Otherkin

From AnOtherWiki, the free encyclopedia written by, for, and about the Otherkin community.
Otherkin
Coined by Torin (otherkin); Elezar (otherkind)
Wherecoined
The Elfinkind Digest
Status Current
Date coined April 18, 1990 (otherkind); July 9, 1990 (otherkin)
Alternative forms Otherkind
Part of Speech noun
Antonyms Mundanes


A Septegram, used by some as a symbol for otherkin.
Otherkin Emblem created by Kaltezar

Otherkin is a term for those who believe that they are mentally, spiritually, or physically other than human.[1] The word and its elder variant otherkind both originated on The Elfinkind Digest, a mailing list, in 1990.[2]

The term is used in two overlapping senses. Narrowly, it refers to people whose nonhuman identity is with a mythological or folkloric being — most commonly elves, fae, and dragons. Broadly, it serves as an umbrella covering a range of nonhuman identities. Which identities the umbrella covers has varied across decades and venues; the community historian Arethinn observes that smaller communities have tended to be absorbed into it over time, and that most present-day speakers mean the general nonhuman category unless they specify otherwise.[3] Some groups, such as the Fae-born, have made a point of declining the label.[4]

It is generally held within the community that otherkin are born, not made, though otherkin are not generally born with an awareness of their nonhuman nature. Instead they become aware of it through a process known as awakening.[5]

Otherkin have no doctrine, no scripture, no clergy, and no membership criteria, and no individual or body is accepted as having authority to determine whether someone is otherkin or in what way.[4][6] Explanations for nonhuman identity vary widely between individuals, and may be spiritual, philosophical, metaphorical, experiential, behavioural, or psychological.[4] The community has existed primarily online since its emergence, and its history is closely tied to the succession of platforms it has occupied.[6]

Etymology and terminology

The Elfinkind Digest was founded by R'ykandar Korra'ti and operated from the University of Kentucky, with the first digest sent on March 26, 1990. Although established for people who identified as elves, it attracted subscribers with a range of other self-identifications, and the vocabulary expanded to accommodate them.[4]

Otherkind — with a d — appeared first, in Elfinkind Digest #16 on April 18, 1990, in a post by a member named Elezar, a dwarf. Otherkin followed in Elfinkind Digest #71 on July 9, 1990, in a post by Torin.[2]

Accounts of the coinage differ. Orion Scribner's Otherkin Timeline attributes both forms to Torin, and records Torin's own recollection that he "got tired of typing elf/dragon/orc/etc.-kin and just used otherkin," describing it as convenience rather than deliberate word-formation.[4] Arethinn, working from a complete archive of the Digest, attributes otherkind to Elezar rather than Torin, and questions the recollection: Arethinn reports finding no evidence in the Digest of anyone writing out such lists often enough to tire of them, notes that otherkind had already been established for several months, and observes that neither Torin nor anyone else used otherkin again until March 1991 — which, Arethinn suggests, makes the July 1990 instance look more like an unintentional variant of the established word than a deliberate spelling.[2]

The two forms were not equally common. In 1990–91 Arethinn counts nine uses of otherkin across nine digests against 509 uses of otherkind across 122; otherkin did not overtake otherkind on the Digest until April 1997, and never surpassed it in total across the list's history.[2]

A common account holds that otherkind was coined by elves to distinguish themselves from non-elves. Arethinn finds this unsupported by the archives, noting that Elezar was a dwarf, Torin a wolf and centaur, and that the comparable list-formations were written by dragons; and that the early uses distinguish other-than-humans from humans rather than other-than-elves from elves. In the post first using otherkind, Elezar explicitly included elves.[2]

Whether animal-folk were covered at this stage is, in Arethinn's assessment, neither explicitly settled nor excluded. Several wolves were already on the list in early 1990, and in May 1990 Torin asked whether the Digest might serve people unsure of their complete affiliation with humanity; a member responding listed dwarf, hobbit, dragon, nymph, hawk, wolf, and a Wookiee among the kinds already encountered. The Usenet group that gave rise to the therian community would not be created for another two and a half years.[2]

The suffix -kin has proved productive, generating terms including dragonkin, elfkin, and later fictionkin. The phrase "kin to the other," from which otherkin is sometimes glossed, was coined by Jarandhel Dreamsinger.[4] The clipped form kin has served as an abbreviation for otherkin since well before its Tumblr-era prominence, and has been used to cover mythological otherkin, therians, and fictionkin alike.[7]

Kintype denotes the specific nonhuman identity a person holds, and is used for fictional characters as well as species; the alternative fictotype was proposed but never widely adopted.[7][8]

Alterhuman was coined on September 26, 2014 by Lio of the Crossroads System, then writing as Malchior under the username phasmovore, as an umbrella term for anyone with an identity beyond conventional ideas of being human. It was prompted by a dispute over whether people who identified with rather than as an entity were otherkin.[9] Whether it supersedes, contains, or sits alongside otherkin is unsettled.

