draconicdog | Recent Entries

I'm getting top surgery this Friday. I'm getting top surgery, this Friday.

I knew I wasn't cis when I was 13, started binding at 14, and came out as a trans boy at 15. I'm 20 now, and top surgery has always felt like a distant promise, literally a miracle that I'm just waiting on the precipice of. The fact that I'm four days away from this operation that I've been awaiting for six years is unfathomable. When I say it's going to change my life, I mean it, and I imagine that only trans people will understand the magnitude of that sentiment.

In celebration, here's a list of things I'm looking forward to when I don't have boobs:

Sleeping on my stomach comfortably
Hugging my friends without feeling dysphoric
Swimming
Being able to change my shirt in front of other people
No more underboob sweat
Feeling my shirt against my flat chest
Being able to run comfortably
Not being afraid to answer the door unexpectedly
Being casually shirtless
Not being misgendered by strangers because of my large chest
Having small, masculine nipples
Looking in the mirror and seeing the body that I'm meant to live in
Wearing outfits that I like
Not feeling anxious when I walk into a new location

I'm sure there's more but... Yeah. I'm getting top surgery! I've never been this excited in my life! I can't wait to start this new chapter. This is what I deserve.

Current Mood: ecstatic

Content warning: discussion of acephobic rhetoric, mentions of panphobia, mentions of anti-xenogender rhetoric

Before I get into the rest of this entry, I should make it abundantly clear that I am not an exclusionist, though I used to be one. When I was an exclusionist, I did not harass inclusionists nor did I engage in debate or argument. I strictly kept to myself and lurked. I don't engage in inclus/exclus discourse at all anymore, but I align myself with radical inclusionist values. I firmly believe that it's inappropriate for me to dictate which words someone uses to describe their experiences and whether or not their experiences are real, and I am supportive of good-faith identities. That being said:

Based on anecdotal evidence, I have reason to believe that young queer folk are vulnerable to exclusionist ideology. I see it all the time online, and I was even an exclusionist until I was 18. I think I first started internalizing exclusionist values when I was 14 or 15, when I was first exposed to it. My exclusionist talking points mainly centred around whether or not asexuality was an inherently queer identity, the "problematic" history of pansexuality, discriminatory rhetoric against xenogender folk and neopronoun users, and opposition to "contradictory" labels (e.g. bi lesbians, he/him lesbians, etc). I would spend hours scrolling through exclusionist tags on Tumblr, reading what other people had to say about it, and looking for in-depth explanations supporting exclusionist beliefs. I would never engage in debate with inclusionists, nor did I believe in harassing people (I was a shithead self-righteous kid, not malicious), but there was one instance when I expressed my exclusionist takes on Twitter and somebody picked a fight with me in my replies. I was also even in a Facebook group that was dedicated to the mockery and harassment of Lucien Frost, which is. Such a horrifically awful part of my history, good lord.

I'm really grateful to have escaped the exclusionist 'community' (is it really a community if it's built on hateful ideals?). It was really, really toxic and it made me feel so deeply angry all the time. I was angry at other people who were simply trying to live authentically, and I wanted to stop them somehow because I was convinced they were 'wrong'. There is no wrong way to exist when you aren't harming others. Queer people's identities are not wrong by virtue of being confusing, obscure, or new. I'm glad I realize this now, and I'm ashamed for believing otherwise for so long and for the damage I caused by upholding exclusionist beliefs.

I know that the popular rhetoric for why young people fall into exclusionist thought is because of their own insecurity with their marginalized identity. They feel vulnerable in a society that is fundamentally opposed to their existence, and they thus target a sub-group within their own community to blame for their oppression. They feel so vilified that they curate this narrative that other queer people are the enemy, as a way to placate the majority group. I think this was at least partially true for myself. I was an ace exclusionist because I didn't believe that asexual experiences were inherently aligned with the queer experience, nor did I believe that asexuals are systemically oppressed. I think I, as a young white trans man, was so desperate to feel... something. I don't know what I was seeking. I think I wanted a 'pure' queer community, comprised of exclusively queer people who deal with 'real' issues, and I took this out on the ace community (which is profoundly fucked up). But I don't think that my experiences fit the common narrative for why young people are exclusionists, because it didn't stem from any insecurity that I can identify several years later.

