AskTransgender

As far as I can tell, species dysphoria, otherkin, and related ideas are not related to gender dysphoria and natural variation in sex and gender. They are radically different, and we can't conflate one with the other (just like we wouldn't say trans-racial identity is similar or related to transgender identity).

I think the reason you might run into hostility is that the anti-trans movement tries to conflate transgender identity with otherkin identities. The public at large already has trouble accepting a transgender identity, despite the scientific evidence and the established cross-cultural and historical record of transgender identities, it strikes most people as wrong - even the idea of transitioning itself is considered immoral to the majority of Americans even as the majority signal support for gender affirming care. In that context, conflating trans identity with something even harder for people to accept (the idea that someone is authentically a different species, i.e. is not a human in their identity / mind) is a win for the anti-trans movement, who primarily want to show that trans people are illegitimate, indefensible, contrary to nature / reality / truth, and are in some way mentally delusional or ill because of their identity.

Matt Walsh, the far-right anti-trans activist, interviews Naia Okami in What is a Woman, his anti-trans "documentary." Naia is a part of the furry community and is a trans woman and identifies as a wolfkin, here is a clip I found.

Largely this kind of rhetoric is successful at convincing people that transgender identities are illegitimate.

We know even just transgender visibility generates harm to trans people, like from this interview with the trans legal scholar Florence Ashley in The Scientific American:

Trans culture is more visible today than it has been in the past. Does that help, or is increased visibility stirring up the anti-trans movement?

Florence Ashley: Visibility is very much a double-edged sword. There are good sides to visibility, of course. It helps people realize that they're trans. You have more access to trans narratives, which gives you more space to understand yourself, and that's very positive. But at the social and political level, it has been quite negative. We're seeing a lot more people who vehemently hate trans people, who are even willing to harm trans people. Whereas people who are favorable to trans people largely just leave us alone. And a lot of reforms that we were able to achieve with relative ease, in a less visible manner, are now being rolled back.

The trans backlash and moral panic is partially due to the increased visibility and exposure of the public at large to trans identities, and the right-wing anti-trans activists know they can push that alienation and moral panic further by connecting and conflating transgender identities with people who identify as other species.

All this said, even if the trans movement might have some pragmatic reason to maintain a level of respectability with the public, I don't want to ignore that respectability politics has a lot of downsides. Respectability politics is the idea that some within the community are more respectable than others (i.e. more palatable to the public), and this often leads to pressure for only those respectable elements to be considered valid or legitimate and to receive publicity and support. Undesirables are identified and ostracized from the group to protect the more respectable minority.

This is precisely how you end up with a concept of transgender people that you commonly see in the media: that trans people immediately and always knew their gender identity, that they communicated their identity as soon as they could speak, that trans children refuse to live as the gender they were assigned and insist to live the other way, and so on. (This narrative was on full display on The Problem With Jon Stewart a couple years ago, here is a clip.)

This narrative does describe some trans people, and notably it describes the trans people the public are most likely to have sympathy for, but it leaves a lot of trans people out of the picture (consequences of this include many trans people never realizing they are trans, and others being gatekept by others and being told they aren't trans). And even worse, the clinical guidelines for trans healthcare started with gatekeeping rules that aimed to maintain that kind of narrative about trans people. The Harry Benjamin rules were aimed at total integration of trans people into cis society, for example by suggesting trans people lie to cis people about their trans identity, to concoct false stories about a childhood they never had, and to even move to another town or city where nobody knew them from pre-transition.

So while we can't ignore the rhetorical and political impact that trans visibility has in generating backlash, we also can't ignore the nightmarish gatekeeping and oppression that results from an overly zealous focus on respectability. This is precisely what fuels transmedicalists and enbyphobia - which does result in people who have entirely legitimate gender identities and rights to gender affirming care to be mistreated or ostracized within their community and excluded from potentially life-saving care by medical gatekeepers.

All this to say, whatever problems there are with respectability politics, this does not make transgender identities and otherkin identities the same. There is an overwhelming medical and scientific consensus that transgender people exist, have valid identities, and that trans-affirming healthcare is safe and effective. There is now a significant body of evidence that explains the causes of gender dysphoria, as well as an extensive record of trans identities throughout history and cultures.

As I understand it, this is not the situation with trans-racial and trans-species identities. We are not in the same epistemic position with these other identities, we do not understand why people have trans-species experiences, we do not have the same evidence about the best ways to approach those identities from a clinical perspective, we do not even have a model for thinking about how a human could possibly know what it is like to have other-animal experiences. The philosopher Thomas Nagel wrote a famous paper called What Is It Like to Be a Bat? which poses problems about the limited capacity for human minds to comprehend other minds, for example to know what it is like to actually be a bat - who have consciousness but have perceptual experiences and qualia that humans will never be able to experience themselves precisely because they are not bats. Nagel's point is that human cognition allows us to try to imagine what it is like to be a bat (flying, navigating by sonar, eating insects), but this never allows us to actually experience what the bat experiences.

