DONNED TALL PANT.

You are not oppressed. You may be maligned on the internet, may have a crappy reputation, may have a hard time explaining what and who you are… but you are not oppressed. There is no systemic discrimination against Otherkin. You have not faced institutionalised oppression—unless you are ADDITIONALLY of a group that has, obviously, but even then, you have not faced it for being Otherkin. And you never will.

If you don’t get a job because you bark at the interviewer, that’s not oppression. It’s not even discrimination. That’s you behaving inappropriately in a professional environment and then getting upset about it. I wouldn’t hire someone who barked at me.

There’s a lot of drama going around about Otherkin appropriating or trying to claim a place in the trans* narrative.

Speaking as a member of BOTH camps, I can see how this happened, but I can also say that it’s not good for ANYBODY involved and it needs to fucking stop. Being trans* is hard enough, and it is not your place to tell trans* folk what they are and are not, who is and who is not like them.

The trans* narrative is just that—the trans* narrative, and if—IF—the Otherkin want a narrative, then fine. I won’t tell Otherkin not to try and get noticed, even though I personally see absolutely no need for this to even be a thing. But DO NOT FUCKING CLAIM SOMEONE ELSE’S NARRATIVE FOR YOUR OWN. You are not “just like” trans* folk, even if some similarities may exist in individual experiences. You are not “just like” a racial minority, you are not “just like” anything, except yourself.

On that note, being Otherkin means a lot of things to a lot of fucking people. I am an atheist, and I don’t believe in spirits. But some people do. For some people, being Otherkin is a spiritual connection! For others, it’s metaphysical in a different sense. For me, it’s intellectual. You know what it’s not, though? It’s not a license to engage in dangerous behaviour and then CRY DISCRIMINATION when someone points out that it’s dangerous or unhealthy. It’s just fucking not.

I personally don’t hold with special diets or whatever—the vast flexibility of rat diets aside, I am in no danger of kidney failure if I drin k orange juice or eat mango, because my kidneys are human. If you are a wolf kin, you will not be healthier if you eat raw meat. In fact, you’re exposing yourself to a huge danger. Whether you do or not is your choice, but it is not a necessity. It is not better for you, physically. It is not required, or even a good idea, to eat dog food—let alone your own shit as one Otherkin has FAMOUSLY BRANDED US WITH. If you do, that’s your fucking business—but to make that Otherkin is not only inappropriate, it’s exactly why people fucking hate us.

Pressuring someone ELSE to behave that way, under the premise of it being the ‘right’ way to feed themselves or their spirit or whatever YOU PERSONALLY define Otherkin identity to be? That’s disgusting.

It’s disgusting, and it needs to fucking stop.

Because WHATEVER ELSE OTHERKIN IS TO YOU—regardless of what emotions, what social ties, what individual meanings it carries—it is PART OF SOMEONE’S IDENTITY, and surprise! It’s up to them to determine what that identity is. And it should be their right to define how that identity is understood.

When you want or crave attention, when you behave in erratic or dangerous ways, when you behave like a fucking idiot and then get upset when people call you out on it, you are MAKING THE ENTIRE PROCESS OF IDENTITY THAT MUCH FUCKING HARDER FOR EVERY OTHER FUCKING OTHERKIN.

And I’m not the only one. I won’t name anyone, because that’s unfair and drags them into this narrative without their permission, but the segment of ‘rational Otherkin,’ as I’m calling us, is not limited to me. And we’d like to exist freely, to speak freely and identify freely without being instantly maligned and pissed on and laughed at because of someone else’s aberrant behaviour. If this behaviour completes you in some way, fine. But bringing it into the public arena—and more importantly, labelling that behaviour as an (essential) part of the Otherkin experience/identity is wrong. It’s rude. And it helps absolutely no one.

This concludes my letter to fellow Otherkin. Non-‘kin, your letter is coming when I catch my wind.