Beliefs and self-understanding

There is no otherkin orthodoxy, and no belief is required beyond identifying as other than human in some way.[6] Individuals account for their identity in markedly different ways, and the community has generally treated the choice of explanation as a personal matter rather than a point of membership. Scribner groups the explanations as spiritual, philosophical, metaphorical, experiential, behavioural, and psychological.[4]

Spiritual and metaphysical accounts hold that the person's soul or essential self is nonhuman — most often through reincarnation from a nonhuman life, sometimes with memories retained.[6][1] Accounts of this kind frequently involve belief in otherworlds or in a nonphysical layer of reality in which the kintype is located.[1]

Psychological and neurological accounts treat nonhuman identity in psychological or neurological terms rather than metaphysical ones.[6] The later term copingkin has been described within the community as a development from psychological otherkin, the distinguishing question being whether the coping mechanism is conscious or unconscious.[7]

Ancestral accounts hold that the person's descent includes cryptozoological or supposedly legendary species.[6] Claims to nonhumanity in a physical or ancestral sense are, in Scribner's assessment, the rarest of the explanations offered.[4]

Robertson observes that the resulting personal mythology rests ultimately on unverified personal gnosis — belief reached and legitimated through introspection.[6]

Being otherkin is not in itself a religion, and community writing has been explicit on the point.[4] Otherkin hold a range of religious positions; Lupa's survey found the majority under a Neo-Pagan label.[6][1] Academic treatments have nonetheless approached the subject through religious studies.[10][11]

Kintypes

Main article: Kintypes

A kintype is the specific nonhuman identity a person holds. Commonly reported kintypes include elves, fae, and dragons; animals, where usage overlaps with therianthropy; angels, demons, and elementals; vampires; extraterrestrials; plants (see Phytanthrope); and fictional characters and species (see Fictionkin).[6][1]

Kintypes vary in specificity, from broad category to species to particular individual. In the therian community the term cladotherian describes identification at a taxonomic level broader than species.[8]

Distinct subgroups have formed around particular kintypes and their associated cultures. Among the longest-established are the Elenari, elven otherkin whose remembered lives share elements of history, culture, and language, including a set of named homeworlds and the cultural concept of Des'tai. Material discussing the Elenari as a distinct group circulated before 2001, including a collaborative Elenari language page on Rialian's Synesthesia Symbiosis in 1999 and a dictionary compiled by Estara Korai in 2000.[12][13]

The credibility afforded to a kintype varies with the origin of its source material. Kirby notes that contemporary popular-culture sources are commonly judged silly or infantile within the community, and that participants regarded as young, or as having a faddish interest in related media, are subject to similar scrutiny.[11][14]

Common experiences

None of the experiences described here are reported universally, and the emphasis placed on each has varied considerably between communities and eras.

Awakening

Main article: Awakening

Awakening is the process of becoming aware of one's nonhuman nature. It is frequently reported as occurring during adolescence, though earlier and later awakenings are described.[15] It may be triggered by a dream, a meditative experience, or an encounter with fiction, and community resources for newcomers commonly recommend an extended period of research and self-examination rather than a quick conclusion; Lupa recommends treating awakening as an ongoing process, since people experience false starts, identify as multiple kinds of being, or continue to learn about their nonhuman self over time.[6][1] Community writing has cautioned specifically against settling an identity on the strength of a single experience, such as one dream or one isolated sensation.[7]

The paired notion of "sleeping" — a prior state of obliviousness — carries Buddhist, Jungian, and Western esoteric overtones.[6] The word most likely reached the community from Mage: The Ascension, the 1993 White Wolf roleplaying game whose lexicon defines "the Awakening" and extends "the Awakened" to werecreatures, changelings, and vampires; a poster on alt.horror.werewolves called it, in passing, "a White Wolf term" in March 1997.[16][17] That is not the only possibility. The word was already in print in the elven community seven years earlier, in the Summer 1986 issue of Circle Network News, where the Silver Elves wrote of "inspiring and awakening the elf in all who are open and ready".[18] Nothing yet connects that usage to the communities that later adopted the word, however: the Silver Elves joined the otherkin community only after it was established, and longstanding participants describe their influence on it as slight.[19] A community FAQ derived the word instead from spiritual practice, though only in its 2001 rewrite; the same FAQ's earlier versions define Awakening without proposing any origin for the word.[20][21] The accounts are not exclusive; see Awakening. There is also a concept of rejecting one's awakening by "going back to sleep."[20] The term is shared with the therian and vampire communities, and some otherkin dislike it while continuing to use it.

