(2026-06-14 21:31)aspen-woof Wrote:  Hi how do you remove your pin?

I realise that me answering this is pointless because you're just not going to read it again but:

(2025-08-09 22:08)DustWolf Wrote:  So, as you can see I have also finally added the requested functionality to remove a pin. Simply change your pin location to blank and click Lookup and after you click OK your pin will vanish.

LP,
Dusty

Hi how do you remove your pin?

Why would this be a bad idea? While I do not know a specific answer to what we should use after good introspective discussion here, the idea of having more specific words to describe the experience of spiritual and psychological therianthropy sounds appealing. What exactly does spiritual therianthropy entail? Or the other one? What can we derive from both instances? When we say we're psychological therians, for instance, we do have to talk about what it means to us to get our point across and to each, the response will differ. The problem I had with zoesthesia was that it'll eventually lead us into the same problem we've had before. It will eventually be ridiculed (or misused) anyway, same as with therianthropy nowadays. But I don't see that problem here, since we're talking about totally new terminology, not in exchange of already common terms. If we could have additional terms to help explain the more abstract ones better, then by all means, do. We could benefit from having a couple of terms extra if they are wisely and uniformly chosen. It's not like spiritual therianthropy is to disappear from existence all of a sudden. It's always going to have its users who stand by the idea.

I'm just thinking that broadening the terminology could lead to better acceptance/understanding of the ones already in use. Because saying you're a psychological therian doesn't make it easier necessarily to introduce yourself in front of people. You'll always have to elaborate on your stance if you want to be taken seriously. With newer terms, the advantage is we'll get shortcuts to describe that which takes so much time nowadays to describe. In the end, all new systems, ideas, initiatives have their advantages and disadvantages. Heck, even the ones already in existence do.

If this initiative's been thought out well, I would say give it a shot. There's no harm in trying.

So, the impression I'm getting from you all is that because therianthropy is a community based around experiences, memories, and/or relationships that form our sense of who we are. Explaining your specific experience in detail is therefore more useful than a shortcut because nuance is valued over ease of access. Is that correct? If so, I understand why we don't need more terms, at least not in the way I was thinking.

(2026-06-09 16:13)balticisstrange Wrote:  @Thorn

I am aware that it is impossible for everyone to have the same experience, but I don't think that means classifying our specific experiences is bad. Take asexuality, for instance. This term describes the experience of feeling little or no sexual attraction. Some people say that they are ace because they consider anything sexual to be a source of disgust. Some say they're ace because their desires are not based around the person they're with, but rather the actions themselves. Some people say they're asexual because they only experience sexual attraction once in a blue moon. But all of these people can say asexual to communicate their shared experience of "little or no sexual attraction" while also having their own unique experience. I don't think that grouping oneself under a term and acknowledging that you have a unique perspective are mutually exclusive ideas.

As for the concept of a lack of a need for a theory: consider the idea that maybe you in particular do not feel a need to explain why you are a therian. That is completely valid, but that doesn't mean that being able to concisely describe why one believes they are a therian is useless to everyone. Sure, you don't need a theory for why you are a therian, but others may feel that a term that communicates, say, "I am a therian because I imprinted on animals at a young age, which led to me having nonvoluntary inhuman experiences" is useful when they want to easily express that experience without having to repeat the above definition every single time they want to express that.

Apologies if this paragraph sounds overly emotionally charged. When I hear the phrase "I understand its fun to create them to get a sense of recognition", I feel like I am being talked down to. I did not bring up fun or a desire to be recognized for a contribution. I am not proposing this idea because I think it's cool, but because I think it could be useful. Maybe this wasn't your intention, but the fact that it seems like it was assumed that I was bringing up this conversation because " I want to make new terms for the hell of it" is condescending to me. I understand that as a pup user, my age may affect my biases, but that doesn't automatically mean that what I say is based in a desire to gain social validation, and it makes me feel like I'm viewed as "lesser than" an adult member solely based on my age.