If you know someone who is currently an exclusionist, it can be frustrating. I've been there, I've been the stubborn and hateful exclusionist. I think my advice to anyone who loves an exclusionist but hates their exclusionist opinions is to be patient with them. I think a major issue with exclusionists is not wanting to actually listen to opinions that contradict their beliefs (I've seen it, a lot), but if your loved exclus is willing to actually sit down and listen to you, that's huge. The main idea that made me come to my senses and abandon exclusionism is the fact that you don't have a say in how another person identifies, nor are you even capable of judging whether or not their experiences are real. If your loved exclus is causing you distress on a regular basis, it's okay to take space from them. Exclusionist energy can be draining as fuck, it was draining for me to just harbour exclusionist beliefs, but you come first. And you may not be able to change their mind; that isn't your responsibility.

This is getting preachy, so it's time to hop off my soap box. I didn't write this post to participate in inclus/exclus discourse, I just wanted to talk about my own experiences and why I think I held those beliefs. I'm just glad that I changed; I'm more at peace now.

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queerness

A fictotype that I hold very close to my heart is Tris. I first read the Divergent trilogy when I was around 12 years old, and I pretty much immediately imprinted on Tris: she was a black-clad badass with a hot boyfriend, she was everything I wanted to be. I started identifying as her even before I discovered fictionkinity, and I tried emulating her attitudes and behaviours. This was a great thing for a young teenager with anxiety, because it made me force myself to be brave and confident in myself. It also resulted in me doing some pretty stupid shit, like jumping out of my mother's moving car (I only scraped my knees, the car had almost come to a full stop, but my mom was rightfully pissed). I also remember having mental shifts as Tris prior to my awakening; I remember exiting the movie theatre after watching one of the newly released Divergent movies and commenting to my friend that I felt like I literally was Tris in that moment. My friend was understandably baffled and shrugged me off, but I felt so intensely like I was Tris, both physically and mentally (having a phantom shift as another human being is... strange). It's no wonder that when I discovered fictionkinity (after I discovered otherkinity) that Tris was one of my first confirmed fictotypes. Tris was the core component of my identity for several years, right up until I dropped everything and vanished from alterhuman spaces for a few years.

Upon my return to alterhumanity, I didn't quite return to my identity as Tris because I thought I had moved past it. I no longer felt that strong sense of identity as her that I once had, so I just didn't think of her as myself anymore. One night in the past year-ish (my memory is atrocious), I ended up having a dream as Tris. I obviously woke up and was like what the hell and then thought about it some more, and decided the dream meant something. I realized that I'm still Tris now, but I'm just ... different. I've grown up. I'm a young adult almost finished an undergraduate degree, I'm not a scared kid in high school anymore, and I don't need to concentrate on being brave to make it through the day. I just learned to be confident. I also still maintain some of the Dauntless fervour that being Tris has to offer; I prefer to wear exclusively black and I love high-adrenaline activities like ziplining.

This evolution of 'kin identity is something I think about often, given that my current alterhuman identity is markedly different than my initial alterhumanity. This is obviously just one example of one kintype and how my identity as Tris has evolved, but this changing experience can certainly apply to how I view myself as alterhuman in a broad sense, and to other specific kintypes.

