(Today 15:54)Cygnus Wrote:  I think confusion/conflicts over this crop up specifically because the modern community is so fixated on therianthropy being thought of as an identity, and it's led to a lot of weird grey-area arguments about things that could be possible if therianthropy were merely a malleable and subjective mental construct that was more a part of their formed personality than any sort of pure-ontological state, no matter how far such an idea veers away from its original understanding(s).

What's the appropriate response to the next generation who much more widely things therianthropy is a more malleable and subjective mental construct? There was an interaction on another server where that sort of belief was widely pervasive, and folks mentioning their perspective of it being involuntary were dismissed; it is my understanding that scenario sparked interest for this thread.

Ceding ground on terminology or perspective with a large group for substantial time creates a morass that is hard to undo.

As someone who has searched far and wise for a label that fits my sexuality (I'm asexual, but romantically I had no idea) I eventually came to realise bisexual (or rather, Biromantic) fits me best.
Microlabels can feel nice but also very niche and small. The broader label bisexual has a simple definition and yet is such a wide range of experiences - sometimes I think it's best to recognise that people can have a general shared experience with many differences and nuances.

Also, just wanted to say, a furry is someone who likes Anthropomorphic animals (animals with human traits like being bipedal, talking etc) so otherpaw technically wouldn't fit into that group.
It's definitely not an alterhuman label. I think it would fit into a sort of a bigger group including Furries and kemonomimis. And yeah, the term could definitely be clearer.. otherpaw doesn't convey much.

I think confusion/conflicts over this crop up specifically because the modern community is so fixated on therianthropy being thought of as an identity, and it's led to a lot of weird grey-area arguments about things that could be possible if therianthropy were merely a malleable and subjective mental construct that was more a part of their formed personality than any sort of pure-ontological state, no matter how far such an idea veers away from its original understanding(s)..

I don't believe someone can voluntarily make themselves into an animal anymore than I think adopting beliefs or stereotypes from another culture can allow one to claim membership within that culture (such claims are frowned upon for good reason).. I do, however, believe people can convince themselves that they're something they aren't, and that's more of a cautionary situation than something I feel should be knowingly legitimized. This is the opposite of trying to verify something true about yourself with evidence.

As far as I'm concerned, one is either an animal or they are not an animal; this is a statement of ontology (A sub-branch of Metaphysics that deals with abstract concepts about the nature of "being"[existing] and reality). The only exceptions to that state being present since birth reside solely within the domain of the "supernatural", and even within that framework those rare situations are not something that is generated by the will of the individual.

It should also be noted that being something doesn't necessarily mean you consciously understand it, just that you are it; your recognition of, or identification with, the state has no bearing on whether said state exists. Everyone is free to disagree, but the concept of not being human was always about ontology. The way it was discussed just changed over the years, and that meaning often goes unacknowledged in favor of discourse about the forms of self-identification that have become very popular with the marginalized groups a lot of us also belong to. I wish we would move away from this because we are shooting ourselves in the proverbial foot with how poorly these ideas are being communicated and understood.

..And seriously, being an animal forced to masquerade as a human isn't all it's cracked up to be for all of us; the young ones make it seem all-positives, but it isn't. There are a lot of us who experience negative, vivid, and frightening phenomena that don't get written about in the popular spaces, so nobody ever hears about it. If someone was actually looking to force these kinds of experiences upon themselves that would be like pining for a life of misery.

I’ve said elsewhere here before that labels (the identity side of these things) have their place, particularly as tools for communication, but also for a sense of belonging and understanding of oneself. However, they also have a tendency to be very limiting, and when someone rushes into finding a label they want to apply to themselves (or otherwise is not basing their taking of the label on anything substantive), then the label is being misused.

Anyone knowingly misusing a label will not maintain that label forever, unless doing so out of spite, in which case you should find something better to do with your life. I said as much on the Discord, but your labels should be informed by your experiences, and pushing it the other way around is just wishful thinking at best, and lying at worst. It’s obviously not impossible to craft your own reality if you try hard enough, and in certain situations it’s good to change how you think about things, but there’s a very big leap between “I need to take a more positive look at my life, even when it feels like it doesn’t make sense to,” and “I want to be X (a therian, for example) even though I’ve never felt that way before, so I’m gonna force it.”

