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(Non)Humanity and Species Dysphoria: the Forced Transformation Trope

Written by Gavin on August 25, 2024.

As a nonhuman, do you ever think about why there's so many stories and myths and legends about humans being turned into animals? You ever wonder why it's usually a punishment or a curse, or why the characters try to do whatever it takes to become human again? You ever think, "I don't understand, I would love to be an animal and get rid of my human body, what's the problem?"

As a human myself, one whose system has been in the alterhuman community for years, I hope I can help bridge the gap of understanding here.

The way many humans see being turned into an animal as a curse, the way they'd be incredibly distressed about becoming nonhuman?

That is species dysphoria.

That is a human experiencing species dysphoria, because being perceived as nonhuman or other-than-human causes the exact same feelings of pain and wrongness and disconnection from their body that a nonhuman can experience when perceived as human.

(Particularly, this might be an orthohuman, someone who has a normative relationship with their human cultural and species identity, as opposed to an alterhuman, who experiences alternative/nonnormative humanity or a species identity separate from humanity. Human alterhumans can also experience this sort of species dysphoria - hi, I'm one of them.)

Imagine being your species your entire life, the way you know you're intended to be, living in a body you're comfortable in - and then having that body ripped away from you. Being forced to live in a form that doesn't match who you are, what you know you are, and desperately wanting to find a way to change back because you know you're not meant to be like this.

If this sounds familiar because it's what you experience as a nonhuman - that is how a lot of human beings feel about being transformed into something nonhuman. It's the feeling of being the wrong species! It's the desire to return to the form that you know as yourself!

The fact that orthohumans are born into the species they identify as does not mean that they could never comprehend your nonhuman experience. You can explain your nonhuman species dysphoria to an orthohuman. Given all the examples of unwanted transformation stories throughout human history, I think you're likely to find that they'll understand when you put it in that frame of reference.

"How would you feel about being turned into another species against your will, leaving behind everything that feels good and right and comfortable about your human body? That sounds horrible, right? That's how I feel, being nonhuman in a human body, and it's distressing in the same way you would hate being human and stuck in a nonhuman body."

I know that the gap between humanity and nonhumanity looks enormous. The horror of, say, werewolf mythology looks like a completely alien experience when you are a wolf, so you see being transformed into a wolf as nothing short of a wonderful experience, and you don't understand why anyone would see it as horrifying.

But if you understand that it's not about the species, but the experience of species dysphoria, of being trapped in a body that has never been yours and desperately trying to return to one that feels like you, well - that's a lot more understandable, isn't it?

Humanity and nonhumanity are not two opposite ends of a binary, destined to never understand each other. I know many alterhumans who are both human and nonhuman, and their humanity is an identity in much the same way as their nonhumanity. Humans are just another species on this planet, as bipedal tool-using social primates, and we have our species identities just like many nonhumans. You are not as alone in this world as you might think you are.

There is room for understanding and connection. Your experiences as nonhuman are not purely individual, not wholly unique, not utterly incomprehensible to human beings, and this is a good thing. The gap isn't actually as wide as it seems. You can reach out and cross it if you just remember - you have far more in common than you might think.

okay. i understand that many people simply do not understand the essence of the previous post/don't understand the subject of the discussion. let's start with the fact that russia imposed its language at the state level by force. fifteen countries of the Soviet Union speak russian in one way or another precisely because their cultural identity was not taken into account. Khrushchev's words at the party congress in 1961: "the sooner we start speaking russian, the sooner we will build communism." do i need to explain what communism was like under the Soviet Union? the next paragraph will present several events on the language front of Ukraine.

April 6, 1933 — by order of the new leadership of the People's Commissariat of the Ukrainian SSR, a commission was organized to check the work on the language front. the task of the commission was "to reject the artificial (what could this mean?) demarcation of the Ukrainian language from the russian language in dictionaries and to eliminate nationalistic spelling rules that oriented the Ukrainian language toward Polish, Czech, and bourgeois cultures."

April 26, 1933 - a meeting in the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine on issues of national policy. the tasks have been set out to a wide circle:

— to stop the immediate publication of all dictionaries, to review the dictionaries and all terminology, to unify technical terminology with the terminology that exists in the Soviet Union and is used in Ukraine.

