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Concept
Otherkin
Summary
Otherkin are a subculture of people who identify as partially or entirely nonhuman. Some otherkin believe their identity derives from spiritual phenomena (such as posessing a nonhuman soul, reincarnation, or the will of God), ancestry, symbolism, or metaphor. Others attribute it to unusual psychology or neurodiversity and do not hold spiritual beliefs on the subject.
The otherkin subculture grew out of online communities for people identifying as elves in the early-to-mid-1990s. The word has since come to be treated as an umbrella term for a number of nonhuman identity subcultures which developed around the same time.
"Otherkin,” as an adjective, was defined in the Middle English Dictionary (1981) as "a different or an additional kind of, other kinds of". In 2017, the Oxford English Dictionary defined otherkin as "of another kind; other, different."
The earliest recorded use of the term otherkin, in the context of a subculture, appeared in July 1990 and the variant otherkind was reported as early as April 1990. The word "otherkind" was initially coined from the word "elfinkind", to refer to non-elf others who joined the communities. The terms "otherkin" and "otherkind" have since come to encompass a wide variety of unique non-human identities.
The term otherkin includes a broad range of identities. Otherkin may identify as creatures of the natural world, mythology, or popular culture. Examples include but are not limited to the following: aliens, angels, demons, dragons, elves, fairies, foxes, horses, sprites, unicorns, wolves, and fictional characters. Rarer are those who identify as plants, machines, concepts, or natural phenomena such as weather systems.
The term "therian" refers to people who identify as an animal of the natural world. The species of animal a therian identifies as is called a theriotype.
With regard to their online communities, otherkin largely function without formal authority structures and mostly focus on support and information gathering, often dividing into more specific groups based on kintype.
Official source
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