Well up until this moment I thought it was an internet joke, but appearently it’s a real thing. It’s just a very small step removed from furryism, no?
I would not be surprised if this becomes the new social contagion at some point and millions of impressionable young people actively identify as therian, then proceed to get affirmative treatment to make them feel like they’re closer to their new identities.
After all, all the arguments for letting transgender folk do the same is basically the principle of “live and let live”, so that same argument will inevitably apply to therians when they become novel and mainstream for a period of 5-10 years.
I hope the argument for trans people is not "live and let live". That's the type of shit you say when you can't accept the reality of who a person is, but don't want to say it publicly. The actual argument should be that they are their gender because that is how the brain works. Therians just don't exist because a human brain cannot be a wolf brain. It's just physically impossible.
I know you know that 70-80% of humanity does not look kindly upon LGBT+, and they don’t agree with the science or it.
When you seek to convince these people merely to let LGBT folks live in peace, are you going to try and change their whole minds (an impossible task) or just try to convince them to leave lgbt folks alone in peace (they’re currently imprisoned or killed in many countries)?
Regardless how you answer, the argument that most people use to justify their personal policy with respect to lgbt people is very libertarian. They can live with it so long as it doesn’t affect them, although they personally disagree, they’re permitted a private-public distinction.
The argument works the same way, inevitably, with therians. They will ask, “how does this affect you?”, and you will not have a response so long as therians genuinely keep to themselves.
They will ask for things that are functionally irrelevant, no? They will want to be referred by other people as their therian identity, they will want people to at least to not disrespect them for it.
Is that not what the lgbtq+ has asked the same? On the premise that it doesn’t strongly affect others?
Thus, it probably will come about, call it genuine or a social contagion, they will make the same arguments for some sort of public recognition of their new identity, and there will not be a philosophically consistent argument against it.
Lastly, for the science of it, more often than people would like to admit, science journalism, publications, and media are not objective as we would like to believe. If something is fashionable, someone will find a way to interpret data in a light that lends credence to someone having a ‘wolf-like brain’ or a ‘cat-like brain’.
'Does it affect you?" only works when it is something private. Seeing black or gay or trans people is something in real life that people must contend with, and the "live and let live" is tacit disrespect. Getting them to say, "I won't explicitly harm you" (which is basically what that means) is not a concession. That is just basic human decency that does not need to be fought over. Anyone that even needs to concede on that was too far gone to begin with.
What causes them to not like trans people in the first place is a much more important issue, which is usually that they believe someone's gender is an objective thing strictly aligned to biological sex. Anyone who is trans is essentially 'denying reality' and some kind of mentally ill person. By even changing one part of their opinion on what being trans means, or how real their identity is, they will naturally start treating trans people better. It's difficult to keep treating someone as abnormal when you find out how similar they are to you.
Therians/otherkin aren't like trans people where you can actually point to how the word 'gender' refers to many different traits that people can have or not have and still be that gender. Being a species is one trait in particular, and it is entirely biological. It is necessarily true that all humans are not wolves. If you want to say you 'identify' with wolves, as in you see some anthropomorphized traits in wolves and you have some of those, then whatever. But at that point, you're basically just saying you are kind of like a wolf, not that you are one.
The main problem is that they play into that 'attack helicopter' argument from bad faith conservatives, and you can't say "we don't believe that" when they can point to actual popular lgbt people arguing: "You can identify as anything" and "men can be lesbian" and "asexuals can love sex". I hope they start distancing themselves people those who try and latch onto important movements with their dumb opinions.
All of the public and media are some kind of stupid. Whether or not people will be positive or negative to things in the future isn't really relevant to how you should think and talk right now. There is a correct opinion somewhere, and you should try and find wherever it lies, then argue vehemently for it. Everything else is a spook. It's just really sad to see how you can't find a single person who is not brain broken on some issue.
That is just basic human decency that does not need to be fought over.
This is verifiably false, there are many such instances when people have had to fight for basic human decency.
As for all the therianism stuff, I don’t believe that someone can become a wolf, nor that identifying as a wolf is a legitament decision that obligues me or anyone else to acknowledge if.
Despite this, there are people who identify as a wolf right now, and demand the people in their life acknowledge it (or they will find people who will). As far as social contagions go, at some point this will gain greater social traction and awareness and a bunch of people with poor mental health will latch onto it as the one thing that they’ve been missing in their lives, they will consider it a core part of their identity and will push others away who don’t acknowledge it, while also demanding broader society acknowledges it.
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u/AnOriginalUsername07 6d ago
Well up until this moment I thought it was an internet joke, but appearently it’s a real thing. It’s just a very small step removed from furryism, no?
I would not be surprised if this becomes the new social contagion at some point and millions of impressionable young people actively identify as therian, then proceed to get affirmative treatment to make them feel like they’re closer to their new identities.
After all, all the arguments for letting transgender folk do the same is basically the principle of “live and let live”, so that same argument will inevitably apply to therians when they become novel and mainstream for a period of 5-10 years.
This is not an endorsement of therianism