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alterhuman

My relationship with therianthropy is difficult to define. My two non-fictional kintypes are that of a dragon and a canine, and due to the polymorphic nature of my identity, they are sometimes therianthropic, and sometimes anthropomorphic. I typically view myself as a sapient anthro dragon/dog, but I occasionally feel more non-sapient and wild. The majority of my fictotypes fall into the realm of kintypes rather than theriotypes due to their sapience or anthropomorphism (e.g. Legoshi, Mae, Shadow, Catra, Ralsei, and Asriel). The exception to this is my identity as a Mantis Lord, which funnily enough feels more therianthropic in nature due to the base instincts of Hollow Knight's Mantis-folk. The Mantis tribe is certainly intelligent to a degree, especially when you consider their collective combat proficiency, but at the end of the day they are a tribe of warrior bugs fighting for survival. These baseline survival instincts are specifically why my Mantis Lord identity feels like a fictotheriotype to me, rather than a defacto anthro fictotype. This is personally where I draw my own line for therian identity: instincts, non-sapience, and animalistic tendencies, as opposed to the popular Earthen animal definition as was discussed in Daski's Othercon panel, "Therian: Dispelling the Earthen Animal Myth".

On a similar note, my Pokémon 'types also feel somewhat therianthropic. Different Pokémon have differing levels of intelligence for sure, but not in the same way as humans do. I'm a Lucario and a Lugia (whether or not I'm Giratina is currently in question), and maybe some others, but those 'types don't feel quite the same as my anthropomorphic fictotypes where I know for certain that they aren't therianthropic. For example, as Legoshi, I was an anthro wolf with intelligence, values, and socialization akin to that of a human, whereas as a Lucario, I was not socialized as a humanoid and was not held to the standards of a human being.

Assigning therianthropy can be challenging when applying the concept to a fictional kintype, especially if it's a being that doesn't have a likeness in our reality. My understanding of it is probably as good as the next guy's, but I'm quite content with this liminal therian identity: sometimes animalistic, sometimes not.

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alterhuman

- I've been reading a lot of essays and long-form writings by some community members, notably essays written by the Dragonheart Collective and bloodmuffins. I didn't realize how fulfilling it would be to read about people discussing their nonhuman identities and experiences in such a genuine, introspective, and serious manner, but I'm loving it a lot! Next up on my reading list includes who-is-page's essays as well as bloddmuffins' thesis.

- Writing is something I kind of struggle with! I have a lot of big ideas that I understand conceptually, but actually articulating them to another person is a whole other ballpark. In the near future, I would really like to write about some things I think about regularly, such as transgenderism as religion, gender and alterhumanity, and so on, but it might take some time. I used all my current writing juice on my three introductory posts, so it'll probably be more than like, two days before I'm able to get some more long-form writing posted.

- I'm questioning another fictotype, lmao. I think I might be a Mantis from Hollow Knight, more specifically a Mantis Lord. The way I generally tend to handle questioning kintypes is by slapping them onto my kin list, leaving it for a while, and if it sticks, it sticks. This might look suspiciously KFF'y, but it's how I've been handling my identity since returning to the community and it's what works for me.

- I'm now active on the Nonhuman National Park forum! My username there is also draconicdog.

As is the case for many queer folk, my identity has evolved enormously since I first realized I wasn't cis or straight. My first ever queer identity was as an asexual, which I retained for several years! This was succeeded by my realization that I was definitely not female, and I came out as neutrois and began using they/them pronouns. I unfortunately don't remember many of the specifics after that, but from what I recall, between the ages of 12-15 I somersaulted through dozens of different labels, struggling to understand my experiences and how to identify them. Some of the labels I used to describe myself included:

Neutrois, agender, demigirl, agender demigirl, genderfluid, asexual, demisexual, homoromantic asexual, homodemiromantic asexual, demiboy, agender demiboy,

You get the picture.

By the time I was 15, I had comfortably squared away into my maleness, which was ironic given that I spent so long insisting on gender neutrality. My gender identity settled there for a few years, and I decided to transition in every way I could: on April 4th 2017 I started testosterone, on September 11th 2017 my name was legally changed to [irl name that I don't disclose publicly] and my sex marker on my birth certificate was changed from female to male, I completely socially transitioned to male, I started rooming with boys when I went to sleep-away summer camps, and I became someone's boyfriend (twice: December 2017-September 2018 was my first relationship when I was out, and my second is November 2019-present). More recent successes in my transition include getting a hysterectomy on July 7th 2022 and I'm scheduled to get top surgery on September 9th 2022, 23 days away from the writing of this post! I couldn't be more happy living as a trans man; this is the life I was meant to live and I'm curating a body that is meant to be mine.

