grasp the idea that females and society's expectations of a female, aka a girl, do not always overlap. Same concept with male/boy.

Because of this "trans female" and "trans male" labels don't necessarily describe a change in biology - since not everyone transitions medically, and even those that do aren't 100% biologically of the opposite sex - but rather in social "role" (that has to do with the trans individual's self perception as one gender or another). Because of this sort of vague/contradictory wording, some trans people actually prefer to call themselves transfem or transmasc instead of male-to-female or female-to-male trans. Male and Female are very strictly biological words. Man and Woman and variations thereof are not.

Now the two, biology and societal norms, do obviously influence each other. One is born of the other after all.
I was born female, and because of this I've been raised to my countries/parent's standard of a girl. Just because I realized I am something else (my specific idea of gender is a little detached from the boy/girl spectrum because of what I've said above, but I choose to call myself a guy for simplicity's sake) doesn't mean that my biological make-up and that societal conditioning have gone away. As a matter of fact they are very prominent aspects of my being. Furthermore elements such as the differences in how girls and boys are typically raised also come into play here. Girls are generally nicer and in tune with their emotions. Being raised without dumb rules like "you're not allowed to cry" or "you have to be the strongest person in every room at every time" does wonders in regards of self expression. I think this is why trans women generally stick to being more feminine. They are already more ridiculed than trans men to begin with, and here come in misogyny and her sister transmisogyny which I am not getting into because it's late and I'm starting to loose the thread of my post.

So, overall, I think that these are the reasons why there is a number of trans men that with or without a medical transition still act traditionally feminine or prefer female-oriented spaces. It all comes down to female anatomy, and stereotypical girl childhood/teenage years/perhaps even life for some, with all it's cons (eg. misogyny) and pros (eg. emotional intelligence).
Apart from that, I also believe there's no real way to act as one gender or another. The rules are already made up and once you realize that you might as well have fun with them if possible. People raised in those strict guidelines are prone to judging anyways.

-

Sorry if this is rambly, missing some points, or poorly structured. Im being very general with what I'm saying and am aware of that; no two people are gonna have the same experiences in life but there can be some trends because of the strict society we find ourselves in.
Also it's late, I'm sick for the umpteenth time this month, and I'm writing on my phone which is less than convenient. Please do question/debate anything I've said that sounds off

(2026-01-28 20:36)AriVB Wrote:  It doesn't have to do with the person's gender at this very moment - it's the way they were socialised that has left an impact. The biggest evidence for this is that trans folk who had the luck to be socialised as their correct gender from an early age behave and act in ways that corresponds to their gender identity, and often have the same stereotypical interests as others with their gender. In other words, trans people only "adhere to their assigned sex's behavioural stereotypes" for as long as they are treated that way by society.

This might be why I am the way I described a few replies above.

I was never "socialized" as either a girl or a boy growing up, my parents never pushed any behavior on me as a child and just let me do my own thing and play with whatever toys and whatever games I wanted... ironically my mother started pushing being female on me after I came out as trans (though my dad didn't), but I was already around 11-12 and used to just being myself at that point so it didn't change anything, just made me miserable and like I had to play pretend all of a sudden.

Even then though, per my mannerisms I was always more male than anything else. I wonder why that is.

(2025-02-23 11:19)DustWolf Wrote:  But I would like the reader to consider why the above is what we see? If online gender identification is genuine in the sense of someone claiming to be trans male being male, why does the majority of them seem to adhere to female behavioural stereotypes? If they didn't, the correlation mentioned above should be tied to gender and not sex, no?

Obviously, like the quoted post, I would also like to point out that there are outliers, but talking about the majority.

I've recently watched this video, which shows that in the recent years, there has been an increase in the number of trans men (AFAB identifying as male):

This is relevant to therianthropy because obviously being a therian is also an identification and furthermore there is no medical diagnostic test for therianthropy, so whether someone "is therian" is entirely dependant on the people who identify online one way or another and notably their ability to accurately gauge this and honestly identify.

Food for thought.

LP,
Dusty

A few days ago, I had a giant debate with Grok (that AI chat bot by Elon) about this exact thing. My point was: "Look at these online communities - therians and furries. Their demographics show that they are not dominated by men or by women - they show that they are dominated either by cis men and trans women, or cis women and trans men. So does this mean that, in the end, the gender identity is just a label they use, and what really determines their societal behavior at large is their biology? Is it fake, after all? Does it mean I'm just a man after all?" We went back and forth for a while, it spent a long time researching stuff, and here's what I carried away from what it said: It doesn't have to do with the person's gender at this very moment - it's the way they were socialised that has left an impact. The biggest evidence for this is that trans folk who had the luck to be socialised as their correct gender from an early age behave and act in ways that corresponds to their gender identity, and often have the same stereotypical interests as others with their gender. In other words, trans people only "adhere to their assigned sex's behavioural stereotypes" for as long as they are treated that way by society. To add more complexity to this: If a person finds an interest before or during transition, they won't just abandon it or no longer find it interesting simply because of their transition. It's also important to add more nuance to the trans experience - namely that a large part of trans people in online communities, especially when it's centered around identity like in furry or therian spaces, are in very early stages of transition, or are even just experimenting with what feels right. And none of these will just magically act differently than they have been conditioned to their whole lives. This contrasts the way many trans people - especially those who transitioned before they found their communities and everything - who have been in society as their gender for a while a) don't point out that they are trans because they don't need to do so as much anymore, so statistics often underrepresent or don't show them (not that this would be apparent in therian spaces, as these spaces are mostly made up of trans people experimenting with labels or in very early stages of their tranisiton), and b) have been able to "integrate" way more into their gender - and therefore also have way more similar behaviors and interests as others of their gender.

