Otherkin
Some otherkin believe their identity derives from non-physical spiritual phenomena, such as having a nonhuman soul[1]: 73–76 [better source needed] or reincarnation.
[1]: 57–58 Some otherkin give non-spiritual explanations for themselves, such as unusual psychology or neurodivergence,[1]: 80–86 or as part of dissociative identity disorder or multiplicity.
[1]: 107–108 The word otherkin, in the context of a subculture, was created in July 1990 by participants of the mailing list Elfinkind Digest.
[1]: 50 Over the following decades, the word "otherkin" entered common usage enough to be later added to the principal historical dictionary of the English language.
[7] Examples include but are not limited to the following: aliens, angels, demons, dragons, elves, fairies, horses, foxes, wolves, sprites, unicorns, and fictional characters.
[15] Otherkin communities online largely function without formal authority structures and mostly focus on support and information gathering, often dividing into more specific groups based on kintype.
For example, one early use of it was by the Silver Elves in an article they published in the summer 1986 issue of Circle Network News.
[11] A student at the University of Kentucky created the Elfinkind Digest, a mailing list for "elves and interested observers.
"[1]: 50 Also in the early 1990s, newsgroups such as alt.horror.werewolves (AHWW)[20] and alt.fan.dragons on Usenet, which were initially created for fans of these creatures in the context of fantasy and horror literature and films, also developed followings of individuals who identified as mythological beings.
[1][21] On 15 December 2006, the Minneapolis-based newspaper Star Tribune published an article about dragons that included a section about the otherkin blog Draconic.
[citation needed] On 7 April 2010, the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter published an article titled "Ibland får jag lust att yla som en varg" (“Sometimes I get the urge to howl like a wolf”) in which Lanina, founder of the Swedish language otherkin and therian forum therian.forumer.com, described the basics of what it is like to be a therian.
[11] Kirby described otherkin as sharing ideas with the neopagan movement, however she called this an "interim classification", and warned that "to construe this group as specifically neo-pagan or techno-pagan obscures the focus of the participants".
