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The Divide Between Voluntary and Involuntary Identity

aepaex - 2020-01-16 20:55:20

First of all, I want to say that I'll be posing a healthy amount of questions here- if people feel that this should be split into multiple threads, let me know. I just didn't want to spam the board.

Discussion about voluntary and involuntary identity on the server last night got me thinking. My opinion on the topic is still murky; there are times when I understand why those two experiences (or the two extremes on a spectrum of experiences) are divided, and times when I don't. I know that this affects inter-community culture, and it affects how people feel about their identities, but to my knowledge there hasn't been much discussion on the how/why. It's a broad subject.

So, I figured I'd start some!

Lopori - 2020-01-18 02:49:50

Both of my identities are primarily involuntary, with mermaid being the most involuntary as it started from a younger age. The voluntary aspect of both is the identity being a direct response to dysphoric feelings, like how trans people usually discover and subsequently live their proper gender (speaking from experience, might I add). Someone who wishes so hard they're male/female/whatever does so because they already are, and so they eventually transition.

The species themselves are the involuntary part, I didn't set out to feel this way about bonobos or mermaids, I spent a lot of time embarrassed by it and partly still am. But in the end it wasn't totally unwelcome and I actively explored both as they, and I, developed. As is the case with a lot of alterhumans. None of us go in totally blind, I think we're all a little quoiluntary.

There are slight differences between my bonobo and mermaid identities, the latter being more recent and what I tend to use as my default avatar in online spaces. Mermaid is ever present too, but I express it differently and more subtly (I was more pro-active as a kid). I have more species dysphoria about bonobo currently, so asserting myself as one of them in my social circles is beneficial. It's also something that sprung up during a turbulent life period, mermaid started from early childhood so I don't remember the catalyst. I couldn't imagine life without both, it's been so long now. Both offer me something invaluable, a sense of belonging and a succinct way of describing myself.

The involuntary community tends to be a bit stricter about what counts as involuntary which is why I've been so quiet on the topic for so long. The voluntary community is too new to notice much of a pattern.

I don't agree with the separation, it's a spectrum. Very rarely do I see an otherkin/therian whose identities are 100% an unwelcome freak accident. Very rarely do I see other-linkers whose identities are 100% actively picked out of a list for shits and giggles, the circumstances are often stumbled upon and couldn't be helped at the time. The amount of activities involuntary kin do to "get in touch" with our kintypes is very deliberate, too! I only taught myself to swim in my youth so I could live a more authentic mermaid existence. (Once again, like how one wears a binder to appear more masculine)\ The initial feelings are involuntary, how you react to them is entirely up to you, that part is a decision. The black and white distinction is bullshit!

The division has a negative impact for sure, it makes discussion about the topic very awkward in most alterhuman spaces.

SatuSepiida - 2020-01-19 19:15:13

Alo: Most of my alterhuman identities are quoiluntary at this point. I'm draconic; I've been dragonhearted for forever and eventually aquired a dragon form by creating a dragonsona I could shift into. I'm a polymorph and I don't identify as all the things I can shift into, but dragons are important to me. My polymorphism is probably involuntary, but as a kid (muir former self) basically practiced phantom/mental shifting for fun. Also my alien identity functioned like a copinglink when (former muis) was a teen and wei didn't know about this stuff yet, long before I found out about my actual alien past live/s. The alterlink and personal narrative I developed around it informs my identity more than the involuntary past life does.

Quasar: I've identified with void/shadow people since I chose my name, though that association was more involuntary. I tend to appear in headspace as a vague silhouette. Recently I developed a machine/computer/robot alterlink (to help me better interface with the body), and my chosen representation of that is my objecthead voidsona. I might actually prefer appearing to my systemmates as my voidsona now, instead of my vague shadow form.

Quasar & Alo: With respect to the community aspect, wei have left most communities where there is a strict border between voluntary and involuntary identity, as wei don't feel a belonging there.

Viola: I'm a lowborn cubus who walked in, so that's just who I am, and my whole life before coming here. It's totally involuntary. I'm also a kitsune/many-tailed fox as of recently. That's my fursona, totally voluntary. I usually get phantom horns while fronting, but lately I've had phantom fox tails too.

There is a difference for me between these identities. I've had a whole life as a demon, while being a fox is new. Maybe I'll create a detailed backstory for my sona, idk yet. Maybe I'll do some past life meditation and suddenly glimpse a lifetime of fox memories (like Alo did with aliens), shrug. But like, demon-ness for me is default and fox-ness isn't. I could probably give up being a fox if I wanted to? But I really don't want to, so.

But also, I don't think I could stop being a demon without completely changing myself into a totally different person. Like, I would't be me at all anymore. I'd stop existing. This might be because I'm an extranth, and I don't have the strongest connection to our body or the world it lives in. I do think my fox sona is probably the strongest connection I have to this world right now, as I'm using it to connect to our partner.

Basically, it's complicated. And there's probably a different experience between me as an extranth pluran and between singlet otherkin, too. I don't really care to divide the voluntary vs. involuntary communities, though. I think choosing who I am, shaping my future, is just as important as remembering my past.

Lopori - 2020-01-19 21:15:46

SatuSepiida:

I think choosing who I am, shaping my future, is just as important as remembering my past

I agree with this, much of the older otherkin writing explores this concept. Using meditation and other things to find and cultivate their draconic or elf side etc. It was presented as legit and just another way of being kin. The involuntary vs voluntary dichotomy is relatively very new.

The archetype of the bonobo has always been a source of inspiration for me. I utilise that when I can and it has helped me (partly) overcome social anxiety and improve social skills, I want to be more like that archetype. Though it's not accurate to the real animal but that's another topic entirely.

