I'll say with full confidence that the differences here can be attributed to social conditioning, because furry and therianthropy are internal/personal and external/social experiences that mix together, not something bound to physical traits. The differences between people who are AFAB and AMAB, that is, the effects of hormone differences, do not meaningfully impact someone's ability to be into one thing more than the other, and honestly, the more time I spend in queer spaces, the more obvious that becomes.

There's something to be said about how existing groups and someone's experiences might lead them to sway one way vs another, but again, making it a "men vs women" thing is just stating generalizations and pointing towards things that are obvious for as to why they exist. There's a reason that the artists in the furry fandom tend more often to be women, vs those who commission art often being men, and we could look towards the gender pay gap as at least a partial explanation for this.

As always, they're rooted in societal structures, rather than intrinsic qualities to one birth sex vs another. And, if it wasn't implied already, doesn't even take into account intersex people and how they can't easily fit within one box vs another (nor should they have to, and nor do all cis people for that matter).

I don't know much about the English community, but since I saw the translation of articles related to this term in Chinese community, I understand it as a proposal to promote this term within the Chinese community. Therefore, I would like to offer some additional opinions specifically regarding this term. I believe that, at least for the Chinese community, introducing this term is unnecessary and would only make our terminology system and classification more cumbersome:

1.The terminology system in the Chinese community has never been a complete copy of the non-Chinese community's classifications: the definition of “有兽识者” is "who self-identify as non-human animals with a human body," and “兽自识” is "experiences related to non-human identity." This means that the ambiguity of therianthropy—which can be interpreted as "the experience of existing as a non-human animal and identifying with that identity"—does not exist in the Chinese in the first place.

2.In the Chinese context, our “认同” is actually quite different from the English "identity." For us, "认同" is not only an outward group identity but also includes individual subjective experience. Therefore, when we use "认同" or "兽自识," we inherently include those internal feelings.

3.All the aspects covered by zoesthesia already have corresponding terms in Chinese. For example: "Dysphoria regarding the incongruence between one's physical body and perceived embodied experience" is called “物种厌沮” ; "Dreams or trance-like states that are experienced through the lens of something incongruent to one's biology" are covered by “对频”. If a single term is needed to unify all these parts, we can directly use “认同体验”, and as mentioned earlier, our "认同" is a more subjective and internal term .

4.In Chinese academic writing, compared to coined neologisms, Chinese more readily accepts combinations of existing terms.

5.The following text is written by our mutual friend Lavren.

【Chinese itself does not form words by interlocking vocabulary like English does. For the English-speaking community, a complex vocabulary system needs a unified umbrella term for classification, but from the perspective of Chinese usage:

There is a difference between Chinese and English. In English, academic terms are often formed with Greek-derived compounds to distinguish them from ordinary everyday English—this is a kind of artificial stratification, and it is one of the reasons this term was proposed, so I support its publication in Western communities. However, Chinese does not have this habit. Chinese is a logographic language, tending to use intuitive, common character combinations to accurately express concepts, and these everyday terms can also directly enter professional papers or academic contexts without the need for extra coined words. For instance, for zoesthesia, we already have terms like “跨物种体验” or “认同体验” to express the same meaning; replacing them with a coined neologism seems inconvenient to me.

Our terms—“有兽识者, “兽自识”, “物种体验”—have always been clear and straightforward, and due to our national context, materialism is the mainstream (meaning psychological therians are our majority). Under such circumstances, identification and feeling are not ambiguous—we have always distinguished them clearly.】

6.For Chinese, the term “体验” is more neutral and less likely to invite non-psychological interpretations. On the other hand, a coined term that doesn't reveal its meaning at a glance—or requires additional explanation—is actually more prone to being misinterpreted, and could even develop into a cult (though, given the national context, I remain optimistic about the development of the Chinese community in this regard).

In other words, there is no need for us to adopt this term.

(sorry for any typing errors, shitty coordination issues)

This forum called my attention since I was curious about the therian community's stance on gender roles, I am very new, fresh from the furry fandom, which I've been part of for 5-7 years.