Shifting and aspecting

Shifting refers to a temporary intensification of the kintype in a person's perception, mentation, or bodily sense. The vocabulary originated in the therian community on alt.horror.werewolves and was subsequently taken up by otherkin,[4] and an extensive terminology developed around it, including cameo shifts, bi-location shifts, and berserker shifts.[8]

Phantom sensation — the felt presence of wings, talons, a tail, or other anatomy the person does not physically have — is among the most commonly reported forms. Metaphysical explanations offered for it include sensitivity to an astral or energetic body, or memory of a body from a past life.[6][1]

The centrality of shifting to otherkin experience has been questioned. In a 2015 forum discussion, Jarandhel Dreamsinger argued that the therian community's emphasis on shifting was largely a social artifact of its origins on alt.horror.werewolves, and that much of what was termed shifting corresponded to what otherkin separately called aspecting. The same discussion recorded that shift terminology had by then largely disappeared from Tumblr-based usage.[7] The relationship between the two terms remains unsettled.

Memory

Some otherkin report memories associated with a nonhuman life, ranging from fragmentary impressions to detailed recall.[6] Interpretations differ as to whether such material is literal, symbolic, or of uncertain status,[10] and its reliability has itself been a subject of community discussion, with guides circulating on how to check remembered material for internal consistency in the absence of any external evidence.[22]

Other reported experiences

Otherkin sometimes report embodying traits associated with the physiology of their kintype. Discomfort with one's own body is described by some in the language of dysphoria, and the terms transspecies and transspirit have occasionally been used, with an early community FAQ drawing an explicit analogy to the experience of transgender people.[6][20] In the vampire community and among some otherkin, a reported need to feed on blood or energy is described. The Tumblr-era term kinfeels covers emotional responses connected to one's identity; it has seen limited uptake outside the platform where it was coined.

Community and culture

The otherkin community has been online-first throughout its existence, moving successively through mailing lists, Usenet, personal websites and webrings, message boards, journaling platforms, Tumblr, and Discord.[6][4] The community is loosely affiliated, acephalous, and has very few formal authority structures.[11][6]

Offline gatherings, called gathers, have been held since 1990: the Elfinkind Digest arranged a meeting in North Carolina from December 28 to 31 of that year, attended by nine people and including both elves and dragons.[4] The equivalent therian gathering is called a howl, the first held in Ohio in autumn 1994.[4]

Although the vocabulary originated in English, discussion communities have formed in Spanish, Hungarian, and Czech, with therian communities additionally in French, Russian, Swedish, and Portuguese.[4]

Conventions of speech

A distinctive feature of otherkin discourse is the systematic marking of statements about one's own nature as personal report rather than assertion. The community's characteristic epistemic move is an appeal to unverified personal gnosis: belief reached and legitimated by introspection, offered as one's own and not as evidence binding on anyone else.[6]

This convention operates together with a norm against adjudicating other people's identities. Community writing states the norm directly — that nobody can tell another person that they are otherkin, or in what way they are, because only the individual can do their own introspection.[4][1] The Silver Elves stated a version of it in 1986, writing in Circle Network News that they conferred elfdom on nobody and that no one had the right to say who is or is not an elf save the individuals themselves.[4] Where identity claims are not open to challenge, first-person qualification serves as the corresponding constraint on speaking authoritatively about anyone else.

Neither norm has been settled, and both have been objects of dispute rather than background assumptions. Writing about a year after founding Otherkin.net, Tirl Windtree characterised the community disputes of the period as turning on, among other things, whether a poster had included enough "In My Opinion" disclaimers, and whether it was acceptable to tell someone that what they claimed to be did not appear to fit their traits.[23] The two questions are the hedging convention and the adjudication norm respectively, and the essay records both as contested at the time rather than established.