Hi. I haven't thoroughly read the other people's replies so I apologize in advance if I'm repeating anyone.

First and foremost, I didn't mean to make you feel talked down to. I have seen a lot of community members (inside and outside the therian community) create labels for the fun of it, and there isn't any specific issue with that. I wasn't necessarily assuming that that was your goal (though I understand that it came across that way), but rather as an extension of my perspectives back then. If anything, the idea of creating labels for recognition is, in my opinion, a very valid reason to want to adopt/create a label (even if it's not inherently useful). Recognition is not equal to "for the heck of it". I, too, have looked up labels to explain my personal experiences on certain fronts (aegosexuality, genderfluid-flux, adaptive plural, paragenic, etc). So to be honest, for me, that wouldn't come near a reason to condescend anyone in the first place. I hope that explains that that wasn't the angle at all.

But, personally, I don't use these terms for general communication because 99% of the times people don't even know that they mean. I can tell people I'm on the asexual spectrum, and they know that that topic works differently for me than most people. But no one knows what aegosexuality means, and I'm instantly met with having to explain what it is (which can even be awkward because suddenly I have to talk about that topic regarding myself. Not great). The therian community holds a fine foundation of terms that explain the most common experiences. But the downside of some of these already-existing terms is that new community members have to learn all the different terms to even be able to understand general communication within the community. Some find that fun, for some that gets very confusing and ultimately demotivating or unwelcoming. A pack member of mine had a lot of difficulty learning all the existing terms already, let alone if there were sublabels for the theories.

Therewith comes the difference, to me. For asexuality, things can be classified into different labels because it only tells you about your personal relationship with intercourse or lack thereof. People can look into their experience and decide that label a or label b fits the experience best. And then that concludes what you are. With theories behind therianthropy, however, the community usually encourages conversation and discussion, sharing experiences and theories and celebrating the uniqueness of each. Spirituality and/or psychology of their own have endless different ways one can connect their therianthropy to the self. I understand that there are some more common theories, but the details of those could vary, and slapping a label onto it could discourage people to look beyond just the label. When someone tells me they have a past life, I would like to ask them how they began identifying as their past life, or how they believe reincarnation even works (if reincarnation is even the cause). Not using labels for theories prevents generalization and creates conversation.

What I meant to say about the fact that therians don't need a theory wasn't to say that theories aren't important. The importance of one's theory ultimately depends per person, and I too do have a theory for my therianthropy. What I did mean to say is that I would not want to give new community members the impression that they need to have a theory, or even that there are a set amount of theories to choose from. Unfortunately misconceptions like that spread fast, especially since the new members of the community are met with a lot of misinformation-filled spaces on the internet in the past years. Hence my contherian and suntherian example. While it's fine if those labels hold significance to some members despite the confusions, the approach of a spectrum when it comes to levels of integration would've ultimately been more useful.

So even as your intention is about usefulness, I am adding nuance with the risks of these kinds of generalizations, community accessibility, and misconceptions. I hope this explains it a bit better.

Root cause of therianthropy have always been self descriptive. People already make up terms if they want to. Spiritual & psychological habe just stood the test of time because they were the most common, and vague enough that many people fell under it.

Im of the opinion that less term, and more descriptive texts about each other's experience is the solution. If I called myself a demineurological, demimprinted therian that would be a technically accurate term coining. But its frankly fucking awkward compared to "I think my therianthropy is partially due to innate brain wiring I have, and partially due to connecting with wyverns and other bird like creatures in childhood".

Apologies for bringing up another community under a therianthropy discussion but I think it's relevant. Let's take the plural community for example. There are two main terms that someone who is plural may use to quickly communicate the origin of their plurality, traumagenic and endogenic. For example, you would say, "I'm a traumagenic/endogenic system". There are many, many other -genic labels that are mostly microlabels (neurogenic, willogenic, etc). This is sometimes important because the two main categories often have differences in how they operate, but even then it does cause a lot of infighting between the two despite its usefulness.

