u/TherianRose

Howldy folks. For some background, I'm in my late 20s and have been active in the online therian community for over 15 years. Over the past few years, there have been a lot of terms popping up as therianthropy has hit the mainstream. I wanted to share my take on them and see what you all think as well.

First, physical therianthropy. Biologically, we are human. There is a nuanced but very important distinction between saying "I am biologically a tiger" and "I identify as a tiger, therefore my body is a tiger's body." The former is not possible, and the latter is simply part of therianthropy. From my perspective, the physical descriptor is unnecessary and only serves to muddy the waters, especially for those new to the community.

Similarly, holothere describes feeling non-human on all levels, to include physical identification as your theriotype/kintype. I raise the same distinction as with physical therianthropy; your body's biological systems are simply not capable of being anything other than human. Your bloodwork will not come back from a lab as any animal other than Homo sapiens.

Now, does that fact undermine our identity? Absolutely not. We are physically human in our current lives, yes. However, we experience everything through the lens of our therio/kintypes. That is the core of being therian.

Naturally there are degrees of identity - some may still feel human, others feel fully non-human, and still others are in between - and that is totally okay. My take is that we don't need to keep relabeling what is, at its core, a very similar underlying experience. I am concerned that the more we subdivide therianthropy into increasingly specific labels, the easier it becomes for outsiders to misunderstand what therianthropy actually is.

I also want to add that I don't think folks using that terminology are intentionally trying to replace the term therian; I think they are trying to describe a nuance of therianthropy that has unfortunately been made fuzzy by its rise in popularity. Many therians experience animal identity as encompassing their entire sense of self, including how they relate to their physical body, without needing an additional label to describe it.