On Being Transspecies - My Experience of Nonhumanity and Gender Identity:

Published: 30/08/2022

Last Updated: 02/12/2024

"Transspecies" is a term that elicits a knee-jerk reaction from many, begetting its controversial standing both within the alterhuman community and outside of it. It evokes thoughts of right-wing taunts like "if we let you change your gender, you'll demand to change species next!" said with the intent to belittle and discredit the experience of transgender people by reframing them to something 'ridiculous'. It is also easy to take at face-value, leading to a mistaken co-opt from the transgender community - attracting accusations of mockery or appropriation of their strife.

I want to first address these views with this: it is not the fault of transspecies individuals that makes the bigoted say such things. This is said without awareness of transspecies denoting a very sincere experience. Going after those using the label transspecies for themselves ultimately does nothing but divide communities further and alienate people who have done nothing wrong, rather than focusing on the actual problem. The supposed appropriation of the transgender experience and terminology is also untrue: the transgender community does not own the prefix "trans-", nor do they own the concept of dysphoria or body-identity mismatch.

Moreover, many alterhumans are transgender themselves. Many have described and continue to describe their experience with both gender and species as being "born in the wrong body" and intentionally draw these comparisons between their personal experience of being transgender and their experience with their species identity in a earnest manner. Transgender alterhumans can, and should, make a connection between the two experiences if they so wish. Such comparisons do not mean transspecies individuals or those suffering from species dysphoria are stealing valour or trying to merge the fundamentally distinct communities.

It is a label that a growing number of alterhumans feel perfectly encapsulates their experiences and wish to adopt for themselves. Most of us are certainly no stranger to the species dysphoria brought on by a mismatch between our body and our mind and/or soul, and there have been many, many discussions and fantasies of somehow becoming our theriotype in physical form, if such a thing were possible. If we were to open our community to deeper discussions and writings on this topic, it would create more understanding of and options for those with severe species dysphoria, as well as let alterhumans speak on their experiences without fear of backlash.

For me, gender and nonhumanity have always gone hand in hand. I grew up autistic, yet undiagnosed until late childhood, and from the moment I entered the world of social rules and complex interactions and concepts, I felt a stranger to it all. I was excluded by my peers and pushed away for reasons I could not understand. Quickly, I concluded that I could not be a human being like them, or at the very least, not completely human. I was nothing like the others around me. This occured so soon in my life, in fact, that I don't remember a time where I wasn't likening myself to wild beasts; to bottle-raised big cats and imprinted raptors, the prehistoric wild bulls given homes with early humans, something fierce subdued and raised in human care. It was rarely negative, as in a self-deprecating manner - I was very interested in and empathetic towards animals, more so than towards the people I lived among - so that self-identifier felt comforting to me. It made sense. I wasn't human; I didn't need or want to be.

However, I continued to feel isolated from others and detached from my body and the world I was raised in. It was a lonely experience, I spent a long time lamenting this disconnect between me and every human around me, even close friends and family members felt a million miles away and behind a wall I could not breach.

As I approached puberty, this discomfort became intertwined with the emergence of gender dysphoria and discomfort with my physical sex. When I began to visibly develop into something less androgynous, I felt my world crash down. I wasn't meant to look like this at all; everything was incorrect, in the wrong place, and all too obvious. My dysphoria skyrocketed within a very short time.

I unconsciously pushed down my species dysphoria and began to socially transition while seeking medical options for when I reached the right age. That was the only option I was aware of at the time, I thought being transgender explained all of my discomfort, and I wasn't completely incorrect. I certainly felt happier, but I still didn't feel completely right. Something was still missing, and that emptiness only grew and grew.

It was around this time that I discovered the alterhuman community and began to accept my nonhumanity amongst others who could relate to my experiences. Everything fell into place when I found myself in beasts. I realised that I didn't want to be seen as human nor conform to their standards of gender. I'm neither a man nor a woman, at least not in the human sense of the idea.

I do not have a gender or sex assigned to my theriotype and I don't think gender identity would have been something that ever crossed my mind. I'm just a tiger. Sure, I had a biological sex, but it mattered little to me other than whether I bore or sired my cubs. At the end of the day, I was a cat. My fictotypes are cisgender men for all intents and purposes in their canon source material, but from what I know, demonic attitudes towards gender were much more indifferent compared to those of humans, and sexual dimorphism in devils was more or less nonexistent. As Raiden, I had a long struggle with my masculinity, something that cumulated in actual emasculation once my body was mechanised, leading to a unique experience with gender and sex regardless of if I was born as and identified as male.

I currently identify as transsexual. Yet, I possess a gender that defies understanding by people who cannot grasp my lifelong battle with species and gender. I am transgender, but this transgender experience is interwoven with my nonhuman experience in such a way that they cannot be separated and cannot stand alone. I realised that by continuing to blot one out in favour of the other, I would only drive myself into further pain and confusion.

A large portion of my gender dysphoria and transition plans are also associated with my species dysphoria. My dysphoria around my chest is not only wanting a flat chest to appear androgynous, but also wanting a chest without these unfamiliar masses of tissue on it. My discomfort regarding my voice is not because I want to be perceived as male when I speak, but because I crave the roughness of a tiger's vocalisations or bull's roar that I cannot comfortably achieve with this register. My genital dysphoria revolves around that of nonhuman creatures, regardless of how possible this is to achieve. I wish to go on masculinising HRT in order to be bulkier, hairier, and stronger to more closely resemble the forms and power of beasts, not only to appear more masculine.

I have a strong affinity for the bull. The bull as it is usually imagined, as a male animal in Bos, usually Bos taurus, but also the bull of any bovine species. Especially large, spiral-horned antelopes of Tragelaphus. The majesty of the bull antelope, its strength, tenacity, protector role, and great tenderness for its cows is something beautiful to me. I've always wished to emulate the bull's physique and character, not only in musculature but in lethal horns, hooves, and the long, draping beard of the Greater kudu.

When I imagine myself, I see not a human woman or a human man. I do not see a tiger or tigress either, not in the way one would picture the tiger. I am a combination of both. I am something that transcends both sex and species. I am a beast "born in the wrong body" just as I am a humanoid of opposite sex "born in the wrong body". I cannot reflect one without the other.

I adopted the label transspecies for myself fairly recently in order to accept and further explore this connection between my personal experiences regarding my gender identity as transgender and my nonhuman identities as alterhuman. I am conflating the two for myself in order to define my experience as nonhuman more clearly than what I feel "otherkin" or just "nonhuman" can.

If I had the option to do extensive, but safe, body modification in order to physically "transition" into my desired nonhuman form, I would take it in an instant. I dream of socially transitioning, in a sense, by living as a werebeast. Being seen in my gender role as a bull. I wish to surround myself with others who understand and accommodate my needs and will recognise me as me. I want to feel safe to give way to my natural instincts and behaviour more often without fearing ridicule. I want to be seen how I see myself.