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speciesism
📅 Updated:2026-05-30
🕒 Created:2022-06-10
🆔 ID:42943
Description
Speciesism is a form of bigotry within fantasy or science-fiction settings, sometimes involving that one's species is superior or seeing another species as inferior, usually across cognitively and behaviorally human-like species. In furry media, predator/prey dynamics are often involved, such as predators enslaving or dominating prey, or predators being discriminated against out of fear (as in Zootopia).
Like other forms of xenophobia, speciesism can be used as a form of degradation. Speciesism can also be used as a basis for hierarchy play if certain species are considered second-class citizens or otherwise have different social ranks than other species, such as if they are part of a caste system.
Though speciesism shares characteristics of racism, the racism tag refers exclusively to real-world racism, and the two should not be confused. It should also be noted speciesism is used to refer to prejudice, the animal-industrial complex, and other forms of harm done towards nonhuman animals in real life by humans.
Types of xenophobia
- homophobia / transphobia
- racism
- sexism
- speciesism
