inclusive queer system, mostly adults

Make no mistake: nonhumanity is still an experience that’s included under this concept. It’s not wrong for someone to talk about their nonhumanity as a part of their alterhumanity, but my posts are in relation to an ongoing issue of folks mistakingly treating this label as another way of saying nonhuman. Being nonhuman isn’t the only way to be alterhuman. Moreover, folks need to stop and reconsider their assumptions that either a.) all alterhumans are animals or nonhuman in general or b.) animality and/or nonhumanity are the core part(s) of everyone’s alterhumanity. A lot of language in the community— such as using beasts/critters/creatures/etc in referral to the alterhuman community collectively or presenting surveys as something for all alterhumans but only asking questions in context to nonhumanity— exhibits these assumptions, which is an issue for alterhumans like myself and many folks I know in this community.

There’s plenty of ways to be alterhuman. Some ways pertain to who or what you are as an individual, and some ways pertain to atypical relationships you have with various things (animals, fiction, mythology, objects, concepts, etc). That’s just the surface of what alterhumanity can be, whereas nonhumanity is a very specific experience that focuses on one’s species.

I recommend using nonhuman / nonhumanity / nonhuman community when you’re specifically talking about nonhumanity. You can still reference alterhumanity since nonhumanity is a form of alterhumanity. Just know that nonhumanity and alterhumanity aren’t interchangeable. In other words: nonhuman is the word you’re looking for when you describe the experience of anyone who fully or partially identifies as nonhuman on any level.

Alterhuman is an umbrella term that encompasses multiple experiences. The groups I list in my post(s) are specified not because the term alterhuman is exclusive to them, but because they are often overlooked in contrast to nonhuman experiences (otherkin, therian, holotheres, etc). Erasure of these experiences happens a lot, which is why I specified them when discussing the meaning of alterhumanity. Don’t feel discouraged, though: you’re not the first to ask this! Folks confuse the two as synonyms quite often, and there’s been clarifications before my own on the subject.

Like I said before, think of how queer is used as a term. When people talk about queerness, it applies to many experiences. One’s romantic and sexual orientation or lack thereof, one’s preference in presentation or personal referrals, one’s gender or sex, tertiary attraction, polyamory, relationship anarchy, etc. Nowadays, queerness can refer to anything because it’s a term meant to include and represent a diverse array of experiences. Although it’s usually not intentional, referring to the concept with only one experience in mind— like only focusing on the experiences of gay men for example— contradicts its purpose.

The same applies to alterhumanity. Alterhumanity is meant to include all sorts of experiences that are treated as atypical or alternative to the human experience, including experiences that aren’t human at all. That said, it isn’t exclusively about nonhumanity, just as queerness isn’t exclusively about gay men (like in the example I gave).