A defense of the much ridiculed 'otherkin' community/movement
OK, I must admit I too thought "This isn't for real, it's a joke, my goodness it's pathetic" many years ago, when I heard of the otherkin communities. "No you losers, you are NOT elves or vampires or angels. You can't play in that dreamworld as if you WERE there."
Little did I realize that my own participating in classic pen-and-paper roleplaying games wasn't far from just that, whether I played a Hobbit thief in a Tolkienesque setting or a limping xenobiologist in Call of Cthulhu. Or when using a picture of a fictitious elf (Skywise) as my avatar on LiveJournal.
After having educated myself in the civil rights part of the H+ movement - and having matured a little over the past years - I certainly do not think the same of these people. Perhaps because I have met and discussed bodily autonomy, freedom of identity and expression with a lot of people, mostly with people who are involved with the trans movement.
So, let's take it at face value, shall we?
Some people take great joy in imagining themselves in bodies that look different and have different abilities so they create communities to meet like-minded. It may be furries, otherkin, pre-op transsexuals or...some transhumanists.
The main difference is usually the shape of choice. The shell, if you will. The physical extension of the personality.
It seems prudent to me that if the H+ movement should embrace, liberate and empower all sentience as it intends, it should also actively include and recruit otherkin, furries and likeminded instead of leaving creative approaches to the expression of sentience to ridicule.
I realize the danger in lumping these various groups together, as they might have very different feelings about why they have these bodily images, but if we want morphological freedom...we shouldn't just limit it to one.
Of course, when the technology does make such transformations possible, there has to be safeguard against those who'd opt for friggin' laser beams attached to their heads. However, these otherkin people do not seem at all less friendly than the extreme libertarian and powerhungry tendencies you see in a few canonized transhumanists.....
Little did I realize that my own participating in classic pen-and-paper roleplaying games wasn't far from just that, whether I played a Hobbit thief in a Tolkienesque setting or a limping xenobiologist in Call of Cthulhu. Or when using a picture of a fictitious elf (Skywise) as my avatar on LiveJournal.
After having educated myself in the civil rights part of the H+ movement - and having matured a little over the past years - I certainly do not think the same of these people. Perhaps because I have met and discussed bodily autonomy, freedom of identity and expression with a lot of people, mostly with people who are involved with the trans movement.
So, let's take it at face value, shall we?
Some people take great joy in imagining themselves in bodies that look different and have different abilities so they create communities to meet like-minded. It may be furries, otherkin, pre-op transsexuals or...some transhumanists.
The main difference is usually the shape of choice. The shell, if you will. The physical extension of the personality.
It seems prudent to me that if the H+ movement should embrace, liberate and empower all sentience as it intends, it should also actively include and recruit otherkin, furries and likeminded instead of leaving creative approaches to the expression of sentience to ridicule.
I realize the danger in lumping these various groups together, as they might have very different feelings about why they have these bodily images, but if we want morphological freedom...we shouldn't just limit it to one.
Of course, when the technology does make such transformations possible, there has to be safeguard against those who'd opt for friggin' laser beams attached to their heads. However, these otherkin people do not seem at all less friendly than the extreme libertarian and powerhungry tendencies you see in a few canonized transhumanists.....