Therian
Content Warning:
Contains mentions of gender dysphoria and body dysmorphia
Clarification
The gist of this page is I like being seen as and thinking of myself as being a fox.
I don't think I'm physically a fox. But I do find comfort in thinking of myself as being one
What is a therian?
To be a therian is to feel as though you are, in some capacity, a non-human animal in the body of a human.
Some have more strict definitions requiring the involvement of spirituality, souls, and whatnot. You'll find this often in those that say "I have the soul of X animal". I however do not think a belief in this is necessary to call oneself a therian.
Having said that...
While there's no definitive proof that souls exist, there's also no definitive proof they don't. So it's possible that past lives exist or something else of that nature, and I literally have the soul of a fox. I just don't use that as the basis for how I define myself, as I don't like to invoke unknowable things as a basis for my identity
Rather than a spiritual model of therianthropy, I instead believe a psychological model of it.
Psychologically Therian
You don't have the mind of a fox, you're just a person that wants to be a fox!
Yes! Exactly!
I know I'm a human. There's nothing intrinsic about my mind that makes it fox-like. I like the identity because I find comfort in it.
For me, to be a therian isn't to necessarily be a non-human animal in some literal sense, it's to find comfort in seeing yourself as a non-human animal. It is to conjure a mirror within your mind and see something non-human staring back at you.
My mind is that of a human, it's just a human which finds comfort in thinking of itself as being a fox. The physical features of a fox are cute and I would like to have them.
Why am I a Therian?
Childhood Dysphoria & Dysmorphia
I've always had a mix of apathy and disdain towards the way my body was gendered by others as a child. The expectations that came with this body felt wrong and foreign. People saw me as a masculine body I was within, not the person I was, and they started trying to fit me into the box of "boy". I played along as I felt I had no other choice, but the labels always felt wrong, so I sought to find ones that felt more right
Werewolves, Furries, & the Internet
I wanted to find an alternative way to rationalize my identity, and I found that at a very early age in that of animals, specifically werewolves. The idea of something that could bridge the gap between humanity and inhumanity, to be an entity that took on traits away from that I had been told were normal for myself, was something I deeply desired.
Quickly I learned of the furry fandom, and from there I gravitated towards canid representation of myself online, eventually settling on that of a fox.
To be a fox felt... right. Pictures of foxes were from the start the way I represented myself online. It's what people saw when they spoke to me, and it was just... me. I was that fox. This feeling only sharpened as I grew old enough to begin commissioning artists to draw images of this image I had of myself. And I became more and more deeply enamored with this idea of being a fox
When I pictured myself within my mind, my physical body was never the image I saw, it was always a fox of some kind, generally anthropomorphic. I had dreams where I was a fox, speaking with other foxes in a way that just felt... right.
The Start of Adulthood & Birds
For a time, near the start of college, I drifted away from the fox identity in online spaces. My gender identity had yet to be sorted out. I felt trapped in a limbo state where I identified as non-binary, but still presented as masculine and was still gendered male by others, and I hated it more and more as the years went on. I felt the need to escape myself, and I grappled onto the first chance out of it, which I found temporarily through a friend in embracing an avian identity.
"Birdy" was the name I took on, but it was also a liminal identity for myself. I knew it would one day end and I'd return to being a fox. I just felt I needed to become something else first
It wasn't that I no longer felt like a fox, it's just that I felt so distant from myself that I needed to just be something I... wasn't. And in that identity, I slowly was able to grapple with what I wanted to be, who I wanted to be, and what I wanted others to see me as. And...
Embrace the Feminine
I desire to embody feminine traits and be seen as a feminine person. They've been things I've always desired, and the more I investigate my feelings regarding them the more I desire to have them, to portray them, to embody them.
I am a woman*
Why the asterisk?
The way I want to be perceived aligns very well with the label of woman. However, I also enjoy a great deal just not being gendered at all, which leads me to identify more as being transfem and non-binary, rather than strictly a woman.
The label of woman isn't incorrect to use, I love it, please do call me it. I just also enjoy it when people don't gender me at all.
With me forgoing the avian identity in favor of one that truly felt as though it was my own, I quickly also felt myself drawn back to another part of my identity...
Embrace the Vulpine
To be a fox just feels... right. Something about having the traits of a fox, the fur, the ears, the tail, the snout, it all feels like... me. I've always felt it, I've dreamed of it, I've had visions of it. It is... me
But you're not actually a fox...
A thing that one could hypothetically say in response to everything I saidThat depends what one means by "actually" being something. Am I physically a fox, no, my mind and body are that of a human.
However, do I see myself as a fox, wish to be like one, and like to identify as one, absolutely! If I could wake up tomorrow in the body of a fox (preferably still having thumbs and my mind), and live a good life with that body, I'd happily do so
Everyone has some internal idea of what and who they are, some vision of themselves in their idealized form, however close or far that is from their physical form. My idealized form just happens to be a fox. That's what makes me a therian
Important Note: If you find any of this to be "cringe", grow up, lol