Species dysphoria is the experience of dysphoria (depression, discontent), sometimes including dysmorphia (excessive concern over one's body image), associated with the feeling that one's body is of the wrong species.[1] Earls and Lalumière (2009) describe it as "the sense of being in the wrong (species) body... a desire to be an animal".[2] Outside of psychological literature, the term is common within the otherkin and therian communities (Lupa, 2007).
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Species dysphoria has not been officially defined by the psychological community, and is mostly a term that has been informally used in psychological literature to compare the experiences of some individuals to those in the transgender community.[3] Otherkin and therian communities have also used it to describe their experiences.
A term that has also been used is "transspecies", after "transgender", described by Phaedra and Isaac Bonewits (2007) as "people who believe themselves to be part animal, or animal souls that have been incarnated in human bodies, much as some transgendered people believe themselves to be women in men's bodies or vice versa".[4]
In a 2008 study by Gerbasi et al., 46% of people surveyed who identified as "furry", (usually defined as a person with a strong connection with some sort of animal), answered "yes" to the question "Do you consider yourself to be less than 100% human?" and 41% answered "yes" to the question "If you could become 0% human, would you?"[5] Questions that Gerbasi states as being deliberately designed to draw parallels with Gender identity disorder (GID), specifying "a persistent feeling of discomfort" about the human body and the feeling that the person was the "non-human species trapped in a human body", were answered "yes" by 24% and 29% of respondents, respectively.[6] Gerbasi "tentatively dubbed" this condition "Species Identity Disorder", saying that "the similarities between their connection to their species and aspects of GID are striking".[7]
As described by those who experience it, species dysphoria may include sensations of supernumerary phantom limbs associated with the species, such as phantom wings or claws.[8] Species dysphoria involves feelings of being an animal or other creature "trapped in" a human body and so is different from the traditional definition of clinical lycanthropy, in which the patient believes they have actually been transformed into an animal or have the ability to physically shapeshift.[9] However, some cases that have been labeled as "clinical lycanthropy" actually seem to be cases of species dysphoria, involving persons who have no delusion of transformation but instead have feelings of being in some way a non-human animal, while still acknowledging they possess a human form. Keck et al.[10] propose a redefinition for clinical lycanthropy that covers species dysphoric behaviours observed in several patients, including verbal reports, "during intervals of lucidity or retrospectively, that he or she was a particular animal" and behaving "in the manner of a particular animal, i.e. howling, growling, crawling on all fours". Keck et al. describe one patient as a depressed individual who "had always suspected he was a cat" and "laments his lack of fur, stripes and a tail".[11] Except for the persistent feeling of being feline, the patient's "thought processes and perception" were "usually logical".
Some people experience both gender dysphoria and species dysphoria, and consider them to be related.[12]
The psychological community has not officially proposed any treatment for species dysphoria, as it has never been officially defined.
A group called the Equine Dream Foundation was formed to investigate the possibilities of species transformation, calling for morphological freedom - the right or ability to modify one's body - for all.[13] They have a website and online community forum.[14]
In 2007, Los Angeles artist Micha Cárdenas created Becoming Dragon, a "mixed-reality performance" in which a virtual reality experience was created to allow a person to completely experience life through the eyes of a dragon avatar in the virtual world, Second Life.
After the performance, Cárdenas reported that she "discovered... that people's identifications with their avatars in Second Life went beyond playtime fantasies. Many people deeply feel that they can only be their “true selves” in Second Life. Some of these people call themselves Otherkin, and feel deeply, truly, painfully that they were born as the wrong species, that they are foxes, dragons and horses. I would refer to them as transspecies."[15]
Jean Douturd's short novel Une Tête de Chien features a spaniel-headed human protagonist described by Giffney and Herd (2008)[16] as suffering from species dysphoria.
The protagonist of Julie Gonzalez's Wings (2005), a young adult novel, believes that he has trapped wings under his skin that wish to escape. He changes his name to "Icarus" to reflect this feeling.
Paul Goble’s Caldecott Award-winning illustrated children’s book, The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses (1978), is based on a Plains Native American folktale. In this story, a young woman leaves her tribe to live with a herd of wild horses. The horses adopt her, and she resists her family’s pleas to return home. After several years, the woman has integrated into the herd so completely that she becomes a horse. Her family respects that she has become truly happy with her new life.
In Gulliver’s Travels, the traveler meets the Houyhnhnms, a society of talking horses, who are largely free from the vices that troubled all the human societies he has so far seen. Gulliver comes to admire these wise horses, while feeling repulsed by the local feral humans called Yahoos. This stirs feelings of misanthropy in Gulliver. He describes his conversion into a horse by means of emulating their culture, although he remains physically human.