I believe my therianthropy comes from being neurodivergent and traumatic experiences. During most traumatic experiences in my life I've had house hold pets or strays outside that could keep me company and that I learned a ton from. Those animals were my family in a way, and still are by how what I learned from them sticks with me.

When this whole life thing gets really challenging for me I just go outside and learn about animals and plants (nature) through reading and observation. I'm not a huge quads. guy, but if I ever do them it's while I'm outside connecting with myself. Learning and ESP observing is oddly enough an introspective practice of mine that allows me to connect with and understand who I am as a therian/animal.

Probably linked to being autistic and always feeling different from everyone else?
It’s always been a part of me, and I think it always will!

Over the years my personal definition of therianthropy has definitely loosened from what it was when I was 12-14. Having met so many people who are not even close to feeling appealed to therianthropy or wishing to be an animal at all makes me realize that the difference between therian and non-therian is wide enough that questions of voluntary or involuntary become somewhat..meaningless.? The answer is more consistency in the feeling and identity. I think as you grow up (or at least as I grew up), there is a frequent inward checking on whether you're "actually" therian, no matter how different you are from your peers as a baseline. And of course, a lot of young critters growing up therian may phase out as they reach late teen years and adulthood. For any number of reasons. Whether or not they still resonate with the term "therian" or might be considered by some omniscient force as Therian depends on whether or not they want to reconnect with that part of them in adulthood. So in that sense, is it voluntary? It is so hard to know what is voluntary and involuntary unless it is a negative experience, from what I can tell, and so it comes back to consistent connection/tapping into the identity and not getting bogged down by the humannness and exhaustion of daily life.

Similarly to the suspected cause of transgender (Differences in the brain making it more like that of the opposite gender), I feel like it's differences in the brain that connects said person to what they kin.

For us it's the result of trauma, as we have DID/OSDD. We can trace why and when our animal alters split, and it's based on either responses to abuse or places where we felt safe (e.g. our fox alters split in response to physical abuse, out otter alter split due to feeling safe at the beach). But we do wonder if we hadn't been abused, whether we would have felt inherently non human in some way anyway, just not as separate alters, but in a more 'normal' therian/otherkin experience. For example we have a male and female version of our human host, and are fully convinced that had our male and female sides not split due to abuse, we would have been genderfluid in the 'normal' sense. Also many beings with DID have fully human systems, so why do some have non-human alters and others don't? We are neurodiverse (ADHD) which may have a factor in it. It's ultimately impossible to say. We do also like the idea of a spiritual connection to non-humanness, particularly since two of our alters are spiritual beings.

Well speaking as a spiritual and psychological therian, I believe most of my Theriotypes are caused by some past life that has left me confused in my current given one.
Yet, I have always felt a strange connection, even as a kid the wanting to be a wolf so much so that I imitated behaviors of the like. I had believed with little understanding of who I was (of course young and knew little about the literal) and had thought there was the ability to transform into one. It had faded throughout a certain amount of years and then came back to my understanding of what therianthropy is.
Some say its caused by nuerodivergency, others just simply a part of themselves. But in the end, it is a personal experience through everyone. No snowflake is exactly the same.

As a therian I don't personally identify with the alterhuman community. I don't think therians need to be grouped in this way and I don't think anyone who identifies purley as alterhuman actually understands what therianthropy, otherkinnity or other of the "sub-group's" experiences actually are, or what makes a therian a therian.


However if you're asking what I think my therianthropy is caused by, and just worded it poorly...

I believe therianthropy is an example of convergent evolution. I think our human biological traits and learned (aka environmentally introduced) behaviours come together to make us more similar to the animal of our theriotype(s) than other humans and that this is therianthropy.

We are biologically (genetically) human and we live human lives. These are the things that affect who we become. Because we live in the same environment as certain animals, we are inclined to come up with the same solutions as them to life's challenges. This can make us so similar to them, that living life in accordance with how they do might feel much more natural to us than forcing ourselves to do things as other humans do.

I believe this effect has been present throughout history, but it's been only recently that humanity has felt a need to classify and label every aspect of our identity, that we've given it a name: "therianthropy".

LP,
Dusty

I’m not even entirely certain myself. I guess if I had to call myself something, I’d say I’m a psychological therian. I don’t really believe in past lives or anything like that. But I’ve always wondered if there isn’t some kind of quantum/cosmic reasoning behind it. I’m open to entertaining the idea of something bigger than myself, but I’m not going to lie and say I have it all figured out.

(2026-09-18 17:18)Wolffiz Wrote:  

(2026-09-17 21:13)Emcat2010 Wrote:  I have 1 Kitty called Oscar! My grandmother has two, my aunt has 1, my other aunt had three, now unfortunately two, and a dog, my uncle has 1 dog and one cat. The dogs are newer but I know my grandmother had looots of cats so my uncles/aunts grew up with them. We’re a very cat loving family X3.

Wow that's a lot! And sounds amazing ?
I have 1 dog too

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(2026-09-17 23:55)corvidjay Wrote:  

(2026-09-17 19:51)Wolffiz Wrote:  Do you think your alterhumanity / therianthrophy is caused by something specific or see it simply as your personal identity?

I checked the "spiritual" box because I can't think of anything that would have been a psychological cause. From the moment I left the ground (fledged?) I knew I was a creature of the air, a bird. It never occurred to me to question that, no more than it occurred to me to question if I had feet.

(2026-09-17 19:51)Wolffiz Wrote:  Something I recently read online made me wonder how excatly do all of us experience it.

Can you share what that was, or the gist of it?

I found some old Reddit conversation communicating about this topic and sharing their opinions so I wanted to see what peoole here would think caused their therianthrophy. The Reddit convo was just named "What are the causes for therinathrophy?" I also saw someone here talking something similiar in a single message, but forgot what it exactly said and it wasn't specifically tied to this topic.
Also, your reply sounds great! ^^

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(2026-09-17 22:05)Abysmal. Wrote:  Probably linked to being neurodivergent, i experience things that are weird even to the non human community as a whole

This might be me partially aswell, I think some parts about my identity link with meuroverdigence though I don't have any official diagnosis many people and online tests (which can be inaccurate, yes) tell me that it's hughly likely I have adhd and / or autism. I just can't currently get a test to figure it out ?
I did have an autism test around 5yo and it was close but wasn't enough for diagnosis, the problem there is that doing such for a very young child can be inaccurate since they can't even really understand their own experiences. Happened too to someone ik that had a test below 10 years of age and couldn't get a diagnosis but a little older was diagnosed.
I think I'm getting a bit out of rail ?

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(2026-09-18 7:02)Cygnus Wrote:  I'm not an alterhuman, but I am a therian..
I'm an animal that refused to stay dead and subverted the normal reincarnation cycle. A human gave up their life so that I could have a second chance, and now I carry the songs of my ancestors while looking out from behind the eyes of something I never was. It's not a personal identity, just what I wake up to every day.

Wow, that's different and deep. I hope this life is gonna be great 4 you! <

if it's of any comfort, i'm not full on diagnosed with Autism or ADHD either. However, those arent the only two things that cause neurodivergence

My therianthropy (or as you say, alterhumanity overall) is probably caused by my past traumas. It serves the way to express my emotions and feel myself overall more alive.