— to review the personnel on the language front and to expel bourgeois-nationalist elements from this front (people who in most cases resisted due to their education and clear understanding of the consequences of such decrees).

April 20, 1938 - the Council of People's Commissars of the Ukrainian SSR and the Central Committee of the Communist Party (bolsheviks) of Ukraine adopted resolutions "on the mandatory study of the russian language in non-russian schools of Ukraine", "on the mandatory study of the russian language in schools of national republics and regions". the resolutions for the first time included an order on the mandatory teaching of the russian language in all non-russian schools. (that is, not only in Ukraine, but also in all other countries of the Soviet Union).

April 17, 1959 - a session of the Supreme Council of the Ukrainian SSR adopted the law "on strengthening the connection between school and life and on the further development of the public education system in the SSR". the study of the Ukrainian language in schools was declared optional (that is, the majority of people were taught only in russian, which only increased the number of russian speakers, thereby eradicating the Ukrainian language, which carries the cultural code of the nation). the number of hours of teaching Ukrainian literature and language in secondary specialized educational institutions has been reduced (reduction of Ukrainian literature, therefore writers who write in Ukrainian, excluding the cultural and historical factor of Ukrainian nationality, completely blurring it and making it almost inseparable from Russians).

1970 - the order of the USSR Ministry of Education on writing and defending all dissertations only in russian. as a result, I am now faced with the fact that while writing my diploma and actively searching for resources, I constantly have to translate and clarify all the information, scanning it for the presence of political and ideological propaganda.

i could continue the list, but I would prefer to be unbiased and give several examples of such a policy.

Belarus.

during the language reform of 1933, the "classical spelling of the Belarusian language" was abandoned - more than 30 phonetic and morphological features were introduced into the Belarusian language, which brought it closer to the russian language. why?

on May 5, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Belarus created a special "Political Commission for Review of the russian-Belarusian Dictionary and New Rules for Spelling the Belarusian Language". it is noteworthy that not a single linguist was part of the commission, and its members were mainly politicians. i believe that russians or ideological puppets.

in the "russian-Belarusian Dictionary" in 1953, when the tracing of the russian language was put at the forefront, and, as a rule, the original Belarusian word followed. the question is the same, what's the point?

the President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko himself expressed an "interesting" opinion.

"nothing great can be expressed in Belarusian. the Belarusian language is poor. there are only two great languages in the world - russian and english" - according to this statement by President Lukashenko, which he made back in 1995, experts count the loss of status and displacement of the Belarusian language in Belarus. Lukashenko then initiated the granting of state status to the russian language, but in the end only russian became the state language, while Belarusian remained secondary and little used.

as is known he is a puppet of the Kremlin. needless to say that the Belarusian language was not taught in schools during the Soviet Union, literature in the Belarusian language was extremely impoverished, and propaganda made its own adjustments. i am glad that now Belarusians are switching to their own language and Ukrainians understand the Belarusian language without difficulty, it works both ways.

Kazakhstan.

the languages ​​of some peoples that were part of the Soviet empire experienced repeated changes of alphabets.

this applies, in particular, to the Turkic languages. Uzbeks, Turkmens, Kyrgyz, and Azerbaijanis previously used Arabic script for writing. in the late 1920s, according to the decree "on the new Latinized alphabet of Arabic writing," their languages ​​were transferred to the Latin alphabet. such an attempt was also made to the Kazakh language, but it did not take root at that time.

in 1932-1933, the state authorities of the USSR artificially created a severe famine(!) in the Kazakh SSR, as a result of which more than 40 percent of ethnic Kazakhs died. At the same time, more than a million citizens repressed by the Stalinist government were deported to the republic. therefore, the indigenous Kazakh population became an ethnic minority. subsequently, the percentage of Kazakhs in the total population decreased even more due to mass migration to the KSSR during major events, such as the development of virgin lands.

during some periods of Soviet times, the number of ethnic Kazakhs in the republic was only 30 percent. it was impossible to speak Kazakh in the cities because it was not understood, and many ethnic Kazakhs switched to russian in everyday life. mandatory study of Kazakh in schools was abolished, the number of Kazakh schools decreased (for example, in Alma-Ata there was only one school with Kazakh as the language of instruction).