A lot of it is unfortunately just young people wanting to fit in; it’s much easier to lie about yourself when clout is on the line. But I hate lying to people, and if you claim to be something when you’re not, then you’re just lying, no matter how good your intentions.

So yes, you have to have experienced something involuntary that led you to conclude you were nonhuman in some way if you want to consider yourself someone who experiences therianthropy (that is, a therian). If you had never heard of therianthropy, you wouldn’t have even considered this type of experience, unlike us who found therianthropy as a means of explaining something we’ve felt for a long time. That is a hill I’m willing to die on.

I believe (my) therianthropy is involuntary because I didn't choose my experiences, nor did I consciously decide to perceive myself as an animal. My behaviours came prior to any self-identity I had of being a fox.

My experiences began in very early childhood, and while there were times where I did the normal child thing of pretending to be different animals, there was never a time that I looked at a fox and thought "This is the creature I'm going to pretend to be from now on". In fact, behaving like a fox preceded any knowledge I have of reading or learning about canine behaviour. My body posturing, social cues, vocalizations, and other non-human-like instincts came naturally. And it took me a veeery long time (until adulthood) -- and lots of miserable masking and suppressing -- before I accepted that I was more fox than I was human.

I didn't choose any of my experiences, and if I had the choice, I'd much rather be comfortable in my human body, it would be a lot easier. But I suppose I did choose to call myself a therian, so the interpretation there was a choice.

Ultimately, I think the 'involuntary' part of the definition is indeed a boundary. It exists to make clear that therianthropy is an identity that stems from experiences, (even if said experiences are a spiritual phenomena or a persistent personal gnosis), which come naturally and honestly. It wasn't something that was forced or consciously chosen, and it's a life-long affair -- something that is part of you -- not a temporary label or affliction.

[Edited because I got off-topic! I'll save it for another thread]

- Fern

In the effort to ward off bad-actors and roleplayers, we have lost a lot of conversations around agency and identity formation. I agree with most of this, and I could say more but I am tired and lack the energy. But I wanted to drop off this essay and this reading of it by Poppy Hapalopus that might be of interest to yall. I certainly enjoyed it. Much about otherlinkers, linking as an origin, and other things. Do note, the recorded version is different from the written one. I think there are a few other recorded panels about this topic from other conventions that you can find, but I haven't watched them.

(Yesterday 20:24)DustWolf Wrote:  My identity is secondary to my experience of therianthropy. I did not choose my therianthropy and in fact there are people out there who reject their therianthropy, yet are still therians.

While I'm new here, I will say this is the perspective I have of therianthropy at this time. If it isn't experience-first, it's more of a wish than what actually is. That would place it in the fandom category, and then what would the differences be between therians and furries?

The involuntary point is what crystallizes the experiences as just those - not vacations of choice, but actual reality. The simplest comparison I can make here is the number of people who try to "pray away the gay" but can't. As one who attempted to as a teenager, it became very clear to me involuntary nature is still true whether one chooses to identify with it or not. In fact, I'd argue that experience, painful as it was, made it extremely apparent to me that aspect of myself was not a choice. Therianthropy is much alike in that regard, I believe.

(Yesterday 17:18)Murray Wrote:  Definitions often do more than just describe something, they also create a distinction between one thing and another. In this case, defining therianthropy as involuntary helps separate it from things like roleplay, intentionally choosing an animal identity, or other forms of identification. That doesn't necessarily mean those other experiences are less meaningful or less genuine. It just means that, within the common definition of therianthropy, involuntariness is used as one of the criteria for what falls under the term.

I think it's worth noting that, in the situation that inspired this conversation, a therian was being belittled for their definition of therianthropy (as a non-voluntary experience), because their perspective was in the minority (on a large alterhuman discord guild).

There are a lot more non-therians than there are therians, so as a rule, therians who experience therianthropy as we do, will always be in the minority. And this means that we cannot rely on the normal mechanism by which society at large decides whether someone's identity is to be validated or not: Which is that if you don't qualify in the view of the majority, you simply have to accept that nobody is going to believe you.

The only thing we will ever have in this regard is our individual perspectives. In other words, we will not be able to impose our definitions, however we will still be able to hold individual opinions and the option not to acknowledge people who believe differently.

