She explains that, like transgender people, some otherkin do feel dysphoric with their human bodies, "they want to become more like that animal," just like how some trans people want to alter their physicality. Feef is transgender and can "personally see the correlation between transgender and otherkin." It would seem, from reading otherkin message boards, that a significant percentage of otherkin are also transgender, and there are many forums online arguing that if you support transgender rights, you ought to support the rights of otherkin.
"You get to be anonymous, but rather than being anonymous, you get a distinct personality behind what you're actually saying." "It's kind of the anonymity," Feef tells me, when I ask her if this is the case. It's an opportunity to try out your acting skills, to release some creativity in an anonymous space. There does seem to be an appeal to creating another self, another identity, that no one can judge you for online. I believe myself to be entirely human, but online I like to stay as perfectly in character as I possibly can." As Dragonkin Azurel explained, "My dragon persona lives strictly online. Of the 11 online otherkin I got in touch with, only about three maintained that they were openly otherkin in real life. Online, she is called Fionacat, her furry being a European shorthaired house cat: "I first developed the character back in 1996 or '97, and at the time I was just looking around for something fun, and I found this furry thing and was like, 'Ooh, I like the sound of that!'" READ: Drinking with London's Furries Taught Me Some Valuable Life Lessons Instead she defines herself as a furry: The definition of a furry is not fixed, but it is generally thought of as someone who likes fictionalized anthropomorphic figures and dresses up in fur suits. It's not something tangible, it's just a quality about them."įeef searched long and hard but never "awakened": "I tried a lot of the kinds of experiences people were talking about, like guided meditation, but I just didn't get anywhere near," she tells me.
It symbolizes my connection with lions and my Leo sign."įiona, or "Feef," 34 and from the UK, is not otherkin herself but participates frequently in otherkin forums: "I know some otherkin very personally, and it's very hard to put into words, but you can tell there's something different.
Ri Na Gach's tattoo: "It's a tribal running lion. In pagan religions of the past, it wasn't uncommon to believe that humans would be reborn as animals, so the idea that I was, in a past life, a lion, is not as far-fetched as some would think." It's mostly a secret in my day-to-day life, but the traits that I share with lions do help me. I feel like I demonstrate many of the same characteristics as the animal. "I feel a special connection with the lion. This is the case for Ri Na Gach, an 18-year-old "lionkin" who wishes to remain anonymous: While some otherkin identify as the animal, others identify with the animal-in more of a spiritual way. TRENDING on Motherboard: Modern Medicine Week
Sounds a bit like an elaborate horror story, kinda like Kafka's Metamorphosis or Cronenberg's The Fly, but the sensation John experienced with his tail has been identified by scientists as possible and compared to phantom limb sensation. "At first it was one of those things that I freaked out over, and then after a while it was like ah… I'm just gonna play with my tail for a minute." Every so often, John says he gets mental shifts: "I could just be at home, and all of a sudden, click, the fox part of me just kind of comes out for a while, and then it just goes." And after a while, in real life, it felt quite real, like I actually had a tail, I actually had ears, I actually had paws. "I started getting odd dreams where I would change physically into a fox, and they were very realistic-honestly. He introduced himself: "I am a red fox-kin who was, as we call, awakened about a year ago." He said that awakening felt, "at the very least, relieving," because "everything seemed to come together for me. I spoke to John on Reddit, a 19-year-old from Knoxville, USA, known on the web as Noslavic.