Response to anti-otherkin posts.
Iโm getting really fed up with the anti-kin hate on Tumblr. What bothers me the most is that 99% of people who are anti-otherkin or who donโt believe we exist or who believe we suffer from โspecial snowflake syndromeโ are people who are really misinformed about what otherkin are, OR who are basing their understanding off of a few extreme examples who are likely trolls anyway.
โOtherkin are taking away from a REAL community (trans people).โ โ No and no. First off, the otherkin community is a real community however messed up it may be. Second, there is NO inherent relation between being otherkin and being trans. Being otherkin does not make a person trans, and most people who are otherkin do not claim to be trans unless they are also trans on top of being otherkin (example: a DFAB person who identifies as male and happens to be a wolf-kin). If you are trans and have come across otherkin trying to say that being otherkin and being trans are one and the same, I am sorry to hear that. Please note that the majority of us are NOT out to steal your identity or to claim your label as our own.
โOtherkin GLORIFY mental illness!โ โ Being otherkin is NOT a mental disorder. Clinical lycanthropy is a disorder in which a person believes that they have physically transformed into a wolf or some other animal, or that they are physically an animal. 99% of otherkin do NOT believe that they are physically non-human, and on most otherkin forums, you will be laughed off the board if you claim that your kin-type has a physical component. Iโve even seen admins/mods write very specific, detailed warnings that alert otherkin to the true fact that few people are going to believe that you physically shift into your kin type. Species dysphoria is when a person knows they are physically human, but feels like this is incorrect or like they should be something else. Not all otherkin experience dysphoria, and those who do are no more โmentally disorderedโ than anyone who feels like who they are is not quite who they want to be.
โBuddhism says that lots of people reincarnate and your past lives donโt matter, so being otherkin is bullshit.โ โ The Buddhist concept of reincarnation is based on a very specific goal, the goal of reaching nirvana. With that goal, individual lifetimes do not matter as much as your personal path to enlightenment. Not everyone who believes in reincarnation is Buddhist. Not everyone who identifies as otherkin believes in reincarnation. Cope.
โOtherkin suffer from Special Snowflake Syndrome!โ โ First of all, there is no disorder known as โSpecial Snowflake Syndromeโ that can be found anywhere in psychiatric literature. Second of all, this idea where anyone who identifies as anything other than cishet/neurotypical/traditionally sexual/spiritually and mentally human/etc is โattention-seekingโ seems like a bunch of pointlessly unkind and whiny stuff to say about people. Unless otherkin are reblogging literally everything you write with, โyeah but Iโm otherkin so Iโm more special than you!โ I donโt exactly see how being otherkin is โspecial snowflake-ing.โ
โIf you talked to a psychiatrist, youโd be locked up.โ โ Um, no. Unless youโre a danger to yourself or others, you wonโt be locked up. If someone goes to a psychiatrist and says โIโm a wolf and therefore need to eat humans,โ they might get locked up. However, a human-identified person who wanted to eat humans would likely also be locked up.
You guys think youโre oppressed!โ โ Iโm not entirely sure who is saying this, or who is actively trying to detract from the focus being placed on other marginalized communities by insisting that otherkin win the oppression Olympics. If someone is doing that, I am sorry to hear that youโve had that experience, but their voice is not representative of the whole otherkin population. Otherkin do face some unique challenges, like being a different species than everyone around them and like dealing with being called liars/role-players/etc. Some of us face bullying for being who we are, or face some discrimination in terms of seeking mental health care โ if our trauma comes from a past life or from being at-odds with our current species, thereโs no help for us. If weโve been stalked across several lifetimes by someone from our old kin world, no help is available. When our gender identities match societies we come from that are vastly different from those on Earth, trans support groups will not likely welcome us. That being said, I for one am aware that I benefit from white privilege and from looking like the gender my driverโs license says that I am. I also benefit from being able-bodied enough to walk and from having strong financial support in my life, and from having a college degree.
โOtherkin donโt exist outside of Tumblr.โ โ Actually, my first encounter with otherkin happened at my high school, and Iโm pretty sure no one used Tumblr when I was in school.
โOtherkin are the same as trans-ethnic people and those are bad!โ โ Can you explain to me how, exactly, we are similar to trans-ethnic people?
So yeah, that should cover many of the anti-otherkin things Iโve read in the tags lately.
gracieabrams
amandla
