A Therianthrope or an Animal Person is someone who is, feels, or believes they are in part or whole one or more non-human animals on an integral, personal level. [1] A person experiencing Modern Therianthropy, which can be based on either spiritual, psychological, and/or neurobiological experiences that lead a person to identify as a non-human animal.
Therianthrope was being used in Alt.Horror.Werewolves as early as 1995/96. Around 2005, Therian became the commonly used short form of Therianthrope, replacing the old term Were. The term “therianthropy” was first mentioned in AHWW on December, 14, 1994.[2]
The words therianthropy and therianthrope originates from a portmanteu of the Greek words Therios and Anthropos (animal and human respectively) which, combined, loosely translate to "human animal" or "animal man".
See also: theriotype
There are many sub-types of Therians that may or may not be mutually exclusive:
- Contherianthropy
- Suntherianthropy
- Vacillant Therianthropy
- Polytherian
- Cladotherianthropy
- Paleotherianthrope
Further Reading[]
Scribner, O. “Otherkin lexicon: A multi-lingual dictionary of jargon used in the communities of otherkin, therianthropes, and other similar peoples, v. 0.1 Abridged.” The Art and Writing of O. Scribner. 8 September, 2012. http://frameacloud.com/otherkin/nonfiction-otherkin/otherkin-lexicon/
Scribner, O. “Otherkin timeline: The recent history of elfin, fae, and animal people, v. 2.0.” The Art and Writing of O. Scribner. 8 September, 2012. http://frameacloud.com/otherkin/nonfiction-otherkin/ [Therianthrope/Therian term page 30-32] [History of online Therian community start on page 28]