"the opportunity to get an education in Kazakh began to decrease in 1939, and later higher education was only available in russian. consequently, parents who wanted their child to study at the institute had to prepare them for this and sent their children to schools with russian. as a result, a whole generation of exclusively russian-speaking Kazakhs appe,ared in Kazakhstan in the 1970s and 1980s." says Ainash Mustoyapova, author of the book "Decolonization in Kazakhstan."

Estonian language.

since 1940, with the Soviet occupation, the status of the Estonian language began to decline: it ceased to be the only state language - russian became the second, the use of the Estonian language in many areas was reduced: in international negotiations, diplomatic correspondence, in foreign trade and on trade marks, in matters concerning the armed forces in training. estonian was forced out of teaching and deprived of the opportunity to develop terminology in the fields of navigation, maritime, aviation and rail transport, it also ceased to be used in mining, energy, textile and some areas of heavy industry, since most industrial enterprises were under the direct control of moscow. sounds familiar.

Crimean Tatar language.

with the beginning of the Red Terror in 1921, the population of Crimea, and accordingly among the Crimean Tatars, decreased by a third.

during this time, several waves of genocide (and therefore expulsions) took place: the execution of the intelligentsia in 1921-22, the famine(oh, we heard about that already) of 1922-23, and up to 1926-27, dispossession and deportation to Siberia, the execution of the intelligentsia. and then Sürgünlik - the forced deportation of the Crimean Tatars from their native land to Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and the Urals.

currently, Crimean Tatar is considered a language that is on the verge of destruction (seriously endangered) according to the UNESCO classification. this means that the language is used by older generations of speakers, while parents do not instill in their children the study and knowledge of the language. this is also a consequence of the Deportation, genocidal actions, in particular, the ban on the use of the Crimean Tatar language in places of deportation, as well as the total Russification in the countries that were part of the USSR.

i will probably stop here, because this list can be continued for a long time, but the idea is the same everywhere - along with the language, the national identity of the people is washed away, the language stores the cultural code, historical information. myths, legends, ancient manuscripts, documents, literary collections, which include a description of the traditions and life of the people, all this has a huge influence. that is why people study different groups of languages, their influence on each other, that is why linguistics exists.

but the fact remains - the russian language is not native to all countries of the post-Soviet space except russia itself, it is an artificially imposed language, a whole scheme of extermination and subjugation of peoples who have mixed into one mass. now I see this as a huge problem: the russian language isolates from another world. people of post-Soviet countries can easily communicate with each other, but there is an opinion that learning english is simply becoming meaningless, because there are as many as 15! culturally and historically similar countries that speak the same language, and all together they are much larger than all of Europe. there is no such thing in western europe, there everyone speaks english as a common language, but each country has its own language, but here, in eastern europe it is very difficult to meet an armenian or romanian speaking their own language and this is pure madness.

this is a policy of isolation from the rest of the world, this is the impossibility of reading news from different sources, which often gives rise to a holy confidence that the propaganda media of their country are definitely not lying, because due to the impossibility of comparison, a person becomes like cattle without a choice who were not given any alternatives. and yes, i believe that if you speak russian and support military aggression, you should be isolated from society, because the desire to destroy is not the norm, a person with a destructive mindset without a clear moral compass is a threat to society, especially if he supports the murder of innocent (!) people.

this should not be the norm and must be discussed and if people themselves cannot understand what is what, the cancel culture will help us. only by making it clear to the russians that they are not welcome in society as long as a bloody regime destroys cities and lives, will they be able to realize that it is time to change something and that these changes must start with them. people can destroy regimes. people can win. people live on this earth only once and there is no point in living as a weak-willed creature.

all this was written for educational purposes. only being educated can we destroy a system that we do not like, because beliefs come from facts, which are based on knowledge. only by winning discussions with the voice of reason and protecting yourself from violence, but operating with common sense, can the new generation influence the future. do not be careless, learn and teach others, get information and inform.

Can you comprehend the sorrow of a star unable to find its way back to the heavens?

In our timeline we were both stars as in balls of heat but also stars as in star people... We had our own language, culture, traditions... Right now we are trying to recreate our old language in this world. However it gets hard as human brains cannot exactly comprehend it... As much as I love exploring this world and I definitely don't hate it, I miss our old abilities that weren't bounded by this human body.

