My personal history with alterhumanity

[draconicdog]

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