Windtree's stated view was that discord is itself valuable — that disagreement is how a community learns, and that the site's full name, Otherkin.net: Harmony & Discord, was chosen to reflect this.[23] Moderation practice, insider and outsider distinctions, and collective processes of "othering" have continued to shape which ideas succeed in a given venue, sometimes implicitly rather than by stated rule.[14][24]

Symbols and creative work

Neither emblem associated with otherkin is universal. The seven-pointed star — variously the septegram, heptagram, Elven Star, or Fairy Star — has the longer history: a version appears in Elf Queen's Daughters material published in Green Egg in March 1976, and the Silver Elves published a ritual built around it in Circle Network News in summer 1986.[4] The rainbow celtic septegram created by Arhúaine as the logo of Otherkin.net has become widely identified with the community.[25] The Otherkin Emblem, also called the Otherkin Sigil or Otherkin Logo, was designed over the summer of 2002 by Kaltezar working with a graphic artist, and published on his own site that year. He set out to make something legible to outsiders, on the reasoning that a stranger would not read otherkin from a seven-pointed star, and settled on representational figures — an elf, a dragon, and a wolf — as identifications common enough to stand for both animal and legendary kintypes. Kaltezar released the emblem for public display while reserving it against alteration and commercial use, and for several years sold stickers and other items printed with it at no profit through CafePress.[26][4]

Creative work — fiction, poetry, visual art, comics, and video — has been a substantial part of community output.[6] The anthology Shifting Hearts collects short fiction with otherkin and therian protagonists.

History

Main article: History of the otherkin community

Precursors (1972–1989). The Elf Queen's Daughters formed in about 1972 and published letters through Green Egg and by mail through the mid-1970s, ceasing publication around 1977. The Silver Elves, whose founding members encountered the EQD in 1975, continued the practice from 1979 under a succession of names, settling on their present one in 1981. Both groups were embedded in the Neo-Pagan milieu and appeared in contemporary Pagan reference works.[4][27]

Mailing lists and Usenet (1990–1995). The Elfinkind Digest began on March 26, 1990, and supplied the venue in which otherkind and then otherkin appeared that April and July.[4][2] Parallel communities formed on Usenet: alt.horror.werewolves was created on November 16, 1992 and by 1993 had become a venue for people describing themselves as werewolves, giving rise to the therian community and to the shift vocabulary; alt.fan.dragons was created on December 1, 1993 and became the home of the dragon community, where the term draconity was in use by September 1995. The term therianthrope was proposed on alt.horror.werewolves in December 1994.[4]

The web (mid-1990s–2000s). The move to the World Wide Web produced the first substantial public archives of community writing, alongside mailing lists including TirNanOc, begun in October 1995, and DarkFae-L.[4] Subgroup material proliferated, including the Elenari writings gathered on Rialian's Synesthesia Symbiosis[12] and the Lostkin Project.[28] Otherkin.net, launched by Tirl Windtree on October 12, 2000, became one of the central hubs, indexing mailing lists, websites, essays, and a directory of otherkin; ownership passed to Jarandhel Dreamsinger in 2016.[25] The period was contentious: writing around 2001, Windtree described a community that had been heavily factionalised, with personal disputes escalating into sustained conflict between groups, followed by a cooling into what Windtree characterised as smaller and duller disagreements over conduct and terminology.[23] Frequently Asked Questions documents became, and remain, the principal resource for newcomers, and are continuously rewritten as definitions shift.[6][20] Much of this material has since been lost or survives only in web archives.

Message boards and journals (2000s). Forum software and journaling platforms displaced personal sites as the primary venue.[6] The period saw the first sustained mainstream media attention, beginning with a 2001 article in the Village Voice,[29] the first scholarly treatment, Danielle Kirby's 2006 "Alternative Worlds",[30] and the publication in 2007 of Lupa's A Field Guide to Otherkin, the first book-length survey.[1]

Tumblr (2011–2016). The community expanded rapidly on Tumblr, with a substantial influx of younger participants and considerably increased visibility.[6] Vocabulary diverged: contemporary observers within the community noted the near-disappearance of shift terminology, new constructions replacing older ones, the sorting of kintypes by intensity, and coinages including copingkin, other-hearted, and synpath — developments received with some hostility by participants from earlier venues.[7] The period also brought sustained trolling: the Prince-Koyangi account, run by three teenagers, was admitted as a hoax in 2012.[31] Disputes over the boundaries of the umbrella produced the coinage of alterhuman in 2014.[9]

Dispersal and documentation (2015–present). Activity has since distributed across Discord, forums including Kinmunity — founded in December 2014 — and Otherkin Phenomena, and a range of smaller venues. The same period has seen increased academic attention and a corresponding effort at community self-documentation, including Orion Scribner's timeline, lexicon, and directory of writings, Arethinn's history essays, and this wiki.[6][4][2]

Related and overlapping communities

The boundaries between the groups described here are disputed, and the account below reports the positions taken rather than resolving them.

