I’ve been trying harder lately to not be paranoid and assume bad faith in others, so I have chosen to believe that people who post “eww, humans” might not consider how their sentiment impacts people who are already hurting. Frequently, I think they are posting it because of their own bad feelings and struggles, and don’t think about how that would make their friends and community feel.

In fact, a lot of the “human bodies are bad” sentiment revolves around how human bodies are impractical (disabled bodies are negative), sex is nasty and genitals are weird (transitioned bodies are negative)…

So, if I may, here are things I think we need more of:

• Human positivity, or at least tolerance, especially of the gross and yucky and boring parts
• Furries/aliens/robots/etc who love their human partners (and the focus is NOT on how cute or sexy the nonhuman is for doing so). Relationships that are mutual and not a Connecticut Clark joke.
• Humans from an alien but not negative perspective
• Nonhumanity as not a better but simply alternative experience

and I guess probably this far in you’re already thinking “most media is human-positive” but MCU dudes and anime boys are like pugs to me, they can’t live.

• Characters that live without prosthetics, or get feasible or life-impacting ones, rather than Cool Robot Parts; aesthetics (or sex factor.) should not justify or make up for a disability; a character that makes you think “gee, I wish they would cut my arm off!” is not disability representation. I have experienced people listing Junkrat as proof they could be attracted to me as a mobility aid user.
• Humans will not destroy machinery, no robot uprising, but rather they maintain the mutual relationship they’ve always had (and less of using robots as a stand-in for autism representation. My God.)
• Many human women were computers before machines were computers. I just think this is cool and not really explored :(
• Top surgery scars that are not like cool perfectly-symmetrical explosions or jagged teeth. Get a tattoo if you want, but a lot of the time scars are raised and shiny, which I rarely see either.
• I doubt anyone in the world enjoys their period, but they’re frequently pointed to as “proof” that humans aren’t worth being. If your periods make you lay down on the floor and want to kill yourself for a week, you seriously should see a doctor if you can. I didn’t know until it was way too late that I had other options, because periods are too yucky to candidly discuss and no one told me it wasn’t normal.
• Testosterone gives you acne. Spironolactone makes you need to pee more. There’s a lot of unexpected things like that, and they are not objectively gross or sexy; they’re just things that happen, that deserve to be discussed.
• Fursuit poodling (having uncovered skin in a partial fursuit). It’s not gross, it doesn’t ‘break the magic’. Fursuiting is sweltering exhausting work, and real humans are inside them, and they deserve to be appreciated.
• It can be really hurtful to blithely say that human genitals are disgusting, especially in front of people who may want to one day pursue affirmative surgery. If someone personally doesn’t like dongs, I wish they would just say that. Jeez.
• Nobody is “better” for having an aversion to human bodies for whatever reason. I understand personally that it can be isolating, especially if those reasons are trauma-related. But turning your sexual attractions into a matter of you being “better”, or a clubhouse, is not really coping with it. Disgust is not a judgment of morals or quality. It’s an emotion, and one that can be very hurtful to people who are already getting hurt.
• Because nothing is Good or Bad. It just is what it is. Judging people’s right to exist and be depicted, based on sex appeal or morality (or god forbid, purity, which I’ve seen more of recently, somehow completely ignoring the religious abuse connotations) is… messed up.