Therian as an Emergent Queer Identity
Therianthropy as we know it began in the Alt.Horror.Werewolves Usenet, which started in 1992 and held its first Howl in November 1994. Not long after, the term "therianthrope" came into popular use as a means to identify users who were not just werewolves but nonhuman animals of any type. Over 30 years, the therian community has been growing and part of this growth has meant a redefining of what it means to be therian. Around 2020, when online spaces were growing at rapid rates due to the COVID-19 pandemic, therianthropy experienced a surge of self-identification and thus popular acceptance within its adjacent communities. Around this same time, Synanthrope or Ninesyote published her Nonhuman Unity Flag, now the de facto pride flag for many nonhumans. This marked a change in the rhetoric and discourse that has persisted for the last 4 years, with therianthropy being thought of more and more as a Queer identity similar to other well-known LGBTQ+ labels and identities. This exhibit aims to direct its audience towards works that characterize and contextualize this distinction and shift in the overall discourse, as well as promoting an overall understanding of how this change in the community's collective identity might continue to shape therians in a Queer context and futurity.
Therian is Queer by Ramiel
Therian is Queer was originally uploaded on June 1st, 2024 by Ramiel, also known as DeadBunny. It's a light-hearted piece, including a chibi version of himself alongside the primary focus, but the clear focus is the depiction of the Nonhuman Unity symbol over his eye in the top-left corner, alongside the title, "therian is queer". While this may not have received a great deal of direct discourse, there was some confusion and debate that surrounded the idea of therianthropy as a queer identity during the 2024 Pride Month, and this piece is one of the first instances where that thesis was explicitly stated. Rather than alluding to the therian experience as a queer one with the use of pride flags, symbology, and terms mirroring transgender experiences, this pieces states it explicity. Whether or not the author intending this to be a political statement or one that was axiomatically true is uncertain, but it and its response sets the scene for how this movement is being understand in the present.
A Timeline of the Therianthrope Community by House of Chimeras
The Library believes that grounding movements in their history is a constant necessity, influence by many liberatory movements and scholars of the late 20th century. As such, those looking for a deeper dive into what therianthropy was before the aforementioned shift in 2020 would find a near exhaustive breakdown in this piece by House of Chimeras. This is one of House of Chimeras many timelines and nonfiction works about the alterhuman community, and their contributions can be found in full on their website here. Though the work currently only extends through 2021, the critical point around 2020 is obvious to see. In August 2020, Naia Okami announced their choice to leave the community, partially citing the community's 'appropriation' of LGBTQ+ terms and experiences as grounds. In right-wing satire pieces surrounding the time, we can see the term "trans-species" being used, and in more good faith sources, the community will often describe experiences such as species dysphoria in a manner similar to gender dysphoria. At this point, the pandemic made the community fertile for growth and change, and queer community leaders had a direction to lead it.
Becoming deer: Nonhuman drag and online utopias by Debra Ferreday
Online communities like therians and alterhumans have always had a sense of queerness to them. Published in 2011, this article by Debra Ferreday published in the journal Feminist Theory disects the community around "The Endless Forest", depicted here. The Endless Forest was an online world launched in 2005 where the player plays as a deer-like creature, and is notable for its lack of game objective or player chat. Ferreday comments on this pre-linguistic nature as well as the nature of what drew players towards this realm with enough fervor to form a large online community beyond the game itself. She comments that the player is performing a sort of 'nonhuman drag', paralleling the gender performance of traditional drag with the performance of the distinctly nonhuman in-game. Though she does not know much of alterhuman communities, and truth knows very little about the furry community at the time, there is a palpable queer-ness in the relationship she is describing and the desires the game elicits and sates. This queer desire has been at the core of nonhuman identity in the modern era, even before and beyond the prevailing narratives of therianthropy.
Nonhuman Unity Zine: ZineZero by Ninesyote, Cerberuswolf, et al.
Created as the prototype for the Nonhuman Unity Zine Project, this zine includes definitions and fundamental information about therianthropy as well as art by 5 creators centered around the emotional experience of therian existence. The zine is intended to be an easy-to-read introduction to therianthropy, and easily distributable at events and howls. Rather than contents of the zine itself, this reflects the primary queering this piece does - it exists to be spread and understood. It is a seed of a radical idea of therianthropy, not just as a niche personal experience but as something to be known, shared and fought for. The zine dedicates itself to Cypress Shepherd, a late furry artist well known for his graffiti work in Pittsburgh. Whether it states it explicitly or not, this is a work of queer resistance, seeking to push against the forces that created that tragedy, and to fight for a broader therian identity. There is more to a work than just its contents, to be Queer is to know context.
Holothere flag, Sun-Del, and thread by Sophiefox
Movement within the therian community is far from purely ideological or political. Earlier this year in February, Oynon aka DefrostedVertebrae coined the term "Holothere" or "Holotherianthrope", hoping to address the
need for physical nonhuman representation. For the majority of therianthropy's existence, being therian has meant either a spiritual or psychological identity, with the idea that 'we know we're human' being pushed to
garner credibility in human spaces. While this remains true for the majority of therians, there are a significant group of critters that still identify physically as their theriotype, and the term was coined to help
address this lack of recognition. The term, like many terms coined in the space, remained relatively niche until Sophiefox posted her thread in September 2024. With the help of Ninesyote, Ijayayote, Vanillayote, and
Liquid Foxes, she created a flag for holotherians based on the Nonhuman Unity Flag that Ninesyote designed in 2020. Along with this, the Sun-Del was introduced, a combination of 2 unicode characters that are placed at
the center of the flag, and usable in a similar manner to the Theta-Delta. Along with strong rhetoric and a complete breakdown of the symbology, this thread gained reasonable popularity, with many popular therians
adopting the symbol and term.
Even among the therian community, there is still some confusion or even hesitance around the idea - after all, a single thread will struggle to reach the entirety of a disparate community, and the idea of physical
nonhumanity presents a challenge to the status quo and the tenuous respectability of modern therians. The Library hopes to point out that this tension and struggle is a great deal of what makes something queer, and is
at the heart of a radical queer politics. While the library attempts to remain a point of archival first, the head Librarian is holothere itself, and it believes fully in the idea of therianthropy as Queer identity.
This piece does not alone make therians or holothere Queer, but it pulls us all in that direction and shows that therianthropy is far from a stagnant idea. We are a community, pushing forward to make a place for
ourselves in the human world.
