Species dysphoria
Encyclopedia
Species dysphoria is the experience of dysphoria
, sometimes including dysmorphia, associated with the feeling that one's body is the wrong species. Earls and Lalumière (2009) describe it as "the sense of being in the wrong (species) body... a desire to be an animal". Outside of psychological literature, the term is common within the otherkin
and therian
communities (Lupa, 2007).
community. Otherkin and therian communities have also used it to describe their experiences.
A term that has also been used is "transspecies", after "transgender", described by Phaedra and Isaac Bonewits (2007) as "people who believe themselves to be part animal, or animal souls that have been incarnated in human bodies, much as some transgendered people believe themselves to be women in men's bodies or vice versa".
In a 2008 study by Gerbasi et al., 46.3% of people surveyed who identified as "furry" answered "yes" to the question "Do you consider yourself to be less than 100% human?" 40.8% answered "yes" to the question "If you could become 0% human, would you?" Questions that Gerbasi states as deliberately designed to draw parallels with GID
, specifying "a persistent feeling of discomfort" about the human body and the feeling that the person was the "non-human species trapped in a human body", were answered "yes" by 23.9% and 29.2% of respondents, respectively. Gerbasi "tentatively dubbed" this condition "Species Identity Disorder", saying that "the similarities between their connection to their species and aspects of GID are striking".
As described by those who experience it, species dysphoria may include sensations of supernumerary phantom limbs
associated with the species, such as phantom wings or claws. Species dysphoria involves feelings of being an animal or other creature "trapped in" a human body and so is unlike the traditional definition of clinical lycanthropy
, in which the patient believes they have actually been transformed into an animal or have the ability to physically shapeshift. However, some cases that have been labeled as "clinical lycanthropy" actually seem to be cases of species dysphoria, involving no delusion of transformation but instead involving feelings of being in some way a nonhuman animal, while still acknowledging possessing human form. Keck et al proposed a redefinition for clinical lycanthropy that covered species dysphoric behaviours observed in several patients, including verbal reports, "during intervals of lucidity or retrospectively, that he or she was a particular animal" and behaving "in the manner of a particular animal, i.e. howling, growling, crawling on all fours". Keck et al described one patient as a depressed individual who "had always suspected he was a cat" and "laments his lack of fur, stripes and a tail". Except for the persistent feeling of being feline, the patient's "thought processes and perception" were "usually logical".
Some people experience both gender dysphoria and species dysphoria, and consider them to be related.
A group called the Equine Dream Foundation was formed to investigate the possibilities of species transformation, calling for morphological freedom
for all. The website, equinedream.orghttp://equinedream.org, no longer exists.
performed Becoming Dragon, a "mixed-reality performance" in which a virtual reality experience was created to allow a person to completely experience life through the eyes of a dragon
avatar
in the virtual world, Second Life
.
After the performance, Cárdenas reported that she "discovered... that people's identifications with their avatars in Second Life went beyond playtime fantasies. Many people deeply feel that they can only be their “true selves” in Second Life. Some of these people call themselves Otherkin
, and feel deeply, truly, painfully that they were born as the wrong species, that they are foxes, dragons and horses. I would refer to them as transspecies."
J M Barrie's Peter Pan
has been described as experiencing species dysphoria, in a discussion that relates species dysphoria to gender liminal experiences.
The protagonist of Julie Gonzalez's Wings (2005), a young adult novel, believes that he has trapped wings under his skin that wish to escape. He changes his name to "Icarus" to reflect this feeling.
Paul Goble
’s Caldecott Award-winning illustrated children’s book, The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses
(1978), is based on a Plains Native American folktale. In this story, a young woman leaves her tribe to live with a herd of wild horses. The horses adopt her, and she resists her family’s pleas to return home. After several years, the woman has integrated into the herd so completely that she becomes a horse. Her family respects that she has become truly happy with her new life.
In Gulliver’s Travels, the traveler meets the Houyhnhnms, a society of talking horses, who are largely free from the vices that troubled all the human societies he has so far seen. Gulliver comes to admire these wise horses, while feeling repulsed by the local feral humans called Yahoos. This stirs feelings of misanthropy in Gulliver. He describes his conversion into a reasonable horse by means of emulating their culture, although he remains physically human.
Dysphoria
Dysphoria is medically recognized as a mental and emotional condition in which a person experiences intense feelings of depression, discontent and indifference to the world around them.Mood disorders can induce dysphoria, often with a heightened risk of suicide, especially in...