Therians identify as animals, most commonly wolves and felines. The community began on alt.horror.werewolves in 1993, apparently without contact with the otherkin community for some years afterward, and has retained a distinct identity, vocabulary, and set of venues.[4][32] Whether therians fall under the otherkin umbrella is answered differently by different people.

Vampires describe a need to take in blood or energy. Community usage distinguishes sanguinarian and psychic vampirism.[6] The vampire community developed separately and the two have historically not mingled socially to a great extent; Scribner records that vampires "may possibly count as otherkin," which is as far as the sources go.[4]

Fictionkin identify as characters or species originating in fiction, and were earlier termed otakukin or mediakin. Inclusion under the otherkin umbrella has been contested, particularly for those whose kintype is a human character; community discussion has generally settled on including them, on the same reasoning that includes people who remember human lives on worlds other than Earth.[7] Fictionkin terminology draws largely on otherkin, plural, and soulbonder vocabulary rather than being distinct.[7]

Otherhearted people describe a strong affinity with a nonhuman being without identifying as it. Whether the distinction warranted its own term has itself been disputed, and the dispute was among those that prompted the coinage of alterhuman.[9][7]

Incarnate extraterrestrials, star people, and walk-ins emerged from a separate New Age lineage traceable to 1970s writing.[6] Scribner treats these communities as connected to but outside the scope of otherkin history proper.[4]

Plural systems and soulbonders describe more than one person, or more than one sense of self, sharing a body; plural vocabulary includes terms such as co-fronting and core personality. The two communities overlap in membership: Crisses' Otherkin FAQ carries a section on "Otherkin Multiples" reporting that "a reasonable number of people in the otherkin community are, for whatever reason, not only one person or mind in their body," and the Otherkind-Hosts mailing list ran for that intersection, described as "primarily an Otherkin list" and as "the list for exploring different types of multiplicity."[33][34] They overlap in vocabulary as well, and the companion Otherkin Multiple FAQ records the traffic term by term, tagging each glossary entry by origin – psychiatry, the multiple community, the otherkin community, or general use. Front, alter and headspace are marked as arriving from psychiatric and plural usage; host, resident and house rules as otherkin coinages.[35] Fictionkin usage draws on the same shared pool: in a 2015 forum discussion, Jarandhel Dreamsinger put it that the fictionkin community "doesn't really have a lot of terminology unique to itself – it uses a combination of otherkin terminology, multiple terminology, and soulbonder terminology."[7]

Furry fandom is a fandom rather than an identity community. Its Usenet origins are contemporaneous — alt.fan.albedo was created in November 1990 and renamed alt.fan.furry about a month later — and spiritual or philosophical discussion was not its original purpose and was not always welcome there.[4] The two are frequently conflated in press coverage; a 2009 article in the Michigan Daily is one documented instance.[36]

Reception and study

Main article: List of Otherkin Media Appearances

Mainstream media coverage dates to at least February 2001, when the Village Voice ran an article on the community.[29] Coverage since has been uneven, with recurring patterns including conflation with furry fandom[36] and the treatment of individual interviewees as representative. Robertson observes that media pieces, whatever the author's intent, reliably provoke hostile audience responses; Laycock argues that the hostility is prompted less by the beliefs themselves than by the fact that their holders have found mutual support.[6][10] Community responses have ranged from participation to refusal, and prominent community writers have advised others to avoid the media entirely.[6][37]

Trolling has been a persistent feature of the community's public exposure, particularly on Tumblr.[31]

Academic attention has come principally from religious studies, digital anthropology, and identity studies. Kirby's 2006 chapter was the first scholarly treatment,[30] followed by a monograph in 2013;[11] Laycock published on the community's religious dimensions in 2012,[10] Robertson on online therianthropy in 2013 and 2014,[32][24] and Getzler on discursive exclusion within the community in 2013.[14] The community has also produced substantial documentation of its own, notably Orion Scribner's timeline and lexicon and Arethinn's essays on the history of the terminology.[4][8][2]

