Why would it bother? It doesn’t try and figure out a way to accept people who believe they’re dead; it pathologises them as having a mental illness, because catering to their belief (by, say, manufacturing an environment which encourages them in thinking they’re dead) is an expense that doesn’t confer any societal benefits.
I don’t think we’re talking about the same thing, here.
When we have someone whose biological sex conflicts with the sex they feel they should be, we have the technology to superficially reassign their gender, and hopefully make them happier as a result. We can do something for them which helps them fit better into society.
When we have someone whose biological species conflicts with the species they feel they should be, what do we do for them? How do we make them fit better into society? In the absence of being able to transform them into zebras, and assuming we’re not prepared to cater for them in some sort of giant safari playpen, we would probably pathologise it as a mental illness.
I think you and I are at the point of needing more information about how otherkin would like to be treated if they can’t physically match their self-perceived identities.
Why would it bother? It doesn’t try and figure out a way to accept people who believe they’re dead; it pathologises them as having a mental illness, because catering to their belief (by, say, manufacturing an environment which encourages them in thinking they’re dead) is an expense that doesn’t confer any societal benefits.
Sometimes society changes when it’s pushed hard enough.
I don’t think we have any idea what the proportion of otherkin is.
What kind of a scenario are you envisaging here? Because I’ll confess I’m having trouble coming up with one.
As far as I can tell, transexuality got accepted (to the extent that it is) because enough people insisted on it.
Is courtesy to otherkin really weirder than respect for religion?
I don’t think we’re talking about the same thing, here.
When we have someone whose biological sex conflicts with the sex they feel they should be, we have the technology to superficially reassign their gender, and hopefully make them happier as a result. We can do something for them which helps them fit better into society.
When we have someone whose biological species conflicts with the species they feel they should be, what do we do for them? How do we make them fit better into society? In the absence of being able to transform them into zebras, and assuming we’re not prepared to cater for them in some sort of giant safari playpen, we would probably pathologise it as a mental illness.
I think you and I are at the point of needing more information about how otherkin would like to be treated if they can’t physically match their self-perceived identities.
Agreed :-)