(Yesterday 17:46)Emi Wrote:  I chose to use the therian label because I experience therianthropy.
I chose to identify as an ikran because the ikran fits my experiences to a T and is the best representation of what I feel.

Views I agree with all round, but especially this.

My identity is secondary to my experience of therianthropy. I did not choose my therianthropy and in fact there are people out there who reject their therianthropy, yet are still therians.


As I've said elsewhere though, I think identity isn't really as central to therianthropy as people make it out to be. I think therianthropy is primarily the experience, which is why therianthropy is commonly described as a vague animalistic nature. Meanwhile identity itself is much more relevant to the otherkin, to whom identifying as a specific type of creature is much more significant (aka, identifying as a unicorn, rather than experiencing horse-like tendencies).

The fact that young people cannot tell the difference between said groups is part of the reason why understanding of this topic is as poor as it is.

LP,
Dusty

We aren't therians ourselves but are still nonhuman and would like to talk about this.

When we look within we see ourselves as something nonhuman, we did nothing to influence this and did not choose to look like what we are on the inside. We're all different kinds of nonhumans.

Firefly did decide to identify as an attack helicopter for fun however. They did not look inside and see an attack helicopter, but they did want to take back the term that anti-alterhumans and anti-trans people use and make it into something fun.

(Yesterday 17:46)Emi Wrote:  I often wonder if it is a fundamental misunderstanding that leads people to say it is voluntary. Yes, I chose the label. Yes, I chose to identify as an ikran. That sounds bad and very anti-therianthropic, but think about it this way:

I chose to use the therian label because I experience therianthropy.
I chose to identify as an ikran because the ikran fits my experiences to a T and is the best representation of what I feel.

We find what you said here to be very interesting, often when someone claims to be a therian and says that they chose their theriotype they get backlash. But when you phrase it like that, you technically do choose a theriotype that best fits you. So why does this happen??

I think that over time the word "Chose" seems to have become a word that will get you backlash in certain alterhuman spaces and may be interpreted in the same way no matter context. Even if you didn't specify you were otherlink or that you chose that creature as a type because it fit your experience.

We've also noticed that some therians on certain platforms absolutely REFUSE to accept that you can voluntarily identify as something, or view otherlinks as lesser than involuntary identities

There's nothing wrong with voluntarily identifying as something, it's just that it would fit the label otherlink. And that's perfectly okay, this identity can be just as powerful and just as valid as therianthrope. I'd also like to note that it's absolutely not anti-therian

When I personally describe my therianthropy as involuntary, it is because the main chunk of what I think, feel, and experience comes without my input. When I experience phantom limbs, it is usually because I just woke up or felt a gust of wind. When I feel that strangely intense urge to gape my jaw at people who piss me off, it comes as a sudden pulse of instinct and not something I decide would be a good idea. When I feel a profound sadness at the way my chest seems caved in, unable to hold flight muscles, it is out of my claws. I do not choose to feel sad. It simply happens. These are things I deal with, put up with, sometimes hate, sometimes enjoy. I am not in control of when these feelings appear and I did not ask for them, nor can I get rid of them or stop them happening.

There are voluntary aspects, of course. I choose to cover my home in banshees. I choose to paint myself at times. I choose to dress in bright colours. I sometimes choose to manifest phantom sensations to minimise dysphoria. These are all parts of my experience, but they are indeed brought on. Would I say these are integral to the experience? No. If I didn't experience dysphoric sensations I likely wouldn't do any of this. I can stop doing these at any time. Are they false or fraudulent experiences because I choose to behave in these ways? No, they're part of how I present and manage myself. I can understand people when they say some aspects are voluntary as a result. To say the entire thing can be voluntary though? No, I do not understand or believe that.

I often wonder if it is a fundamental misunderstanding that leads people to say it is voluntary. Yes, I chose the label. Yes, I chose to identify as an ikran. That sounds bad and very anti-therianthropic, but think about it this way:

I chose to use the therian label because I experience therianthropy.
I chose to identify as an ikran because the ikran fits my experiences to a T and is the best representation of what I feel.

Is this what people mean when they say the identity is voluntary? If so, it is leading to some very harsh misunderstandings and discourse that could so easily be avoided if everyone was on the same page.
I often think the identity-first language is a bit of a bane on the community at times and if this is the case, it is yet another example of why experiences need to be at the forefront of what it means to be nonhuman.