about werewolf

Werewolf as a practice

As a personal practice, werewolf is defined by actions and behaviors that do not align with understood heteropatriarchal, white supremacist, or capitalist norms. This can take a wide variety of forms depending on the individual werewolf’s experiences. The core tenet at the heart of the practice of werewolf is to outwardly express something internal that would normally be stifled by the dominant narratives and accepted norms.
The practice of werewolf is differentiated from the experience in that practice is the physical, body moving activities, where the experience is the internal, emotional landscape. One may experience werewolf without practicing it, or vice versa.

For me, this manifests as a practice of unabashed sexual interest paired with chivalry, and a growing dedication to unlearn heterogender norms and imagine a healthy masculinity for myself.

Werewolf as an experience

As an experience, werewolf is defined by a tension within the self between the normative, acceptable elements (whether actual, imposed, or internalized) and the non-normative, quare elements of the werewolf’s life. The experience of chafing against the expected standard—and especially of desiring to break away from it—are fundamental.
Werewolves also experience strife in communicating and existing in this space. Living as a werewolf is a form of labor, as failing to fit cleanly into normative society is hardship. This spans across different parts of a werewolf’s experience and relates closely to werewolf as a politic.

Werewolf as an identity

As an identity, werewolf relates closely to transgender, transsexual, and nonbinary identities. It is at its core a queer-aligned identity. Due to the transformative aspect to the identity, werewolf relates the feeling of some kind of change or inherent quareness of the body. It is an identity with multiple faces, many meanings, and many forms. Werewolf is also connected to therianthropy, otherkin, and animal identities. To identify as werewolf is to flag yourself as someone who relates to werewolves (in reality and in fiction) and adopt a dual-natured identity. It is auto-identified, so there are no criteria for who can and cannot identify as werewolf. The point of the identity label is to unify people who feel similarly, not construct a “normative” werewolf.

For me, my werewolf identity is very closely connected to my butch identity, trans and queer identity, and my sexuality.

Werewolf as a politic

Werewolf operates as a political theory of the flesh—Cherrie Moraga describes theories of the flesh as “[the] physical realities of our lives—our skin color, the land or concrete we grew up on, our sexual longings—all [fusing] to create a politic born out of necessity”. To be politically werewolf is to understand the positionality of werewolves and desire to ameliorate the struggle that fundamentally defines werewolf existence through action. It is not a politic chosen or adopted, but one fundamental and essential to living in the hybrid space werewolf does. One cannot experience life as a werewolf without adopting a werewolf politic.

further reading

Below, I will present a pseudo-bibliography with texts I find fundamental to my understanding of werewolf from both werewolf fiction literature, academic theory, and autobiography:

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