Humans remarkably lack sexual dimorphism, as mammals and even as primates/primate related (whatever you ineterpret). Our sexual differences related to behaviour are essentially social, not social in the biological way but social in the intricate way the human world works, with the influences of powerful people and organisations, no conspiracy theory here! Just politics. Recently there has been a recon on most if not all human prehistoric skeletons for sex re-assignment, when determining the sex, archeologists would immediately assume that a individual with hunting tools was male, while individuals with artisan or gathering items female (that being less often than the male=hunting tool). Female human beings are remarkable for their resilience, that is biological, and turns out human hunting before societal formation relied on resilience! Female humans hunted and led hunts just as much as males did, and male humans actively partook in foraging and caretaking just as much as females did. Sperm being wasteable and eggs beig precious is also not an entirely true scientific stance! it is heavily influenced by human pre-conceptions on gender rather than true data, just as how prehistoric human skeletons were archived.
Why sexism exists and why certain roles are implied to male and female is a long story, and a very interesting one! But women being sentimental and men being "sportsy" or "activity based" is something forced upon and not natural. I think this demographic in the therian and furry community is built the same reason why a lot of "out of the closet" therians and furries are in places like west europe and north america. The societal pressure is much less in these places. I know there IS nuance!! but Im saying this as someone who lived in south america, east europe and west europe. Punishment an dconsequence is different in these places, while in some places parents will think that a boy playing with dolls and a girl playing football(soccer) is "just a phase" in other places they can be punished for that.

I can't really add on the discussion if there are more male sor females in the therian or furry communities since I am very blind to gender (SOmetimes I take months to consistently remember someone's gender, regardles sof them being cis, trans, non conforming, straight or lgbt+, im just stupid lol). But I did notice a lot of misconception here, I've met just as many trans women as trans men, and both genders incline to being lgbt+ equally. I do feel like the teenage trans girls I've met are much more secretive about them being trans than teenage trans boys, and that got stronger in recent years due to the intoxication of male spaces with harmful stances. I guess this also plays a role on the therian community, I see more older male members compared to female members where minors and adults are a more balanced demographic.
I also personally don't find the furry community more activity based than the alterhuman, specially nowadays, I actually find it cool how alterhumans actively engage in sports and physical activities.

Also @fairyhill I liked your analysis!! Indeed some of the things said here are transphobic, I think maybe people may have said them more out of misconception than malice, not justifying them, I still think it's a bad view on gender roles and sex behaviour, and it's important to break out of it!! I was actually surprised of what some people think, I was expecting the alterhuman community to be more open about gender. It saddens me how gender roles are so heavily ingraine din human society, personally they make no sense to me and seem more harmful than anything

I must say, it's incredibly disappointing to see people use AMAB/AFAB in this way. Some people are even buying into incredibly false "socialisation" theories that are used to bully trans people, particularly women, into believing they will never "escape" the way they started their lives. I highly encourage people to do some research into why this particular thing is completely inaccurate, as well as discourage people from the terms AFAB/AMAB unless absolutely, strictly necessary (a.k.a., discussions about being intersex specifically).

I believe what a good number of you are observing (along the lines of "women are more introspective/emotionally aware") is taught behaviour. You might be thinking, "didn't you just say socialisation isn't real?", but the reality is that there's a lot of nuance to the punishment/reinforcement cycle of gender roles and the socialisation argument tends to be made to deny or delegitimise a trans person's identity. But when someone transitions, they do tend to display more characteristics associated with their true gender than with what was (wrongly) assumed previously. Even before transition, this can very much be the case; often, this is what leads to someone understanding themselves as transgender. Additionally, there isn't actually any significant data that I'm aware of that states men's and women's brains are any different, and gender roles and expectations - therefore, behaviour - can change wildly depending on the individual, culture, generation, etc.

Based on my personal experience:

The people I've met in both communities have been a pretty even mix of men and women, primarily cisgender. However, the further you get into the ranks of popularity and authority, the less women there are and the more men there are. This is true in many other communities as well as careers/occupations. A good example I always give is in medicine; you'll often see a lot more female junior nurses, and a lot less female surgeons and specialised doctors. This sort of "filtering" occurs pretty much everywhere you look.

I do agree that certain organisms are assigned masculine/feminine. In my culture, cats are more "girly", dragons are definitely more "boyish". I was thinking about horses a bit ago, and it seems that their perception differs depending on the "seriousness" of their involvement in a given situation. For example, professional horse riders? A lot of men. But when we think of a child being interested in horses, we probably think of young girls. It makes me wonder if in other cultures aside from mine in Western Europe, there are unexpected associations that I'm not aware of.

I also agree that it's expected (at least in my culture) that women are more in touch with their emotions, a warped and more positive spin on "women are over-emotional" (which is entirely false). That may be part of the reason why there appear to be more women in the otherkin and therian communities. However, I don't think there is any one answer to this. Perhaps it's also worth considering how these communities first began and were built up, and by whom, if anyone with better knowledge of history could provide some insight!

Another thing that I wonder about: we're assuming an awful lot about people who may choose not to divulge the information that they are transgender. Have people been presuming that a woman who does not actively say she is trans is cis? What about the surveys? Even if they stated "sex" in these surveys (which many people falsely understand as "sex at birth"), some trans people may have put their current sex, no?