Interestingly enough, as I became more comfortable in my manhood, I began to expand my gender outwards from binary maleness. In 2021, I decided to grow my hair long for the first time since I was 14, and my shoulder-length hair makes me feel so masculine, especially when I tie it up in a ponytail and you can see the masculine hairline that was gifted to me by testosterone. I also stopped wearing a binder, though that was for medical reasons and my top dysphoria agonizes me every day. Other than my presentation, my gender identity itself is now more than male, as I realized that I'm xenogender about a year and a half ago and I started using neopronouns. The xenic aspect of my gender is pretty difficult to describe concisely, but some ways I can explain it are: aldernic, alterhuman, beast-like, related to landscapes, divinity, cosmic, and oceanic. However: I am not non-binary, I'm just xenogender. I know that non-binary doesn't mean gender neutrality or the absence of gender and rather the deviation from the Western gender binary, but the label just doesn't feel right for me. So, I'm not non-binary, I'm a binary xenogender trans man, and my xenogenders are additive to my manhood.

My sexuality is less central to my queer identity than my gender is, but it's also much more straightforward. For many years, I bounced around a bunch of labels: ace, pan, bi, straight, gay, lesbian, I've literally been every letter in the acronym. As of right now, I'm just a queer dude. Bisexual if you want to be specific, and with a preference for masculinity if you want to be even more specific. I also recently realized that I'm polyamorous, but I'm not currently practicing polyamory as I'm in a monogamous relationship, but I'm happy with where I am.

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queerness

My last entry focused on my history with alterhumanity: where I got started, what I did in the community, and a general timeline regarding the development of my identity. This entry will discuss my alterhumanity itself: what I am, how I am alterhuman, and how I understand myself through the lens of alterhumanity. I will also reference the earlier version of my alterhumanity, from 2015-2018, before I left the community for two years. Gentle warning that this entry will be somewhat disorganized/poorly written as I'm more focused on getting my thoughts down than writing good prose.

To provide the groundwork for my identity, I'll list my kintypes in no particular order:

Dragon
Canine (wolf, coyote, fox, and dog)
Lucario (Pokémon)
Giratina (Pokémon)
Lugia (Pokémon)
Legoshi (Beastars)
Tris Prior (Divergent)
Asriel Dreemurr (Undertale)
Ralsei (Deltarune)
Mae Borowski (Night in the Woods)
The Tenth Doctor (Doctor Who)
Catra (She-Ra and the Princesses of Power)
Shadow the Hedgehog (Sonic the Hedgehog)

Obviously, I'm polykin! I've been polykin ever since I first awakened in 2015; I have always understood myself as a diverse creature with many facets and selves. These days, I'm actually questioning if I'm a polymorph. My fictionkin identity is pretty fluid, as I will sometimes latch onto a certain character and consume them as part of my identity before moving on. That being said, certain characters stick with me a lot: I began identifying as the Doctor, Tris, Asriel, Lucario, and Lugia between 2015-2017, and they're still parts of my identity today. I'm still working out whether or not I'm a polymorph or polykin (I talk about this more towards the end of this post). It's also worth mentioning that my fictionkin identity has changed since I first awakened as fickin. In my earlier years, my fictotypes dominated by sense of self: I was Asriel (me irl, not my Undertale fictotype) just as much as I was my fictotypes, and I just wasn't me without them. My alterhuman hiatus from 2018-2020 allowed me to become more comfortable with living and thriving as a human in a human society and I was able to formulate a sense of self that was independent of fictional characters. That is why I don't identify as intensely as my fictotypes as I used to. Additionally, "fictionkin" may not necessarily be the most "correct" label for my fiction-based identity. Otherhearted or otherlinker might be more "technically" accurate, but the fictionkin label simply feels more comfortable.
Fictotypes aside, I'm also otherkin: I'm a dragon and a canine. I know a lot of folks know details about their kintypes, such as their appearance, personality, and other details of the 'type's existence, but I don't, especially regarding my canine self. I'm simultaneously a fox, a wolf, a coyote, and a dog, and all of these identities are distinct yet they are one. It's kind of confusing, even for me, as I'm still trying to figure it out, and I intend on delving deeper into this in the future through meditation and other spiritual practices.