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dragon - 2020-02-25 17:46:39

The voluntary/involuntary divide is a little weird to me because it's always to some extent artificial. Being who you are is not always a choice, but how you frame it always is. For instance, I've always been a dog and cat internally, but I didn't think of myself as a dog or cat therian for a long time, due to lack of exposure to the community. I took the same traits and framed them as empathizing with these species to unnatural degrees and sharing behavioral patterns with them. Same thing with gender - I've always been trans, but I didn't think of myself that way for a long time, and identified as gender nonconforming/thought gender was nonsensical. Those are my most involuntary identities, with the traits being very involuntary, but the identities and labels being something I choose.

In contrast, my Lienid identity is the closest I have to an otherlink. I do feel a resonance with Lienid culture, and it calls to me, but it's more of an appeal than a past-life feeling, like with my other fictionkin identities. Nonetheless, I find a great deal of comfort in my Lienid identity, and it fills out a part of me in what I'd call a necessary way. So while it's not something I feel I inherently identify as, it's something that is just as important to me as my gender identity, and denying it would result in a similar reduction of my wellbeing. I'm someone who's very interested in origins and causation, so the difference between an "involuntary" and "voluntary" identity is interesting to me in an academic way, and it can inform some things, but I don't think it's really that important.

I haven't spent a ton of time in any otherkin community, so I can't really speak to attitudes there, but the "my identity is not a choice" rhetoric reflects a pattern in oppressed communities - we saw (and sometimes see) it in the gay community, the trans community is just starting to move away from it, and it's created a huge divide in the plural community in the form of The Syscourse™. I think it's mostly a reflection of insecurity - if people think your identity is a choice, they can force you to make a different choice because they hate you. If you feel more accepted, you can feel safer saying your identity is a choice, without fearing that everyone will tell you you chose wrong. There's also a certain amount of oppression olympics and self-hatred: some people who bash people with voluntary identities do so either because they wish they weren't what they were, or because they've faced a lot of pain because of their identity, and can't imagine anyone would choose to be that way and face that pain.

Again, I haven't spent a lot of time in any otherkin community, but I definitely stay away from Traumagenic Only™ plural communities since we don't identify as traumagenic - not exactly the same thing as Involuntary Only, but there are similarities and significant overlaps. Same thing with truscum in the trans community. I don't think it's healthy to gatekeep or to focus on pain and being forced to be a certain way, and the communities that allow people to identify however they want consistently seem to be happier. I also think accepting voluntary identities is a logical inevitability of accepting these identities - if being alterhuman/trans/gay/etc isn't bad, then why would it be bad to choose to be that way?

Sapphire (ey/em)

Anomaly - 2020-02-26 20:38:35

Blurring/talking about this as a group because enough of us experience being in between voluntary/involuntary but most of us are a little more private about it.

The way our system works is that we start off as fragments, which the way we use it are like system members that experience less of a sense of self and are much more one dimensional. These fragments develop into full system members over time, sometimes in a day sometimes in a few years. Because of this, it is entirely possible for a fragment to pick an identity. Sometimes we may also help them pick an identity to help them fully develop.

When it comes to identity past development it's usually not something you can control. Although it is in theory possible for some to stop being what they are due to the way system identity works, it would probably cause serious and dangerous effects. Though sometimes changing identity happens naturally over time, some of our system started off as one species and then over the course of many years becomes another. Although for some they can be, our identities are not always fully static.

Though there is also the case of our group identity, which is an alien. Being an alien is involuntary and we can't control or stop being an alien, but what is voluntary is usually the specific types of aliens we adopt as identities. Our alien identity is more vague, it's psychological and we don't identity as a specific alien species as a whole. However, as we have been discovering our shared alien identity more and more some find it easy to adopt a copinglink identity of a specific alien species to understand the feelings better personally. Our aliensona for example could count as a copinglink, but it's also the representation of very involuntary otherkin feelings.

We do think when it comes to voluntary identities and otherkin in particular it is a lot more grey than being strictly voluntary. While we feel it's important to distinguish otherkin from roleplaying or choosing an identity for coping (and keeping it in controlled coping), and the assumption that otherkin is a choice we have seen lead to several issues with gatekeeping and erasure of community history and terms, we don't think this should come at the cost of harming those who identify as otherkin but have a voluntary or quoiluntary identity.

We also feel otherlink, copinglink, and similar voluntary identities should be distinguished as their own community but still close to the otherkin community. There are many shared experiences, but I feel like many of us who are otherlinkers want to have our own spaces and more recognition.

Juushika - 2020-02-27 04:25:38

Such good replies!

I fall within a "traditional"/conservative rubric of therianthropy: involuntary identification as a singular, identified real-world animal. But voluntary elements are still part of my experience. Particularly what Lopori mentions re: an involuntary kintype but a (partially) voluntary lived experience. I would always be cat, and the things that impel me to live-as-cat are important and fundamental, but much of my behaviors, appearance, etc. are chosen expressions of being cat.

I also find that voluntary elements shed light on involuntary ones. My (appearance-/body- related) noemata are almost exclusively physical, so I chose visual elements for my avatar identity. I settled on an orange cat to mimic the appearance of my human body, which helps with my dysphoria. Orange cats are predominantly male; I'm AFAB. That "voluntary" difference in sex lead me to investigate my (de)sex-as-cat, (non)"gender"-as-cat, how it interacted with my identity as a domestic animal, and how it influenced/how I wanted it to influence my current gender identity. It was formative self-exploration which revealed an essential element of my cat-self.

That productive communication between voluntary and involuntary helped me unlearn the gatekeeping that involuntary communities in particular are prone to. Like most labels and subgroups, I find the (in)voluntary divide only useful insofar as it helps individuals comprehend or describe their experiences. In reality, most everything's a spectrum-and what I've found most enlightening is conversation about experience, regardless of identity.