There is a lot to unpack about a claim that someone has a non-human mind inside a human body, and that situation is quite different (in terms of evidence, plausibility, etc.) than claims that a trans woman has the mind or identity of a woman. (It is not surprising to read that otherkin are seen as a kind of religious movement, and the animal identity for many otherkin is explained in terms of a spiritual experience.)

So while it's easy for me to say that otherkin and similar identities should be tolerated and respected out of simple principles of politeness, I do think they are unrelated to transgender identities and should not be conflated.

While I am not inclined to immediately assume you are trying to mock transgender identities by claiming to be trans-species, I also understand why trans people especially would be sensitive about this in a time of extreme anti-trans backlash and when trans-racial or trans-species identities are being exploited by anti-trans activists to de-legitimize transgender identities.

Online it is especially difficult to tell when someone is intentionally trying to undermine or corrode trust in transgender people, and it can be hard sometimes to discern a well-meaning and genuine otherkin person from a troll who is using an otherkin identity as a wedge, demanding the same tolerance, understanding, and validation in trans spaces as transgender people ask for, while knowing that otherkin identities generate disbelief, aggression, and are used to weaken support for transgender folks. Most otherkin are not trolls, and the overlap between otherkin and transgender identities is strong (especially since the transgender community has larger numbers of neurodivergent and plural people, which overlap heavily with otherkin identities).

tl;dr

• otherkin identities aren't related to transgender identities,
• we should tolerate & respect otherkin people engaging in good faith (i.e. not trolls),
• hostility towards otherkin from trans people in particular is probably due to otherkin identities being weaponized by anti-trans activists to whip up moral panic about transgender people.

My opinion on this might be among the most difficult for people in my local circle to accept.

In the early days of the internet I was exposed to a lot of people calling themselves "Otherkin" online. This community never really went away but most of the old forums seem to have passed on to the great big server in the sky. These people sometimes identified very strongly with non-human identities and always fascinated me. Before my egg breaking I jumped around that community to try and figure out why I myself felt 'off' and whether one of their terms fit me. Never entirely, but there were some interesting people there who taught me a lot.

Later on, Furries entered my view. These people reminded me of Otherkin in that some among them reported that their fursonas seemed more real to them than their human identity. A sub-grouping of furries felt they identified more with cartoon versions of animals, calling themselves Toonies, if I recall correctly. I always tried to respect their identities since some of my friends belonged to these groups and I valued these friendships as these were creative. I thought their minds were precious and beautiful for how strongly they managed to convey their identities to me even while the "normal" is so restrictive.

When I started digging into psychology on my path through life, I encountered people who were plural and found similar people among them. Sometimes someone within a system identified as non-human, as a fictive, or was created as a "Tulpa". These concepts were foreign to me, and I wanted to learn about them as I feel that anyone has a right to be heard and appreciated for who they are.

Appreciating these people who all had different viewpoints on life enriched mine, and I learned from asking them respectfully how they felt, how it all manifested for them, and considered for myself how this related to my own identity. My friends taught me that there are a lot of things which I am not. By eliminating that which I'm not, the identity which fit for me sprang forth as the only logical identity which was 'right' for me to identify as. I very much occam's razor'd the fuck out of my own identity. ;)

But while their identities might not apply to me, I know some people identify very strongly with being non-human, and might experience species dysphoria as a result. I feel like we can accept this as a given, and just respect one another on this because it enriches the tapestry of life in all its distinct variations.

Some people have trouble with this. Some people have very rigid concepts of what can and cannot exist, and when these concepts get challenged they often react with dismissal, denial, and anger. I feel they're missing out; life is not just black and white. The lamp does not simply turn off or on with nothing between. There are so many different patterns and colours to play with, and to deny one is to blind yourself to the others.

The universe (some would say multiverse) is a large place, and I'm sure that species dysphoria exists. As long as we can accept some people have it even if we might not, we can find a common ground with one another and treat each other respectfully. That's all we need to do, really.

Find out who you are, and don't let naysayers decide it for you.

I try not to have opinions on things I do not understand.

No matter how strange or unfamiliar something may be, if it makes you more comfortable and harms no one else, I have no concerns.

I don't have an opinion on this, and I don't need one.

Species dysphoria is a real thing. It's weird, I don't know why it exists, but I know it's real because I experience it. I have friends who experience it. I don't understand why people choose to gatekeep over something they don't understand.