Regarding spirituality: I'm not quite certain whether I'm a spiritual or psychological alterhuman. To me, my inner self is my kintypes, all at once and distinctly, so I guess you could say that my soul is that of my kintypes? I'm not entirely certain whether I lived past lives as my 'types, though I am certainly open to the possibility and have even previously been convinced that my 'types were based on reincarnation. I also think that psychology plays a part in my alterhumanity, but that's just a hunch and I don't have an explanation for it.

I also don't consider myself non-human nor human, which is why I enjoy the alterhuman label so much. I'm a human with an unusual experience of humanity, or you could think of it as if I'm a creature experiencing humanity to its fullest. I enjoy living a human life, I think there's much to gain from this experience, but I am a dragon, I am a dog, I'm a Pokémon, and so much more.

Here's the disorganization I was talking about at the beginning of this entry, because I'm going to jump back to the topic of polymorphology instead of editing the earlier paragraph where I talked about it (fuck it, we ball). I think the main reason why I think I'm a polymorph is because I am all my kintypes at once, but they are all individual identities, but they're all one unit of identity within myself. ALSO: I think of my otherkin identity and my fictionkin identity separately! That's worth mentioning. And now that I'm thinking about polymorphology, it would explain my fictionkin identity from 2015-2018. For context, let me show you my kintypes from that time (the ones that I can remember at least):

Tris Prior (Divergent)
Asriel Dreemurr (Undertale)
Pokémon:
- Lucario
- Charizard
- Lugia
Harry Hart/Agent Galahad (the Kingsman franchise)
Elliott the dragon (Pete’s Dragon [2016])
Ted Mosby (How I Met Your Mother)
Leonard Hofstadter (The Big Bang Theory)
The Tenth Doctor (Doctor Who)
Sam Winchester (Supernatural)
Sherlock Holmes (BBC Sherlock)
Katniss Everdeen (The Hunger Games)
Otherkin: dragon, bobcat, angel
Judy Hopps (Zootopia)
Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch (MCU)
The Onceler (The Lorax [2012])
Molayne (Pokémon Sun/Moon)
Arlo (The Good Dinosaur)
Jayjay (Vivziepop OC)
Damian (Zoophobia)
Cristina Yang (Grey's Anatomy)
Jack Frost (Rise of the Guardians)
Hiro Hamada or Tadashi Hamada (Big Hero 6)
Daniel Atlas (Now You See Me franchise)
Charles Xavier (X-Men)
Spock (Star Trek)
Kyoya (Ouran High School Host Club)
Light Yagami (Death Note)
Peter Quill/Star Lord (Guardians of the Galaxy)
Pearl (Steven Universe)
Ben Wyatt (Parks and Recreation)
Piper Chapman (Orange is the New Black)
Arthur (Arthur Christmas)
The Clock (Don't Hug Me I'm Scared)
Atticus Finch (To Kill A Mockingbird)
Kintypes I questioned, but didn't confirm (maybe)
- Alexander Hamilton (Hamilton)
- King George III (Hamilton)
- Maria Reynolds (Hamilton)
- Veronica Sawyer (Heathers)
- Bowser (Mario Franchise)
- Tony Stark/Iron Man (MCU)
- Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III (How to Train Your Dragon)
- Toothless (How to Train Your Dragon)

~~please ignore that the font for this list is wonky, i don't want to fix it~~

Obviously!!! I had WAY more kintypes than I do now! Until now, I chalked this up to the fact that I was young (13-16) and was quick to confirm kintypes as they occurred to me (which I still do!). Now that I'm thinking carefully about being a polymorph, it would make a LOT of sense that I would sometimes morph into characters for a little bit without permanently adopting them into my identity.