Clinical concepts including clinical lycanthropy — the delusional belief that one is an animal, reviewed systematically by Blom in 2014 — present features that outside observers have compared to otherkin descriptions.[38] Robertson records that while some community members do attribute their identity to psychological or neurological causes, there is little interest within the community in a medical "cure," and considerable protest against inclusion in the psychiatric literature as a disorder.[6]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 Lupa. 2007. A Field Guide to Otherkin.
         Stafford, UK: Megalithica Books. ISBN 978-1-905713-07-3.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 Arethinn na'eleth aTinderel. 2021. A Brief(ish) History of the Word "Otherkind".
         Mythsong. https://www.mythsong.net/history/wordhist.html.
         Archived from the original on March 10, 2026 at https://web.archive.org/web/20260310162015/https://www.mythsong.net/history/wordhist.html. Last updated September 6, 2021.
  3. ↑ Arethinn na'eleth aTinderel. What are "Otherkind"?
         Mythsong. https://www.mythsong.net/basics/definition.html.
         Archived from the original on February 7, 2026 at https://web.archive.org/web/20260207073141/https://www.mythsong.net/basics/definition.html.
  4. ↑ 4.00 4.01 4.02 4.03 4.04 4.05 4.06 4.07 4.08 4.09 4.10 4.11 4.12 4.13 4.14 4.15 4.16 4.17 4.18 4.19 4.20 4.21 4.22 4.23 4.24 4.25 4.26 4.27 Scribner, O. 2012. Otherkin Timeline: The recent history of elfin, fae, and animal people, v. 2.0.
         The Art and Writing of O. Scribner. https://frameacloud.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Scribner_Timeline2p0.pdf.
         Archived from the original on June 2, 2026 at https://web.archive.org/web/20260602154806/https://frameacloud.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Scribner_Timeline2p0.pdf. Updated September 8, 2012.
  5. ↑ Crowsdaughter, Miaren. 2001. So... You're Awake.
         Otherkin.net. https://www.otherkin.net/articles/wakeup.html. (accessed April 6, 2012).
         Archived from the original on August 26, 2016 at http://web.archive.org/web/20160826002710/http://www.otherkin.net/articles/wakeup.html.
  6. ↑ 6.00 6.01 6.02 6.03 6.04 6.05 6.06 6.07 6.08 6.09 6.10 6.11 6.12 6.13 6.14 6.15 6.16 6.17 6.18 6.19 6.20 6.21 6.22 6.23 6.24 6.25 6.26 Robertson, Venetia. 2015. Otherkin.
         World Religions and Spirituality Project. https://wrldrels.org/2016/10/08/otherkin/.
         Archived from the original on September 21, 2025 at https://web.archive.org/web/20250921160847/https://wrldrels.org/2016/10/08/otherkin/. Posted September 5, 2015.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 7.6 7.7 7.8 7.9 Kitty Alexandre (Skylark) and Jarandhel Dreamsinger. 2015. Terminology and its modern use.
         Dreamhart.org forums, Otherkin General Discussion. https://dreamhart.org/forum/otherkin-general-discussion/terminology-and-its-modern-use/.
         Archived from the original on October 25, 2020 at https://web.archive.org/web/20201025170745/https://dreamhart.org/forum/otherkin-general-discussion/terminology-and-its-modern-use/. December 15–26.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 Scribner, O. 2013. Otherkin Lexicon: A Multi-Lingual Dictionary of Jargon Used in the Communities of Otherkin, Therianthropes, and Other Similar Peoples, Abridged Edition, v. 0.1.
          The Art and Writing of O. Scribner. January 21, 2013.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 Scribner, Orion. 2023. Masterpost about the meaning and origin of the word alterhuman.
         frameacloud (Tumblr). https://frameacloud.tumblr.com/post/727473573282856960/masterpost-about-the-meaning-and-origin-of-the.
         Archived from the original on February 14, 2026 at https://web.archive.org/web/20260214025055/https://frameacloud.tumblr.com/post/727473573282856960/masterpost-about-the-meaning-and-origin-of-the?. September 3, 2023; updated January 26, 2025.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 Laycock, Joseph. 2012. We Are Spirits of Another Sort: Ontological Rebellion and Religious Dimensions of the Otherkin Community.
         Nova Religio 15: 65-90.
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 Kirby, Danielle. 2013. Fantasy and Belief: Alternative Religion, Popular Narratives, and Digital Cultures.
         Sheffield: Equinox.
