How to Find your Kintype

Generally speaking, your kintype finds you, and then you recognize that what you’re feeling is being kin.

However, if you’re doing it the other way around and either wondering if you may be kin, or know you’re kin and just haven’t found your specific kintypes, here’s one way to go about looking.

1. Ask yourself what makes you feel like you might be kin.

  • do you ‘feel nonhuman’?
  • have image dysphoria/feel like your body/face is wrong?
  • do you have memories/visions/dreams of another place or people/creatures you haven’t met on earth?
  • Do you experience sensations like supernumerary phantom limbs (tail? ears on top of your head? wings?) or feel like there are senses you are missing, or abilities you should have but don’t?
  • Do you experience feelings of homesickness even when in your own bedroom, or feelings of unexplained loss or grief- like there are missing people in your life?
  • Is there a certain show, character, creature, place in nature or fictional world that you’re drawn to or makes you feel strange and nostalgic?
  • Do you have other feelings or clues that make you feel like you might be kin?

2. Write down all the evidence you believe points at you being kin, and look for a pattern in it.

3. Analyze that pattern.

  • do you feel like you are drawn to the woods, and have sensations of a phantom tail? You might have a kintype that is some kind of forest animal.
  • feel like you’re missing magical powers, and have visions of battling evil? You might be a character from a fantasy canon.
  • etc

4. Once you have used the evidence to narrow down your search, start looking at different kintypes you think might fit your feelings.

  • research different animals/characters and see if any of them strike you as ‘right’.
  • talk to people with kintypes you think might be right and see if you share similar feelings.

5. Continue to research, reflect and narrow down your search until you find your kintype.

Lastly, you must be okay with NOT having a kintype if it turns out you’re not kin. If you have nothing to go on, and no ‘clues’ to what kintype you are, it may be the case that you’re not kin.