, sometimes including dysmorphia, associated with the feeling that one's body is the wrong species. Earls and Lalumière (2009) describe it as "the sense of being in the wrong (species) body... a desire to be an animal". Outside of psychological literature, the term is common within the otherkin
Otherkin
Otherkin are a community of people who identify themselves as non-human in all but outward form, contending that they are, in spirit if not in body, non-human animals or creatures traditionally associated with mythology or folklore...
and therian
Therianthropy
Therianthropy refers to the metamorphosis of humans into other animals. Therianthropes are said to change forms via shapeshifting. Therianthropes have long existed in mythology, appearing in ancient cave drawings such as the Sorcerer at Les Trois Frères....
communities (Lupa, 2007).
Definition and symptoms
Species dysphoria has not officially been defined by the psychological community, and is mostly a term that has been informally used in psychological literature to compare the experiences of some individuals to those in the transgenderTransgender
Transgender is a general term applied to a variety of individuals, behaviors, and groups involving tendencies to vary from culturally conventional gender roles....
community. Otherkin and therian communities have also used it to describe their experiences.
A term that has also been used is "transspecies", after "transgender", described by Phaedra and Isaac Bonewits (2007) as "people who believe themselves to be part animal, or animal souls that have been incarnated in human bodies, much as some transgendered people believe themselves to be women in men's bodies or vice versa".
In a 2008 study by Gerbasi et al., 46.3% of people surveyed who identified as "furry" answered "yes" to the question "Do you consider yourself to be less than 100% human?" 40.8% answered "yes" to the question "If you could become 0% human, would you?" Questions that Gerbasi states as deliberately designed to draw parallels with GID
Gender identity disorder
Gender identity disorder is the formal diagnosis used by psychologists and physicians to describe persons who experience significant gender dysphoria . It describes the symptoms related to transsexualism, as well as less severe manifestations of gender dysphoria...
, specifying "a persistent feeling of discomfort" about the human body and the feeling that the person was the "non-human species trapped in a human body", were answered "yes" by 23.9% and 29.2% of respondents, respectively. Gerbasi "tentatively dubbed" this condition "Species Identity Disorder", saying that "the similarities between their connection to their species and aspects of GID are striking".
As described by those who experience it, species dysphoria may include sensations of supernumerary phantom limbs
Supernumerary phantom limb
Supernumerary phantom limb refers to a condition where the affected individual believes and receives sensory information from limbs of the body that do not actually exist, and never have existed, on the contrary to phantom limbs, which appear after an individual has had a limb removed from the body...
associated with the species, such as phantom wings or claws. Species dysphoria involves feelings of being an animal or other creature "trapped in" a human body and so is unlike the traditional definition of clinical lycanthropy
Clinical lycanthropy
Clinical lycanthropy is defined as a rare psychiatric syndrome that involves a delusion that the affected person can transform or has transformed into a non-human animal or that he or she is an animal. Its name is connected to the mythical condition of lycanthropy, a supernatural affliction in...
, in which the patient believes they have actually been transformed into an animal or have the ability to physically shapeshift. However, some cases that have been labeled as "clinical lycanthropy" actually seem to be cases of species dysphoria, involving no delusion of transformation but instead involving feelings of being in some way a nonhuman animal, while still acknowledging possessing human form. Keck et al proposed a redefinition for clinical lycanthropy that covered species dysphoric behaviours observed in several patients, including verbal reports, "during intervals of lucidity or retrospectively, that he or she was a particular animal" and behaving "in the manner of a particular animal, i.e. howling, growling, crawling on all fours". Keck et al described one patient as a depressed individual who "had always suspected he was a cat" and "laments his lack of fur, stripes and a tail". Except for the persistent feeling of being feline, the patient's "thought processes and perception" were "usually logical".
Some people experience both gender dysphoria and species dysphoria, and consider them to be related.
Treatment
The psychological community has not officially proposed any treatment for species dysphoria, as it has never been officially defined.A group called the Equine Dream Foundation was formed to investigate the possibilities of species transformation, calling for morphological freedom
Morphological freedom
Morphological freedom refers to a proposed civil right of a person to either maintain or modify his or her own body, on his or her own terms, through informed, consensual recourse to, or refusal of, available therapeutic or enabling medical technology....
for all. The website, equinedream.orghttp://equinedream.org, no longer exists.