My leading theory right now is that I'm a dragon and a dog, but I morph into fictional characters, some more than others, which influences whether or not I consider them a kintype. Although, I guess polymorphs don't have a base form, so that would make me a shapeshifter? I do like the polymorph label more, and the way that I fully adopt the identity of my fictotypes is a polymorph experience... Much to consider...

————

Quick summary of this entry: I'm an otherkin, fictionkin, and sometimes therianthropic alterhuman. I'll need to look into polymorphology a bit more, and I'll try and update with what I find and what my conclusions are. I want to reiterate that the first, shorter list of kintypes that I provided is my current identity, and the second, much longer list is very outdated!!! I promise I don't identify as the Onceler anymore!!! ~~it's pretty funny though, you can laugh~~

If you took the time to wade through this muck of an entry, thank you so much! I appreciate it! I kind of jumped from topic to topic a lot, but my alterhumanity is pretty convoluted and I was struggling to think of a coherent structure to approach it from. So, we're left with this.

Until next time! mwah mwah mwah mwah

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alterhuman

First entry on Dreamwidth! This is a totally new venture for me. I can't say that I've ever tried publicly writing about myself or my experiences but after attending Othercon 2022 this past weekend, I realized that I may actually enjoy this. I decided to first write about my own history with alterhumanity.

Early years

The first time I heard the word "otherkin" was when I was 13 years old and in Grade 8. I was talking to my long-time best friend (I'll call them "Talon" for anonymity's sake), and I remember him getting kind of angry about otherkin and how they're bad. I asked Talon for elaboration about these otherkin people, and why were they so bad, and Talon's explanation was that they were making a mockery of the trans community because they claimed to be animals. Talon also explained that Leelah Alcorn, a trans girl who died by suicide, was infuriated by otherkin because she felt mocked by this community as she had struggled intensely with her own gender identity.

(Note: Talon was also 13 years old at the time, and has since grown up. I do not hold it against them for having these views when he was a child, especially since he later realized that those views were harmful. I also do not hold it against Leelah for her vitriol against otherkin, obviously. She was a suffering teenager, and it would be fucked up if I were hateful towards a dead trans girl.)

Obviously: not a great first impression of otherkin! I was appalled! But I was also fascinated: there are people who believe they're animals? Really? I needed to know more, and took to tumblr to learn more, and holy shit did I learn more. I learned so much that I eventually realized that otherkin experiences resonated with me! Not the intended outcome, but it explained a lot about myself and my childhood. It explained why, as a kid, I was desperate to literally become a dragon or shapeshift into a Lugia at will. Some months after that first conversation with Talon, I had awakened as dragonkin (2015). This began my journey with the online otherkin community.

My online experiences largely took place on Instagram as the community there was on the younger side. After some time in the Instagram 'kin and therian community, I also confirmed a bobcat theriotype and an alterhuman connection to space. For a while, I identified as spacekin, and then identified as a celestial dragon. My name during this time was Cassiopeia.

I joined a therian pack called the Scarlett Blood Pack, probably in late Winter or early Spring 2015. This was when packs had Instagram pages where members would post and were hosted on Kik. I stayed with Scarlett Blood for a little while before I wanted to be the one in charge, causing me to leave the pack on good terms with its members.

I believe it was June or July of 2015 when I created the Astrovaruna Pack with my newfound friend Andromeda (their former name used in the 'kin community and what I'll refer to her for anonymity) as my co-Alpha. We collected a few members over the first few months, most notably Frisk, Iggy, Alex, and Kenny (pseudonyms). Andromeda realized she wasn't otherkin the fall of that year and left the pack with me as the sole Alpha. We had a falling out for a little bit at some point, but we're still friends and keep in touch! I hope to meet her someday.