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 Various. 1999. Elven Language Page.
         Synesthesia Symbiosis. http://www.rialian.com/elvslang.htm. (accessed March 25, 2012).
         Archived from the original on November 18, 1999 at https://web.archive.org/web/19991118042833/http://rialian.com/elvslang.htm.
  13. ↑ Korai, Estara. 2000. Elenari Language Dictionary.
         Iseum of the Green World. http://greenworld.spiritualitea.net/elenaridict.html. (accessed March 25, 2012).
         Archived from the original on August 17, 2011 at http://web.archive.org/web/20110817123051/http://greenworld.spiritualitea.net/elenaridict.html.
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 Getzler, Melanie. 2013. Othering Among Otherkin: The Discursive Negotiation of the Face-Threat of Exclusionary Othering in a Demarginalizing Internet Community.
          Indiana University. PhD thesis.
  15. ↑ Amenti, Countess. 2007. The Dilemma Over Awakening Teens.
         Sanguinarius.org. http://www.sanguinarius.org/articles/Amenti_dilemma.shtml. (accessed April 2, 2012).
         Archived from the original on July 16, 2026 at http://web.archive.org/web/20260716223622/https://www.sanguinarius.org/articles/Amenti_dilemma.shtml.
  16. ↑ Debi Girard, "Alternate religions..." alt.horror.werewolves (Usenet), March 5, 1997. https://groups.google.com/g/alt.horror.werewolves/c/JIV_rzb0VUU/m/3_llUAXLdkwJ In context: "midway through my seventh grade year -to coin a White Wolf term you might say an "awakening"". Spelling as in the original. Earlier, unglossed uses appear on the same newsgroup: Spyder Everhunger asked "that I be Awakened" in a "werecard" self-description posted April 18, 1996 — the same post listing his hobbies as including "LARPing with White Wolf groups" — and wrote of "my Awakening" on August 1, 1996. https://groups.google.com/g/alt.horror.werewolves/c/YUk6A6Dy-Z8
  17. ↑ Mage: The Ascension (White Wolf Game Studio, 1993), Lexicon, s.v. "Awakened, The" and "Awakening, The". Quoted from a transcription at http://backupwod2.wikidot.com/mage:mage-lexicon (retrieved July 27, 2026); edition and page not confirmed against a physical copy. The other World of Darkness lines use the Embrace, the First Change, and the Chrysalis for the equivalent moment.
  18. ↑ Zardoa Silverstar and Silver Flame (The Silver Elves), "Elven Group Dynamics And Bonding Ritual," Circle Network News Vol. 8, No. 2 (Summer 1986), p. 13. Quoted from the scanned issue, digitised at the Internet Archive under the identifier bim_early-english-books-1641-1700_circle-network-news_summer-1986_8_2 — a cataloguing error that does not describe the contents — where it is lending-restricted. https://archive.org/details/bim_early-english-books-1641-1700_circle-network-news_summer-1986_8_2 The partial transcription of this article circulated on Rialian's site from 1999 is not a faithful reproduction; see Awakening.
  19. ↑ Arethinn. 2021. Reply on the Silver Elves and choice of identity.
          https://arethinn.tumblr.com/post/652382886510690304/aestherians-arethinn-aestherians.
         Archived from the original on February 4, 2026 at https://web.archive.org/web/20260204120942/https://arethinn.tumblr.com/post/652382886510690304/aestherians-arethinn-aestherians. Dated May 27, 2021. Arethinn was an active participant in the elven community from at least 1998. The post states that the Silver Elves' ideas "were not necessarily embraced when they were even heard of at all", that many regarded them as "fringe or too fluffy", and that their influence on otherkin online is "pretty dilute in the specifics".
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 20.2 20.3 Crisses et al. 2000. Crisses' Otherkin & Awakening FAQ v 3.0 Beta.
         KinHost.org. http://kinhost.org/res/Otherfaqold.php.
         Archived from the original on January 9, 2005 at https://web.archive.org/web/20050109122136/http://kinhost.org/res/Otherfaqold.php. January.
  21. ↑ Crisses et al. 2000. Otherkin & Awakening FAQ v 3.0 Beta.
          https://kinhost.org/res/Otherfaqold.php.
         Archived from the original on April 25, 2001 at https://web.archive.org/web/20010425192936/http://kinhost.org/res/Otherfaqold.html. Headed "v 3.0 Beta (1/13/2K)" over an earlier heading "v 3.0 Beta (9/27/99)"; §2.0.1, which answers "What is an Awakening?" descriptively and offers no account of the word's origin.
  22. ↑ overlord_mordax. 2021. Memory Checking.
         From Fiction. https://fictionkin.org/memory-checking/.
