An Interview With BearX

Recently, I was given the unique opportunity to interview a therianthrope who has been part of the therian community since its very beginning, but who has identified as something non-human for much longer...

By QuinnsDen - 23/4/25

Part 1: Therianthropy & Discovory

Name (can just be online name), age, and pronouns?
BearX, 52, he/himHow do you personally describe your therianthropy?
“Was meant to be born a bear. Wasn’t.”
What’s your definition of therianthropy?
An ongoing experience, unique to the individual, where they interpret their feelings, sensations, and/or mindset, as being partially or completely that of a non-human animalistic creature.
Has your definition changed over time?
It has. Early on, I felt it was spiritual and that was the definition my fellow AHWWers also used. I’ve grown since then to understand psychological therianthropy and the relationship between neurodiversity and therianthropy.When did you figure out that you’re not human?
I was between 6-8 years old. Late 70s, early 80s.
What led to your discovery?
I didn’t feel comfortable with my human shape. I felt I was too small, too hairless, too confined. I got obsessed with shows and movies that had werewolves in. I worried that I might be crazy. I was very young so it’s hard to remember my mindset back then.What is your theriotype, and how did you discover it?
Coastal Brown Bear
I researched mercilessly. Took Latin classes so I could read older texts. Realized there were cultures with shapeshifters other than wolves and discovered bears fit best.
How long after your awakening was this?
7-8 years
How did you label your identity and experiences at the time?
I figured I was a lone crazy person. Thought it might be clinical lycanthropy. However, I had no delusion of physical transformation.
Do you experience shifts and/or species dysphoria? (if so, what shifts are most common, and on a scale of 1 - 10, how severe is your dysphoria?
Mental shifts, mainly. A sense of a seperate, but connected “inner bear” nature. Mild phantom shifts when I’m doing intense exercise (paws, shoulder hump) although that’s only been in the last decade. My sense of dysphoria varies, it can be as high as 8 or as low as 3, but there’s always a sense of wrongness. I spent many a “dark night of the soul” begging God to give me the right body – it took a long time to accept that this hairless ape shell was who I am.
How do you experience therianthropy? Does your experience match one of the “levels of integration”?
A constant sense that I’m supposed to be heavier, feeling exhaused in the winter, a fondness for fish and other bearish foods, and a sense of denial when I see my human body. Those things can be human experiences too, but I view them through the lens of being a bear.
Multiple personalities, shared memories. I’ve always had a sense of “the bear” as being a kind of seperate thing from “the human”. This was a very common way to experience therianthropy in the early community, but has become far less so in modern times. I talk about it in this interview with Pink Dolphin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KPy1dgdKUU&t=3sHow do you connect with your theriotype?
I live on the coast, so I swim, hunt clams in the sand, eat the foods my theriotype eats like fish, berries, edible plants. Bear related chothing/t-shirts.How did you explain your identity to yourself before the “creation” of modern therianthropy?
Ultimately, I’d decided that it was just the way I was. A kind of obsession, maybe a touch of madness.
Were you open about it with others?
Hell no! Not back then. These days I’m much more open.
If you were, what was the most common reaction?
I did talk with my girlfriend at the time. (now wife) And she responded with “no one is that into bears without something deeper going on”
Were other terms used at the time to refer to your experience?
Yes... we called ourselves “weres”, since werebeasts were a metaphor for our experiences. We called dysphoria, “homesickness”.

