Time for another attempt at a serious post, I guess. This time I’m gonna try and put down some thoughts I’ve had lately about identity and its relation to otherkin (and all other variations of nonhuman identifying beings).

Here’s the thing, folks - for me, my ‘kin-ness is a part of my spiritual identity, so for this post any ‘kin etc who regard their non-human identity as something other than spiritual, I’m sorry that I haven’t included you in this, but this is going on my personal thoughts and beliefs. For me, otherkin is merely the most convenient word I have to describe the things I feel, and if I come across a more apt one, I’ll start using it. When I say I feel ‘nonhuman’, I often mean that I feel in some way more or different in soul to the regular old human body I’m currently walking around and making shitty blog posts in. You ever see that quote by C.S. Lewis that’s always floating around?

‘You don’t have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a Body.’

I may have worded that a little wrong, but you get the general idea. That quote encompasses my thoughts about my ‘kin-ness, and is an easy way to sum up the foundation of a lot of my spiritual beliefs. So for me, being otherkin is a part of my spiritual identity.

Now I’ve seen an argument or two put forward by people saying that if otherkin is a spiritual thing, then how can it be an identity. Spirituality isn’t necessarily something you identify as, is it? It’s just the things you believe in. The way I see it though, your spirituality and your beliefs are as much a part of your identity as anything else about you. Your spiritual identity, your sexual identity, your creative identity…the list of facets of identity goes on and on depending on the person. A non-creative person may feel that they have no creative identity, and therefore creativity isn’t a part of them, whereas a creative person - such as myself - will feel that their creative identity is a huge part of who they are. The same goes for otherkin. If your nonhuman identity is a huge part of who you are, then it is your identity. Feel like a dragon? A mongoose? A fae? A field mouse? If that part of your identity is important to you and makes you feel whole, makes you feel right, then it’s your identity.

Your identity is simply that. It’s who you are. No-one can tell you that you aren’t who you are, because - and this is the important bit - they are not you.

There are cases where identity can be harmful to others though. If your identity is a violent  or abusive one, or an appropriative one, that’s where someone else has to step in. If your identity is hurting someone else in any way, shape or form, you need to take a long hard look at it and see what needs to change to stop that from happening. If someone tells you your identity is hurting them, and they have a valid reason for saying so, my opinion is that you should damn well listen to them.

Unless of course they’re obviously trolling. In which case block and report, friends. Block and report.

Another quick point I’d like to add is that you should always, always, always be open to questioning yourself and your identity. Do a little soulsearching. Do a lotof soulsearching. If someone asks you why you feel elephant, then find the words to explain it. If they want to know how you could possibly feel elven, find the facts within yourself and relate them as best you can. I know it’s hard to put things like that into words sometimes. Of course it is. But the more you try, the more you can know yourself. It doesn’t matter if the words are scientific or poetic or pictures or songs. Use them to defend against any attack on your identity, use them to make sense of yourself and all that you are. Don’t let them be all that you are, and don’t get so caught up in justifying yourself that you become nothing more than a caricature yourself though. Be careful of that. Use them as the tool they can be to explain to others and to understand yourself.

I’ll attempt to sum up so I can get back to working on my novel now, like I should have been this entire time. Your identity is composed of as many parts as you want it to be, and if otherkin is a spiritual thing it can still be a valid identity, because if it’s a part of your identity, then it is your identity. 

Have a story you guys. Have one.

I tried to live without being ‘otherkin’ once. This was back when I still wasn’t sure what my identity in that respect was - heck i’m still not completely certain, I just know it’s a part of me. All I knew was that I kept feeling like I was meant to have body parts that weren’t human, that I didn’t know where my horns, my tail were. Long story short, I ended up crying a lot and telling my (now ex) boyfriend about the whole damn thing.

He told me that maybe it was a strength thing I thought I needed to function, and to let it go. I had him now, right? I wasn’t alone. And this was almost two years into our relationship, and we’d been friends for a lot longer. So I thought, okay, okay, I can try this. I can do this. He doesn’t like it, he’s probably right, I can be an adult about this.

So I pushed it away.

And I suppressed all of it.

It ended up all flooding back one day when I was listening to the This Is War album - which for the record is really fucking moving and emotional okay shut up. This was into the third year of our relationship by now. Everything was going awesome. (no we didn’t break up  for me being ‘kin, we broke up because I found a girl I liked more than him so yeah). But there I was, crying because my ‘kin self was back. And it had been flashing on and off before then, flickers of horns, and days of ‘oh okay i’m demon-ish today’.

Suppressing it and living without it didn’t make it go away. It just came back. It had always been there and ignoring the ‘problem’ didn’t fix it.

So anyone who thinks you can ‘just stop being kin’?

Yeah fuck off. I am way happier, healthier and more confident about who I am now that I’ve accepted the soul-strong part of me that likes to call itself demon even though that’s not really the right word, just the best one I have. My soul is here, it’s going to stay, and if it wants to give me the sensations of horns, ears that kind of move and twitch, a tail, fangs and occasionally wings - what the fuck even those are weird how do you avians and dragons etc deal with those - then it can.

The end.

heeyyyy so i very rarely post on here anymore, but I have some kin feels so here i am again!

thing number one - my horns very VERY clearly react to high emotions. When I specifically feel one emotion, especially if it’s strong they appear. When I’m really stressed they show up, when I get really down they show up, when I’m - and forgive the pun - horny; BAM they appear, and most recently (though it’s happened before) when i feel extremely loved up.

*sighs happily and swoons off into the sunset oh my god my girlfriend is amazing alskdjaklsjlksdajdd so many feelings*

thing number two - i think for me now ‘otherkin’ is just a convenient label to use for the things I feel and experience in relation to otherlimbs and how i think of myself. Spirit-Aware or Soul-Aware might be a more accurate term. it’s just all so complicated and stuff that giving the things I feel and the way I identify a one word description is pretty much impossible

it’s been like this for me ever since I had my big energy-soul-spirit revelation a while back. Everything clicked but it’s still hard to explain it in words that people can understand. I do really enjoy explaining it though, I just wish I was able to add into my ‘regular’ explanation my ‘kin experiences.

so I will still use the label ‘demonkin’ as it’s the only thing word that I have that encompasses all the other limbs that i’ve felt. It’s a word and appearance that feels right to me, even though I know I’m not actually demonic in any way, not in any of the typical ‘evil, callous, torturing, uncaring etc etc’ ways. if there’s any other demonic mythology then…well I should probably be researching this shit but i am lazy and i have other shit to do

~~love you all

I keep seeing posts bitching out otherkin for appropriating the struggles of trans* people and things along those lines

can anyone actually give me solid (ie linked) proof that this has ever actually happened? proof that an otherkin has outright compared their experiences as kin to trans* experiences - needless to add, a kin doing this that isn’t trans* themselves?

if you can legitimately show me that this has happened, and has happened more than once (because since when do the actions of one person reflect on an entire community?) then I will gracefully accept your rightful anger at this happening

if not then well…I guess we’ll see what happens.