Especially other trans people.

Like, damn, you're not gonna win over the people who hate trans people by giving them a peace offering of throwing people under the bus. Just accept that some people may find their species to be dysphoria-inducing like some people find their gender to be dysphoria-inducing. Why is it that hard?

Edit: I'll be honest, I don't think that species dysphoria makes you transgender, I think that's a misapplication of the gender concept; like trying to classify a fish as a mammal. You absolutely still count as trans imo tho.

As a nonbinary person myself I feel it's none of my business what configuration of self another individual needs to feel "right" inside. I can also understand the impulse even from other trans people to think that one might be being disingenuous. It wasn't that long ago that my identity was the one "making fun of trans people" for just wanting to exist in a way that makes me happy.

The problem is that even if the "most extreme" identities that bigots are using to justify their hate didn't exist it's not like the hate will actually stop. They'll just start lying about the next "most fringe" identity.

First, this is from a cis het person, so it's kinda iffy for me to respond.

That being said, I'm probably one of the few cishet people to have taken the idea seriously enough to look into and explore beyond the surface, so take all of the above into account before continuing.

So, dysphoria is a fairly specific term with a well defined parameter in terms of psychology. Since you're making a specific subdivision of that, species dysphoria, I have to make it clear up front that I'm discussing this only within that context, not as a comparison to gender dysphoria. I can make that comparison if anyone wants it, but that's not what OP asked, so I'm not going to otherwise.

Dysphoria as a word just means a sense of unease and dissonance or dissatisfaction. Adding species in front of it means that the feeling is related to that aspect of the person.

That's the basis I'm working on.

So, species dysphoria is a perfectly reasonable term for someone that has some kind of difficulty being human as a species. There are plenty of people that express that feeling, and that means it is definitely a "real" thing, it isn't a joke, it isn't something someone is doing for attention or to troll. Not that it can't be used for that, it could be. But it isn't inherent to the concept.

But what does that matter? What does it mean in terms of what's going on to cause that feeling?

That's where the problems on the subject start popping up. It becomes a question of how it should be addressed. Now, OP talked about being accused of making fun of trans people, but I'm assuming they're here in good faith, so I don't think it's useful to address it in those terms.

The first question that has to be answered when considering how to deal with people experiencing it is the big one: are they experiencing it because of some physical, concrete, and observable trait? Meaning, are they feeling it because there's something in their body that causes it?

So far, the answer is no. There is next to zero structured study of the matter, and even less that's been published (so little, in fact, that I couldn't find anything online, so I'm stuck working from memory). But, there have been people that have expressed some degree of difficulty being human, and having various degrees of "connection" to things that aren't human.

When dealing with such things, it has been a fairly common process to rule out physiological causes. So, there have been tests done on people seeking help for the dysphoria. MRI, CT, EEG, etc. So, there's a very solid case to be made that whatever the cause is, it isn't structural.

There's also been a lot of effort into mapping and understanding the human genome. While there are certain degrees of genes shared between pretty much all living things, there have been zero discoveries of anything that would indicate that humans are capable of expressing those genes in a way that would cause species dysphoria.

So, with those causes out of the running, there's a limited number of options.

First is the one that's most likely, that the feeling is one caused by the mind rather than the brain or body. Second is that despite the significant absence of evidence of anything physiological, that there's some kind of hidden action at play that manages to express itself in random and unpredictable ways. Third, is that it isn't anything science can address at all, that it's some kind of "spiritual" effect

If it's option 3, then there's nothing anyone can address because there's no way to measure it, no way to share observations of it, or any way to prove or disprove it. Which means it comes down to woowoo handwaving that's no more or less useful to discuss than astrology or palm reading. You either believe it or you don't, and there's no real way to bridge between the two.

If it's the second, then it might as well be the same as 3 until something is discovered because there's nothing to be done. Or, you can still handle it as the first option to help relieve the unpleasant symptoms associated with the feeling.

The first possibility, that's at least something that can be addressed. And it is most likely to be the cause of species dysphoria when it occurs. The problem is that in order to study the phenomenon, you would have to have sufferers be willing to have their information pooled and examined, to see if there's a common thread or not. Which hasn't happened as far as I've been able to dig.

Currently, it's being handled like most forms of dysmorphia, which is to treat it as something that someone can overcome, since it would in all probability be psychogenic in origin. It's being handled akin to anorexia, or body dysmorphic disorder (the famous example being people that feel a disconnection from a limb and seek amputation to relieve that feeling).

You asked what people feel about the subject, so I will say that I feel the first possibility is so probable as the underlying cause that treating it as psychogenic is the only useful course of action. This is not a value judgement, it's a judgement on how best to address the difficulties that such situations cause.

