Hello! I found you through the post that had Tighnari, and I got to scroll around your blog.
I saw that you posted plenty of xenogender flags, including fauna related. And that got me curious: how would the connection towards animal species (and to other stuff) be felt/perceived as in relation to gender? /gen
Because I am confused in a way about this aspect of xenogenders (and about what is being therian, I'm aware it's a different term). I mean confused in the sense of self exploration, so to say. As someone who loves animals and grew up with plenty of cats to the point of feeling quite cat-like (by showing affection to friends, trndency to meow, so to say, and observing like a cat some moving stuff), but also uhhhh.... I wish I could shapeshift into lots of animals, yet I would still behave cat-like? 🤭😅 Yeah, welp.
Well I can't explain therianthropy (and it's existing or non-existing relation to xenogenders as a whole) to you as I don't quite understand the concept and all of it myself lol. Like no disrespect to any therians though of course, as obviously my lack of understanding doesn't make it any less valid.
Okay anyway, here's an example of cats (catgender) being used as a xenogender that has helped me to understand the concept of xenogenders as a whole: in society cats are often perceived as feminine and female so someone identifying as catgender may identify as feminine or female in the same way that cats are perceived as feminine/female, despite the fact that cats of course aren't all female and feminine. That doesn't have to mean everyone identifying as catgender has to identify with femininity, it's just one possibility/example of a specific catgender person on why they identify as such.
Or another example of a faunagender I myself identify as: raetgender, a faunagender about rats. Ratgender exists too, but that one is about specific traits of a rat while raetgender is a more general term. I identify as raetgender because I can relate to the societal perception of rats that they are dirty, weird, destructive, people are disgusted of them and things like that while rats are actually very social, affectionate, empathetic and yada yada. Not that I actually am disgusting or whatever, but I can relate to being perceived as such and other traits associated with rats by people around me, due to my autism, me being trans and other personal things which is why I relate it to my gender.
So faunagenders don't need to have to do with the animal being, well, an animal lol. It can also be about characteristics associated with them or how they are perceived. Xenogenders in general are extremly personal so the same label can mean totally different things to different people I'd say.
No idea if my lil rambling helped at all, but I hope it did!