I don't believe implementing the same sort of terms in the therian community would be useful, because the origin of a person's therianthropy doesn't influence how it presents for them. Ultimately I do believe it would lead to unnecessary fragmentation and gatekeeping without much benefit, even if they were descriptive suffixes and not standalone terms. Best to stick with psychological and spiritual therianthropy at most.

@Neon Rosettes

When it comes to psychological therianthropy, I agree with your points. It probably would make more sense to just use adjectives.

However, as you mentioned, Spiritual Therianthropy does have the baggage of "Therian with a past life". Someone who believes they are a therian because a soul that was intended for an animal ended up in a human body and mind is excluded from what people think of when they say " Spiritual Therian". There are more theories to it than just "I had a past life".

I think its that the terms (Spiritual moreso) are so broad that it's inconvenient to be forced to explain what doesn't apply every time you want to convey your experience.

I see what you mean, but I would probably suggest splitting the difference based on something you said: "that is a result of traumatic experience(s)."

I think, rather than making entirely new terms, it would be more useful to use adjectives or short, descriptive subclauses with the existing terms, using general language. I think that's more intuitive for people while still providing a sub-category that they can discuss, without imposing a strict feeling of categorization (because of the possibility that some other form of psychological or spiritual therianthropy may instead/also apply to them). "I'm a psychological therian from trauma." "My psychological therianthropy is shaped by neurodivergence." Sorry I got nothin for the spiritual stuff haha. I didn't use the term "traumagenic" though (even though it popped into my head) since, as far as I can tell, it's solely a term for systems, and I would not co-opt it. I know that gets away from labels, though, and following that train of thought, you then wind up circling back to "if someone is seeking insight from others with similar experiences, why not make that the title of a thread?" A thread with the title "Psychological therianthropy shaped by trauma" or "shaped by neurodivergence" would have a similar level of pull and be more accessible.

Where my questions next go is: what specific experiences were you hoping to define through new terms? You've mentioned trauma and neurodivergence, but I was wondering which others you had in mind. You said "just a couple new terms," and technically both of those meet the "couple" expectation. To not come across as passive aggressive, I will say that I am asking because I return again to the last two sentences from the previous paragraph. If it's for those two specifically, then I still think short, descriptive sentences will provide the most bang for their buck. Perhaps the better question is: are "psychological therianthropy" and "spiritual therianthropy" so broad that using them means being forced to spend time explaining what parts don't apply? Or, is the broadness of it undesirable in terms of association?

As examples, for the former (those are both functionally the same question, but I wanted to keep these in here haha), we have the term "nonbinary," because the term "transgender" carried too much baggage with it, and while "not aligning with your assigned sex" underpins both terms, there is a pretty meaningful distinction between "alignment with binary genders/sexes" and "nonalignment with binary genders/sexes," and conveying that difference from the jump is what makes "nonbinary" useful. For the latter, we have "lesbian" because "gay" was so strongly associated with men that a term that was decidedly not for men was desirable, particularly for representation (i.e. pushing back on men being considered the "default" gender/experience).

In my humble onion, I don't think there is a clear, commonly-imagined idea of what psychological therianthropy is, so I don't think it has baggage that you have to wave away first when using it, nor does it call to mind pre-existing ideas that may be harmful/challenging for the explainer to dance around. I think most people, when they hear someone call themselves a psychological therian, think "oh, so not spiritual," or perhaps even go so far as to think "oh, so it's a brain thing for them." If any experience suffers the preconceived notion problem, I think it's spiritual therianthropy, because the whole "I have the soul of an X" thing being so ingrained. Because my therianthropy is not spiritual in nature, I can't speak to the different spiritual sources people consider for their therianthropy, but then again, it's worth asking them too if they feel that the "I have the soul of an X" thing is problematic enough when explaining their therianthropy origins that they feel they'd benefit from creating a whole new term when discussing it. Maybe they would, but maybe just succinctly but generally describing their specific experience in the title is sufficient ("Spiritual therianthropy caused by walk-ins" maybe?? This is the best I've got LMAO).