(Note: I mention Andromeda, Frisk, Iggy, Alex, and Kenny because they were some of the most important people in my life at the time. Kenny is my best friend of 8 years, Frisk was my first love and a best friend before I ruined our friendship (I think of them often, and would love to reconnect with them), and Iggy and Alex were also some of my best friends. I unfortunately lost contact with Alex with no way of reconnecting with him. I do know Iggy's Instagram handle, but for personal reasons, I can't reach out to him. I really, really hope that Frisk, Iggy, and Alex are all doing well, and I miss them dearly.)

Astrovaruna never grew to be larger than 15-20 members. One of the pillars that I operated on was curating a genuine "family" environment and vetted the people who wanted to join. By the end of Grade 10, I abandoned the pack and sent a good bye message, stating that I was no longer running the pack as it was fairly inactive over the past several months anyway. That being said, Astrovaruna lasted about a year and a half before succumbing to inactivity, which is pretty impressive given that it was being run by a 13-15-year-old. Also worth noting that I was nowhere near qualified to be in charge of such a space, and that artificial hierarchies in therian spaces are weird, especially when you're trying to curate a family dynamic. I had fun though, and I learned a lot about my alterhumanity, specifically that I was fictionkin. I was, like, really fictionkin, and rocked a large number of fictotypes.

I was also an active Vent user from the ages of 14-16. For those of us who used Vent around 2015-2016 and were 'kin, you know what I mean when I say it was a hellhole. Really toxic community, but again, it was a major part of my development. Lmao. This was my main stomping grounds online for a little while as there was an active fictionkin community on the app.

Unfortunately, midway through Grade 11 was when my desire to fit in socially was stronger than my altherhuman selfhood, so I repressed my alterhumanity and furry identity a lot. This lasted for a few years.

Current times

I went to university immediately after I graduated high school (2019) to study music, which is where I got close with my current parter, Sunflower! She's the light of my life and supportive of every inch of me. Sunny helped me begin to feel comfortable with my alterhumanity again, even though she's a human and knows next to nothing about it. She just reassured me that it was okay to be a furry or a little creature: it made me happy, and I wasn't hurting anyone. I'm really grateful for her support in my identity because I'm finally living authentically, regardless of how "cringe" I might be (I embrace being cringe for reclamatory/empowerment purposes). I can't remember exactly when I started actively identifying as alterhuman again and reconnecting with the community, but it was sometime since March 2020 for sure (oh geez I wonder what the significance of that date is—). This means that for at least 2 years, I was in total denial of my alterhumanity. I think it might have been necessary evil as it forced me to disconnect from my online life and connect to people locally, foster new friendships and relationships, have cool new experiences, and grow up a little. When I was 13-16, alterhumanity was heavily centred on online life for me, so I think I really just needed to split for a while and focus on other things.

I'm happy to say that I now proudly identify as alterhuman. It's something I keep private for the most part because of the stigma surrounding alterhumanity offline, but I'm open about my identity with those that matter to me. I would eventually like to own a fursuit so that I can express my alterhumanity through fursuiting, but fursuits are expensive and I'm in university. Otherwise, I'm content simply engaging with the online alterhuman community, and I'm lucky to have met a few local friends who are also in the community! I'm not alone, and there are people like me who I can interact with and express myself freely. In the future, I would LOVE to form a local group for alterhumans, but that involves a lot of vulnerability in the act of telling people that I'm an alterhuman and searching for other alterhumans in my area. I'm just not in a position to do that right now since it would have a lot of social consequences for me. I'll get there someday though!

I know this was a really long entry, but it felt important to explain where I'm coming from and how I got here. Whenever I get the energy, I'm going to write about my alterhuman identity, both past and present. Thank you for reading! mwah mwah mwah mwah

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