I do wonder how these surveys would look today, and how people would answer them.

So, Psychology. If you have ever looked into therapy or are a therapist, you've probably heard 'Thoghts Influence Emotions'

Okay so, does this include animalistic emotion/thoughts? We do say when we experience a shift its completely involuntary and such as our emotions. But have you ever thought of your mindset before you have a shift? Looked at your recordings and saw that you were thinking of how shifty you were prior to the shift, which influences that emotion.

Any thoughts?[/align]

Due to all this talk regarding faunalunes, holotheres etc. I feel less and less inclined to spend time within the therian community. These terms they came up with are really out there, you know. I can't and won't identify with any of such things. Due to these developments where individuals make up their own terms to help dispose themselves of the word therianthropy, I get a little aggravated to be honest. A broader terminology to help explain some others can help, but removing therianthropy from use and using faunalunes instead goes a bit too far for me. I just wished they kept it as plain and simple as possible. Another of my two cents and end of rant.

(2026-08-17 17:22)Remoniel Wrote:  Psychologically speaking, I think some significant level of alienation from typical human behavior predisposes people to have a nonhuman self-concept. This is inherently ugly-looking much of the time, and many of us carry shame around it, such as with my asociality and low emotionality, which I’ve been told by my parents at a young age made me cruel and a sociopath. I had always wanted to be a bird even as a super young kid, but I think the long process of growing up different, and being treated as different because of it, caused my nonhuman feelings to snowball and crystallize more than would have occurred if I was raised in a vacuum. Like the formation of any other identity, including those that fall under the “normal human” umbrella, there is a mix of influences that are voluntary and involuntary, external and internal. Maybe, as an example, a very skittish and anxious kid who’s constantly bullied by his family for this difference starts choosing to view himself as “rabbit-like” in a bid to understand himself and feel normal, and over time, the identity grows with him and becomes inextricable. I see this as no different from growing with the ‘normal’ identities, such as gender affiliation; no one is born with any gender conditioning, and yet most humans will eventually grow up to see “man” and “woman” as unalienable parts of themselves.

To the "involuntary" language at the heart of this thread, I put forward an identity that is "inextricable" is no longer voluntary.

I'm 38, yet I've just been looking into my otherkinity these past 2 months. Does this mean my draconity was never there previously when I wasn't looking for it? Or does that mean it was always there and only now being recognized? There are many parallels to the concept of gender in that fork in the road.

(2026-08-13 9:33)Hemlock Wrote:  My only dislike of the involuntary definition is that I have observed several individuals who’s nonhuman identity seemed to originate as intentional, only to then be a core part of themselves they cannot remove. I think this "I cannot stop this without feeling untrue to myself" feeling is the more important part to me compared to perhaps having at the start been intentional.

I heartily agree. I’m certain that the emphasis on it being “involuntary” is just to keep out younger folks drawn to the allure of being part animal, but hence why I take such issue with the common language of the community: that therianthropy is simply “identifying as an animal.” That sentence on its own is just too glamorous, of course it’ll attract kids curious about their identities. I understand why others don’t want to start pathologizing therianthropy and treating it like a disorder, but I still don’t think our discussions should gloss over the more disordered commonalities of it.

Psychologically speaking, I think some significant level of alienation from typical human behavior predisposes people to have a nonhuman self-concept. This is inherently ugly-looking much of the time, and many of us carry shame around it, such as with my asociality and low emotionality, which I’ve been told by my parents at a young age made me cruel and a sociopath. I had always wanted to be a bird even as a super young kid, but I think the long process of growing up different, and being treated as different because of it, caused my nonhuman feelings to snowball and crystallize more than would have occurred if I was raised in a vacuum. Like the formation of any other identity, including those that fall under the “normal human” umbrella, there is a mix of influences that are voluntary and involuntary, external and internal. Maybe, as an example, a very skittish and anxious kid who’s constantly bullied by his family for this difference starts choosing to view himself as “rabbit-like” in a bid to understand himself and feel normal, and over time, the identity grows with him and becomes inextricable. I see this as no different from growing with the ‘normal’ identities, such as gender affiliation; no one is born with any gender conditioning, and yet most humans will eventually grow up to see “man” and “woman” as unalienable parts of themselves.

So, tldr, I do find the “involuntary” language a bit confusing and misleading. It’s very easy for people to misinterpret, same as “I identify as an animal.” It’s why I always lead with my personal experiences rather than using any of this language in discussions with others.

-Rem