In art
In 2007, Los Angeles artist Micha CárdenasMicha Cárdenas
Micha Cárdenas is a transgender performance and new media artist. Her work deals with the interplay of technology, gender, sex, immigration and biopolitics. She currently lives and works in Los Angeles.- Education :...
performed Becoming Dragon, a "mixed-reality performance" in which a virtual reality experience was created to allow a person to completely experience life through the eyes of a dragon
Dragon
A dragon is a legendary creature, typically with serpentine or reptilian traits, that feature in the myths of many cultures. There are two distinct cultural traditions of dragons: the European dragon, derived from European folk traditions and ultimately related to Greek and Middle Eastern...
avatar
Avatar (computing)
In computing, an avatar is the graphical representation of the user or the user's alter ego or character. It may take either a three-dimensional form, as in games or virtual worlds, or a two-dimensional form as an icon in Internet forums and other online communities. It can also refer to a text...
in the virtual world, Second Life
Second Life
Second Life is an online virtual world developed by Linden Lab. It was launched on June 23, 2003. A number of free client programs, or Viewers, enable Second Life users, called Residents, to interact with each other through avatars...
.
After the performance, Cárdenas reported that she "discovered... that people's identifications with their avatars in Second Life went beyond playtime fantasies. Many people deeply feel that they can only be their “true selves” in Second Life. Some of these people call themselves Otherkin
Otherkin
Otherkin are a community of people who identify themselves as non-human in all but outward form, contending that they are, in spirit if not in body, non-human animals or creatures traditionally associated with mythology or folklore...
, and feel deeply, truly, painfully that they were born as the wrong species, that they are foxes, dragons and horses. I would refer to them as transspecies."
In fiction
Jean Douturd's short novel Une Tête de Chien features a spaniel-headed human protagonist described by Giffney and Herd (2008) as suffering from species dysphoria.J M Barrie's Peter Pan
Peter Pan
Peter Pan is a character created by Scottish novelist and playwright J. M. Barrie . A mischievous boy who can fly and magically refuses to grow up, Peter Pan spends his never-ending childhood adventuring on the small island of Neverland as the leader of his gang the Lost Boys, interacting with...
has been described as experiencing species dysphoria, in a discussion that relates species dysphoria to gender liminal experiences.
The protagonist of Julie Gonzalez's Wings (2005), a young adult novel, believes that he has trapped wings under his skin that wish to escape. He changes his name to "Icarus" to reflect this feeling.
Paul Goble
Paul Goble
Paul Goble is an award-winning author and illustrator of children's books, mostly Native American stories. Goble has received a number of honors for his books including the prestigious Caldecott Medal.- Biography :...
’s Caldecott Award-winning illustrated children’s book, The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses
The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses
The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses is a book by Paul Goble. Released by Bradbury Books, it was the recipient of the Caldecott Medal for illustration in 1979.-Plot:...
(1978), is based on a Plains Native American folktale. In this story, a young woman leaves her tribe to live with a herd of wild horses. The horses adopt her, and she resists her family’s pleas to return home. After several years, the woman has integrated into the herd so completely that she becomes a horse. Her family respects that she has become truly happy with her new life.
In Gulliver’s Travels, the traveler meets the Houyhnhnms, a society of talking horses, who are largely free from the vices that troubled all the human societies he has so far seen. Gulliver comes to admire these wise horses, while feeling repulsed by the local feral humans called Yahoos. This stirs feelings of misanthropy in Gulliver. He describes his conversion into a reasonable horse by means of emulating their culture, although he remains physically human.
See also
- Clinical lycanthropyClinical lycanthropyClinical lycanthropy is defined as a rare psychiatric syndrome that involves a delusion that the affected person can transform or has transformed into a non-human animal or that he or she is an animal. Its name is connected to the mythical condition of lycanthropy, a supernatural affliction in...
- DysphoriaDysphoriaDysphoria is medically recognized as a mental and emotional condition in which a person experiences intense feelings of depression, discontent and indifference to the world around them.Mood disorders can induce dysphoria, often with a heightened risk of suicide, especially in...
- Gender dysphoria
- OtherkinOtherkinOtherkin are a community of people who identify themselves as non-human in all but outward form, contending that they are, in spirit if not in body, non-human animals or creatures traditionally associated with mythology or folklore...
- Phantom limbPhantom limbA phantom limb is the sensation that an amputated or missing limb is still attached to the body and is moving appropriately with other body parts. 2 out of 3 combat veterans report this feeling. Approximately 60 to 80% of individuals with an amputation experience phantom sensations in their...
- TherianthropyTherianthropyTherianthropy refers to the metamorphosis of humans into other animals. Therianthropes are said to change forms via shapeshifting. Therianthropes have long existed in mythology, appearing in ancient cave drawings such as the Sorcerer at Les Trois Frères....