The earliest academic paper  to specifically reference therianthropy we have found yet

liongoatsnake:

We took a shot in the dark and got a copy of Chantal Bourgault Du

Coudray”s “The Cycle of the Werewolf: Romantic Ecologies of Selfhood in Popular
Fantasy.“ He had mentioned therianthropy and early therian community (talking about “spiritual therianthropy” and the usenet Alt.horror.werewolves) in his book

Curse of the Werewolf: Fantasy, Horror and the Beast
Within. So we had wondered if he had also talked about the topic in this academic article given the subject matter of the article.

It does. (Note: it is talking about the therian community as it was it was back in the late 90s/early 2000s as that is when the article was written.) Thus making it the earliest academic article to reference the therian community we have found yet as it was written in 2003. (Granted the reference is about what the otherkin communities would now called “werewolfkin” as they were the ones who also were included under the term therianthrope until later on. So the article is more in connection to werecreaturekin now despite him using the term therian (due to the terminology change).

Source – Coudray, Chantal Bourgault Du.
“The Cycle of the Werewolf: Romantic Ecologies of Selfhood in Popular
Fantasy,” Austrailia Feminist Studies, Vo.l 18 No. 40 (June 9 2003): pp 57
-72.