At times, I find myself missing the simplicity of the perfect star society, even though I have an appreciation for this world. It seems that people have a tendency to make things more complex, despite the brevity of life and the fragility of the human body, which saddens me.

Every now and then, I try to recall the sounds of the language from that time, but it seems like the human brain is just not able to comprehend something like that. The sight of other stars brings me happiness. I am curious about your traditions, understanding that they can vary based on different factors, and I am keen to learn more. Could it be possible that we had a connection in the past?

Greetings !

Would it be possible for you to create an angelkin moodboard ?

I have preferences for colours of gold and grey but I wish for you to take liberty where you so please .

~ <3

💛🩶💛

not really an angelkin, but can relate soo.

bird like wings or wings made of nature (fire, thunder, light)

halos or horns

warrior or scribe

gardens or clouds

singing or playing

armor or soft linen

sword or quill

possessing a vessel or being born with it

heaven or earth

god or gods

pearls or gold

human form or true nature

church or altar at home

creating life or destroying life (none of it)

worship or be worshipped

pray or answer prayers

rebel or remain

tag: @kastle-thrones , @seraphfagfemme , @sillynamelessentity , @feathers-and-metal , @maxterofnone !

tag game this or that. angelkin edition

bird like wings or wings made of nature (fire, thunder,light)

halos or horns

warrior or scribe

gardens or clouds

singing or playing

armor or soft linen

sword or quill

heaven or earth

god or gods

pearls or gold

human form or true nature

possessing a vessel or being born with it

creating life or destroying life

church or altar at home

worship or be worshipped

pray or answer prayers

rebel or remain

tag: anyone that comes across this

merry christmas!

/pos

merry christmas and happy new year!

Hey it's @empyrean-demise again, this time on more information about starfolks (That isn't spoilers)

So there are two types of starfolks: Light and dark. Light starfolks are white with blue eyes or mask/ star, uses conventional weapons and can be hurt by water (But this doesn't apply to my version of source). Dark starfolks are black with orange eyes/ star, uses claws and martial arts and can go in water. In fact, in my version of source, dark starfolks really like water!Light starfolks uses ice or lightning magic, while dark starfolks uses fire or wind magic.

They are in a war with each other. The dark starfolks want to absorb their counterparts to become more "stable" light starfolks, while the light starfolks want to keep that stability. Absorption is a process where two (Usually opposite polarity) starfolks exchange their polarities, becoming stronger in the process. However, things can go a bit awry here, I'll come back to this in a bit.

Starfolks were created by this... diety of sorts? They just created us to fight each other. Plus we were from one of the long line of universes They made in search of... something. I still don't know what They were trying to look for.

You may noticed that Edda (My counterpart) and I have an interesting relationship: We don't attack each other, but instead work together! This is because we're both technically a Rare third type of starfolk: Dual, or Hybrid, type. These are starfolks who absorption has gone awry, turning them into neither light nor dark starfolks. There are two subtypes here are well: Unstable, which switches between mainly light and dark, and perfect, which are completely green and are extremely strong.

Dual-types can use all types of magic, including a special one only found in dual-types. Edda and I are both dual-types, but a special case where our friendship is the thing that makes us into a technical dual-type. It's very interesting now that I think about it.

While some of the facts resonated with me, the society I came from was quite different. However, I found it fascinating to learn about other starkins/spasekins. Ultimately, we are all connected by space. Thank you!

Anyone else feel like an outcast in the alterhuman community?

Most of the therians/alterhumans/nonhumans I see online are minors; I’m 20 years old.

Most of them can do quadrobics; I can’t run on all fours for five minutes without everything hurting, and if I did a jump, I’d probably break my wrists

A lot of them seem to enjoy the company of humans; I’ve never trusted or liked humans

Most of the community talks about being “silly” or “cute” when experiencing a mental shift; I have violent, animal instincts and avoid others when I feel a mental shift coming on

I don’t know. I just feel like a lot of us have become… tame. And I’m not. I feel like we as a community don’t talk about the “darker” side of not being human. The violent prey drive. The instinctive fear of humans that wild animals have.

To clarify, I mean no hate towards those who genuinely enjoy not being human. I just feel like even in a community of outcasts, I’m an outcast.

It’s just frustrating. In a place meant for those who aren’t human, I’m still too different to fit in. I just want to have a place to belong, you know?