Now, I also want to make it clear that something being psychogenic doesn't invalidate it, or make the person "crazy". Crazy is kind of a useless term to begin with. It implies that the person is incapable of making their own decisions and choices. It implies that they're a danger to themselves and others. None of that has been shown to be consistently true of people dealing with the issue.

What it does mean is that, unless you choose to deal with it via spiritual/religious means, that it has to be addressed in terms of it being an artifact of the mind, not the body.

That's all that psychogenic means, that the issue at hand is being generated by the mind. It doesn't even mean that it's a bad thing, that it's unhealthy or in need of correction. It just means that trying to address it as something else would cause harm to the person experiencing it.

As an example, the mind can take something that is applying unbearable pressure to it, and cause physical symptoms. One example might be that someone experiences high stress, and their feet go numb. It's the mind taking control of the body in a way that the person now has to go slower and approach things in a lower stress way. If you try and treat those numb feet as though it's something like a multiple sclerosis flareup, the person would be harmed by the medications that would help someone with MS.

By handling someone experiencing species dysphoria as though the root cause is originating in the mind, you avoid causing harm that isn't at least tangentially useful.

The problem that a lot of people experiencing it run into is the assumption that because it's psychogenic it must also be "fixed", or cured. This does not seem to be the case. While the sensation of dysphoria as an aspect of dysmorhpia can be very overwhelming, all that's really necessary is to help the person find their balance with it. In other words, help them accept that there aren't any physical treatments that are viable, and find ways to cope with the distress.

It isn't like someone that's having a delusion of being chased by spiders. It isn't even a delusion at all. It doesn't have to be cured. It just needs to be managed.

Currently, the best way of managing the feeling of dysphoria is for the person to find as much balance in their social circles as possible, while being allowed to express their perceived self in private settings. To the best of what I've seen, the dysphoria and dysmorphia don't respond to the same kind of treatments other forms do. As an example, some anorexics respond to antidepressants or mood regulators. Those medications are, to the best of my knowledge, useless in reducing any form of species dysphoria (which, tbh, it really would be a dysmorphia, and the dysphoria would only come into play if the dysmorphia causes distress; if you're okay with the body not matching, then is isn't dysphoria from the medical side of things, but that's pedantic, not informative).

So, what the fuck does that wall of text mean? That anyone dismissing you as crazy is an asshole because even if you were "crazy", dismissing you isn't the acceptable reaction.

And, unless you are using it to fuck with trans people as an individual, then accusing you of that simply by virtue of a similar term being in play is also an asshole move. You shouldn't be dismissed on that as the sole standard.

You should, in an ideal setting, be given any help you need that's realistic to cope with your situation. The ideal part isn't possible because we can't even manage to treat anyone ideally as a global society. And, realistic as a criteria also has to acknowledge that some things are physically impossible, and others are so impractical as to be so.

I think it important to note that there is still a giant elephant sitting in the room, which is whether, or how, this issue is connected to, or should be connected to, trans issues. I'm aware that's a factor in the general subject, but I don't think it's for me to go into without it being asked for. I don't get to decide what is and isn't a trans issue, period. I have the freedom to decide how much I would invest into any given aspect, but I just don't have a say in that aspect of things.

I do have opinions. Plenty of them (though they might surprise folks if voiced). But they simply don't matter in that regard.

it exists and anyone who says otherwise is silly (and not in a good way)

Species dysphoria? You mean misanthropy? Sigh...

I identify as a transgender woman of elvish descent (aka elfkin); I am as much a man as I am a human. I like oneness and harmony with nature, being friendly and kind to others, and enjoy the company of other like-minded folk. I've never really seen myself as a human because I don't identify with a lot of the ideologies that humans represent, and especially the cultural norms they revolve around. A sparse few from what I've seen actually see past the subterfuge of humanity and have figured out their own existence.

To me, it seems that humans are very much out of touch with their environment, and the further they progress technologically, the further they become isolated from each other. The wanton desire for sex, money, power, these things do not concern me and lead to a path of self-destruction. The notion of religion and similar belief structures is also very damaging, because it sets a precedent that others must adhere to (power through control), which is not the same as moral obligation (though some of the hardcore seem to think so). I see the species as running down the clock to extinction, and I somehow feel I will witness the end of the Anthropocene in my lifetime, which summates my apprehension and misanthropy towards humans.

Ideally, I'd rather all humans left MY planet so I could live in harmony with it peacefully before they fully destroy it. Either that, or I found a portal back to my own dimension. Even an alien abduction could be very liberating, as I feel so alien already, it could be considered a rescue.

Basically, get your shit together and take it somewhere else. I'm having none of it.