         Archived from the original on July 19, 2026 at https://web.archive.org/web/20260719031801/https://fictionkin.org/memory-checking/. Originally published April 22, 2021 at fromfiction.net; migrated to fictionkin.org.
  23. ↑ 23.0 23.1 23.2 Tirl Windtree and Mike Windtree. The Harmony of Discord.
         Otherkin.net. https://www.otherkin.net/posts/the-harmony-of-discord/.
         Archived from the original on July 16, 2026 at https://web.archive.org/web/20260716234158/https://www.otherkin.net/posts/the-harmony-of-discord/. Publication date unknown; internal evidence places it about a year after the site's launch of October 12, 2000. Migrated from an earlier version of the site.
  24. ↑ 24.0 24.1 Robertson, Venetia. 2014. The Law of the Jungle: Self and Community in the Online Therianthropy Movement.
         The Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies 14: 256-80.
  25. ↑ 25.0 25.1 Windtree, Tirl. 2000. Otherkin.net: Harmony & Discord.
          https://www.otherkin.net.
         Archived from the original on July 30, 2014 at https://web.archive.org/web/20140730044021/http://www.otherkin.net/index.html. Launched October 12, 2000.
  26. ↑ Kaltezar. 2002. The Otherkin Emblem.
          http://kaltezar.furvect.com/otherkin.html.
         Archived from the original on October 14, 2002 at https://web.archive.org/web/20021014032242/http://kaltezar.furvect.com/Otherkin.html. Site defunct.
  27. ↑ Adler, Margot. 1997 [1979]. Drawing Down the Moon, revised and expanded edition.
         New York: Penguin. p. 522.
  28. ↑ Gazer. 1999. The Lostkin Project.
          http://lostkin.org. (accessed April 2, 2012).
         Archived from the original on December 16, 2025 at http://web.archive.org/web/20251216151526/http://lostkin.org/.
  29. ↑ 29.0 29.1 Mamatas, Nick. 2001. Elven Like Me: Otherkin Come Out of the Closet.
         Village Voice, February 13.
         Archived from the original on November 16, 2012 at https://web.archive.org/web/20121116150651/http://www.villagevoice.com:80/2001-02-13/news/elven-like-me/1/.
  30. ↑ 30.0 30.1 Kirby, Danielle. 2006. Alternative Worlds: Metaphysical Questing and Virtual Community amongst the Otherkin.
         Through a Glass Darkly: Reflections on the Sacred, 275-87. Sydney: Sydney University Press. Edited by Frances Di Lauro.
  31. ↑ 31.0 31.1 Tiku, Nitasha. 2012. Teens Admit to Trolling Tumblr: JK, There's No Such Thing as Transethnic Autistic Pangender Asexual Demiromantic Otherkin.
         BetaBeat, July 5.
         Archived from the original on July 9, 2012 at https://web.archive.org/web/20120709000909/http://betabeat.com/2012/07/prince-koyangi-tumblr-troll-otherkin-transethnic-eric-draven-07052012/.
  32. ↑ 32.0 32.1 Robertson, Venetia. 2013. The Beast Within: Anthrozoomorphic Identity and Alternative Spirituality in the Online Therianthropy Movement.
         Nova Religio 16: 7-30.
  33. ↑ The Crisses. 2001. Otherkin FAQ v 4.0.1.
         KinHost.org. https://www.kinhost.org/res/Otherfaq.php.
         Archived from the original on June 10, 2004 at https://web.archive.org/web/20040610174300/http://kinhost.org/res/Otherfaq.php. February 8. Section 7.3, "On Otherkin Multiples."
  34. ↑ The Crisses. Otherkind-Hosts ListPage.
         KinHost.org. https://www.kinhost.org/res/lists/Otherkind-Hosts.php.
         Archived from the original on August 12, 2004 at https://web.archive.org/web/20040812225008/http://kinhost.org/res/lists/Otherkind-Hosts.php. List owner Malcolm&, co-moderators Crisses and Arhuaine.
  35. ↑ The Crisses. Otherkin Multiple FAQ (Beta).
         KinHost.org. https://www.kinhost.org/res/Multiplefaq.php.
         Archived from the original on July 10, 2004 at https://web.archive.org/web/20040710150245/http://kinhost.org/res/Multiplefaq.php. Glossary of Terms.
  36. ↑ 36.0 36.1 Stahl, Eileen. 2009. Furries have feelings, too.
         Michigan Daily, January 21, 4A.
  37. ↑ Dreamsinger, Jarandhel. 2012. A Revised Otherkin FAQ.
         Dreamhart.org. https://dreamhart.org/2012/01/a-revised-otherkin-faq/.
         Archived from the original on April 27, 2026 at https://web.archive.org/web/20260427042405/https://dreamhart.org/2012/01/a-revised-otherkin-faq/. January.
  38. ↑ Blom, Jan Dirk. 2014. When Doctors Cry Wolf: A Systematic Review of the Literature on Clinical Lycanthropy.
         History of Psychiatry 25: 87-102.

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