Part 2: AHWW

When did you join AHWW?
November, 1993
How did you find it, and what made you want to join?
I searched for "werewolves" -- and stumbled on the site. I used USENET back then for a lot of discussions, so there was nothing unusual about there being a newsgroup dedicated to the topic. I joined because I'm a fan of werewolves in media, they're a good metaphor for therian experiences. There's a reason we talk about "shifts" after all.
What were discussions primarily focused on at the time?
Werewolf books, movies, and artwork.At what point would you say there was a considerable shift towards discussions primarily on therianthropy?
It was when Ron Werebat came out an talked about how he had a dream of being a bat and flying over a big lake. He basically confessed that he felt he should have been a bat, then a bunch of us chimed in how we felt similarly. I think the confession thread was called "Let's get serious for a sec".When you were part of AHWW, did you believe or think that the therian community would grow so much?
Not at all, I expected it to be the most niche of the niche.Were you able to stay in contact with any therians from AHWW?
Oh sure, I talk to lots of folks quite often. Many of us are still around.What is/are some of your favourite memories from AHWW days?
Mainly the discussions I had with folks on IRC. It was a real-time chat system similar to discord, but more primitive. I got to know many of them and then met in person. I used to know a polar bear therian I would go on bear watching trips with. I went and visited many therians during those years. Probably 20 at least and met dozens more at the howls.What Howls/meets did you attend?
The 2nd and 3rd "official" Howls, The Spring Thaw howl and the Fall Howl. I attended the virginia howl annually through the 90s as well as hosted a bunch of microhowls with a small group of friends in Texas and Delaware. Most recently I attended the ressurrected Virginia Howl in 2019.
What happened at the 2nd Harvest howl? What was your experience there? There is no information (that I can find) on it, besides a collection of pictures from an AHWW post in 2011
It was out in Ohio. I went there with my roomates at the time. I was living with a couple other therians. It was, like most Howls, a communal camping trip. We hung out, talked, played music, shared food and fellowship, and generally enjoyed time with each other around the campfire.If you could go back and give advice to the community back then, what would you say?
I would suggest that we needed to make sure we had a permanent repository of the things we wrote and thought and that we shouldn't erase things. There is so much lost from those days. Thousands of posts from the newsgroup, from forums, millions of messages from IRC...
I would also advise us to make a more clear set of definitions that were wide enough to cover the range of experiences that exist but also to prevent certain experiences from being labelled "not therianthropy".In the earliest picture of the AHWW (first Harvest Howl), Smash Greywolf is seen wearing some sort of canine taxidermy. Would this have been classified as ‘gear’ at the time?
No, it was just Smash being Smash. He had that at every howl I saw him at, but he was the only one.
Were these a popular thing to wear/use?
Nope. We didn't really have "gear" in an described sense -- we just all had stuff that made us feel more animal. It wasn't something we really discussed to any great depth.
What do you believe is the first ‘gear’ used by members?
Animal t-shirts -- we ALL had those.What are some terms used by members to refer to their experiences that are no longer used?
Um. "Ranger", someone who looked after you when you were shifted. "Were", what we called ourselves. "Skin", somewhat derogatory term for someone who wasn't a therian, they were all skin, no fur.Who created AHWW? Did they stick around for most of the time that the group was running?
No idea. Usenet groups could be created anonymously and anyone could do it. I looked up the "make group" for it, back in 1992, however, there was no name associated with it. As far as I could tell, it was created as part of the general "alt.horror.*" group set for common horror monsters and themes. Whoever created it was not a participant in the group itself.Also, if you have pictures from Howls (and are willing to share them, of course), they would be invaluable.
This was when pictures required spending money to buy the film and develop it, so I don't really have any pictures being a broke college student at the time. Scraping the cash together for gas was hard enough, lol.

Part 3: The Community Now

What’s you opinion about the therian community nowadays?
I'm concerned about it. I feel as if it has fragmented into multiple groups which have different views on therianthropy. I keep running into folks who say "therians don't think they're animals, they just have past lives." What? No. There is a certain level of animal connectivity to be expected.
Are the beliefs of therians nowadays are similar to those of therians in the 90s?
There was a much greater focus on spirituality and a connection to historical shapeshifters/mythology. Much of that seems to have disappeared or been watered down.
If you were asked in the 90s about your definition of therianthropy, what would you say?
I would have said that it was an intense connection to a species of animal where the individual believes they should have been born as that animal and/or can mentally shift into the mindset of that animal.When do you think gear and quadrobics became popular/started representing therianthropy?
Around 2018 or so.
What’s your opinion on gear and quadrobics?
They're just ways of expressing one's inner animality. No different than the way that people throughout history have used masks and body movement to express that connection. It's just a modern take.How do you feel about the term ‘Greymuzzle’? Would you call yourself one?
I would never call myself one. We established a hard rule in the AHWW days, Greymuzzle was something other people called you, not something you would call yourself. It was earned by being a positive contributor to the community. It was a combination of time and effort. I have been referred to that way because not only am I one of the oldest active members still in the community but I ran an ISP for therians (lycanthrope.org), and actively contributed time, money, and effort to our community.
How do you feel/what’s your opinion on how the community views older members?
I think there's a lot of lost respect and a lot of lost history because older therians are often seen as out of touch. I was actually told at one point, "You all had your time, now it's ours." It depressed me becaue I would have been happy to talk about things we'd learned trying to figure out what therianthropy was, but if younger members aren't interested, what can we do?Do you think social media has affected how therianthropy is viewed?
Very much -- in ways both good and bad. In one way, it's allowed young therians to see they weren't alone. However, at the same time, it's allowed a dillution of what therianthropy is that has created a popular conception that it's just "kids having fun". It's literally at the core of my personal spirituality, but I often get into discussions on social media defending it against critics who claim it's destroying the youth while others claim that it's just kids having fun. It's just very exhausting.
How do you view the large amounts of younger therians discovering the community through platforms like TikTok?
It's kind of difficult because I haven't been able to figure out how to use TikTok, lol. So, I'm completely uninformed about what's going on there. Originally, AHWW acted like a hub where we could discuss things and the community adopted terms and such based on a conscensus. Now, everything is so fragmented, it seems there's multiple different things happening.
I think it's great there are younger folks realizing they're therians, I just wish so many wouldn't just "try it" and realize they aren't. I've seen people who are like, "I used to be a therian but now I'm not. I wouldn't have anything to do with that cult." Cult? There's nothing cultish about therianthropy.
The fragmentation is also leading many folks to return to the "were" terminology of the past.Where do you see the community heading in the future?
I see a confrontation with legislators who don't understand us. You can see it with the increasing laws against "litterboxes" and "non-human behavior" in schools. The more the mainstream hears and misunderstands therianthropy, the more difficult that will be.