If I say ‘woof’, it’s cos I’m a dog
If the collie within you feels trapped, fear not, there are inclusive spaces just for you, writes
There has been a lot of talk lately about respecting people’s identities. Articles on gender dysphoria, biracial science, the heteroflexible, trans people, social justice warriors — the list is endless. There are many identity iterations to consider. A friend of mine teaches a class in the UK and has a pupil who identifies as a cat. Teachers don’t question the notion that the pupil is a feline in a human female body in case she’s offended. If you ask her name, she answers, I’m a cat.
The latest onslaught on the jellied remains of the human psyche is a cross species stride. Quite a number of people these days identify as animals. And you are what you identify as. After all, English media personality Piers Morgan said a few years ago, on Good Morning Britain, that he identified as a penguin and demanded to live in the aquarium.
People who believe they’re animals trapped in the body of a human are called therians. Over the years I’ve talked to various people who say they feel they are animals. Identifying as a wolf is popular, but some feel as if they’re a tiger and others believe they’re dogs.
According to furscience.com, therians are on the increase. They are people who look like a person, talk like a person, walk (possibly grunt and squeak and squawk) like a person, but they honestly believe they’re animals. They feel different in body and spirit from those around them. They’re also different from “furries” (people who create for themselves an anthropomorphised animal character or “fursona” with whom they identify and can function as an avatar within the community. In other words, they love wearing animal suits).
In contrast, therians believe they’re animals. “The feeling,” said one animal identifier, “is difficult to describe. I’m used to not being believed, but I know that I’ ma sheepdog.”
There are members in my family who’d like to believe they’re dogs, but when it comes time to sleep outside in the kennel or eat dog pellets they readily admit they aren’t. As a child, for a while, I was certain I was a collie dog. To prove the point I even ate meals off a plate on the floor. But a spell with a stern psychologist put an end to that idea. “Do you want to end up in the loony bin?” she asked.
Some therians have a scary belief that they have phantom body parts, for example, paws instead of hands, which puts a new slant on holding a glass of wine. Tails are popular among therians. One therian I spoke to, who didn’t want to be named (let’s call her Rover), said she always felt she had a tail “When I’m in a room with furniture, I’m careful about how I pass things in case my tail knocks stuff off low tables. I’m at my best when I am out in the open.”
Anthropomorphic or Furry Conventions are held all over the world. You might think of “Furries” as “people who dress up in giant animal mascot costumes”. Or, depending on the media you consume, you may know them as “the people who think they’re animals and have a weird fetish for fur”.
I don’t know what these fur conventions are like, whether they’re fun dress-up events or serious cross-species affairs, but I was astonished to discover that South Africa is a popular venue for them. There’s even a website, ZAfur, which, admittedly, hasn’t been updated since 2021.
I did manage to find out that Afrifur had a convention in July this year. Afrifur is
“committed to creating a world where furries of all ages and backgrounds can come together and express their furry spirit in a welcoming and inclusive space”. Previous Afrifur events have included games like cards against furmanity, panels on furry literature and publishing, and a fursuit photoshoot and quiz afternoon. Perhaps the most famous furry conference is called Anthrocon and is held in Pittsburgh. It’s billed as one of the biggest anthropomorphic conventions in the world. A friend who went to one said she met a bear. “He looked like a human, he behaved like a human, but he said he was a bear. He seemed very sincere.”
Some psychologists believe the distress suffered by therians is similar to that suffered by people whose sex at birth doesn’t match the way they feel. The comparison is often made by therians themselves, a minority of whom are transgender, as well as “transspecies”, as they put it (not all transgender people are comfortable with this). According to the internet, common furry identities (fursonas) are dragons, felines (cats, lions, tigers) and canines (wolves, foxes or domestic dogs). Some furries identify as mixed species, such as a folf (fox and wolf) or cabbit (cat and rabbit). Furries rarely, if ever, identify with a nonhuman primate species.
As they grow, therians often move from having a general sense of feeling not quite human to a concrete awareness of the kind of animal they are: their “theriotype”. The most common theriotypes are predator species like wolves and large cats. Jaguars are more common in South America and foxes are prevalent in Japan, where folklore contains stories of people being possessed by foxes. In South Africa cheetahs and lions top the list.
Are you strong enough to cope with the idea of an inter-species relationship? I wonder what the offspring might look like? My father is a bear and my mother a blonde hairdresser from Sea Point. That could be interesting.