P.S. It is useful to point out that rapid increases or decreases in the number of trans people does not determine that being trans is fake - nor does any diagnosis "confirm" that someone is trans, since we've seen the same rapid increase until 2021 and then decrease until now in the number of diagnoses for gender dysphoria in Swiss clinics, for instance. What these numbers ignore is nuance: They can ignore things like how many people were experimenting with gender identity at a given time and therefore give the illusion that trans people magically "stopped being trans", or how overworked and undermanaged a clinic is (saying this due to personal knowledge of local trans healthcare facilities).

@Kaiyus Casster
That’s kind of interesting. I’m kind of the reverse. I have an interest in anthropomorphic animals, but I don’t consider myself a furry because I don’t participate in those spaces or any of the typical activities. I wonder if they would perceive the furry label as safer simply because it’s more widely known? I mean a label is a label and individuals are free to use one and not the other, it just seems kind of odd to me

I'm sure this is lowk useless info but I've met a lot of amab furries who claim to be furries cause they think they are animals, I'm definitely not saying all and I'd say a very good majority aren't, like I said, this is my irl personal veiw of the community, js cause of furries I've talked to in person. so maybe its a label safety thing, like certain ppl feel safer using certain labels

(2026-01-27 19:43)Lopori Wrote:  the dragon thing got me really curious now about the gender distribution of soecific kintypes

To start your data collection on that, I’m a cis male and Canada lynx.

This is a really interesting discussion, though, and it’s prompted me to look at how I relate to people. I’ve always been somewhat asocial and introspective, but I realize that most of my male associations have been on the basis of “doing stuff.” As far as discussion or conversation goes, I’ve never been big on taking about my feelings, although I am AuDHD and don’t have the best handle on those in the first place, on top of the gender norms I grew up with in the 80s and 90s. Experiences and thoughts, sure, but feelings are a but more difficult for me. Thought provoking indeed.

Edit: another thought about the gender/kintype distribution. I wonder if it is significant that I am not just a feline, but a solitary one? Or perhaps that’s more related to my particular neurodivergence?

(2026-01-28 0:33)Zero Wrote:  One big counter-example that occurs to me is that historically the therian community was largely male dominated. From its inception all the way up to maybe 2010-2015 it was overwhelmingly male dominated. The influx of new people during the Tumblr era decisively shifted the demographics to the reverse. It is interesting to think about why. Why does it appeal so much to preteen and teen girls? Cultural factors I don't quite understand. I haven't bene a teenager in over ten years so I'm old and out of touch with these things.

The early community, like most of the early internet was text-heavy, debate or discussion oriented and focused more on introspection rather than comparison to others, aesthetic and performative identity.

It was social media and mobile devices that lured many young females into a competitive arena of comparing themselves to others and trying to stand out. "Therianthropy" was simply a vehicle that gave them an edge in one-upping their rivals. If these aesthetic based, social competition platforms went away tomorrow, the female population would level out and I think we'd see a much more even number.

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.

It certainly is something that can make male friendship difficult, as when, for some reason or another, you can't do the formerly shared activity or do ti as often as you could in the past, don't be surprised if your male friends drop you like a sack of hot coal. I've had that happen many times. There's nothing malicious or personal about it. It's more that the reality is as you say, male socializing tends to revolve around shared activities so when that shared activity dwindles or stops, so does the friendship.

My approach is kind of hybrid since I think shared activities are a good way to meet knew people and start to get to know them and create the foundation for a deeper friendship, and then after that point constantly Doing Things together doesn't have to be an emphasis, but as I've said, in practice it tends to not go well with men.

It's interesting how things changed. Back in the. day, it was generally reckoned that female autism didn't really exist. With the rise of the warrior cats fandom online in the mid teens, that seemed to be a solid counter-example that can't be denied, generally seeming to be the female autistic equivalent of what the Sonic fandom was to male autistic people in earlier eras. Those are stereotypes, of course, but they do have at least a kernel of truth to them. That's a tangent.

One big counter-example that occurs to me is that historically the therian community was largely male dominated. From its inception all the way up to maybe 2010-2015 it was overwhelmingly male dominated. The influx of new people during the Tumblr era decisively shifted the demographics to the reverse. It is interesting to think about why. Why does it appeal so much to preteen and teen girls? Cultural factors I don't quite understand. I haven't bene a teenager in over ten years so I'm old and out of touch with these things.

Re: subcommunities that lean amab, I was just about to answer that with dragons and then you already noted that yourself a few lines in. So yeah, seconding you on dragons. No idea why that is, I guess dragons are a bit masculine coded? RAWR FIRE BREATHING DRAGONS AND KNIGHTS AND SWORDS. Toy dragons tend to be sold as "boys' toys" more often.

As for the tiktok stuff, the first thing that comes to mind is how it caught on that might explain the afab lean? Teenage girls are the arbiters of what's cool, they're trendsetters, ideas spread like wildfire via them. Maybe it's partly that? Despite the similarity to furry. And interestingly, animal media like warrior cats appeals to girls for some reason.

I can also envision the gap closing somewhat over time because of exchange with furries.

Edit: the dragon thing got me really curious now about the gender distribution of soecific kintypes