Sensing Authentic Affinity: Australian Trans Young People’s Relationships with their Animal Companions

Following the idea of a “queer menagerie,” this paper considers how the intersections of animality and queerness allow different forms of scholarship. They open up methodological and epistemological considerations of the senses that have the potential to extend the ways we think about both animals and queerness. Brief excerpts from the interview transcripts are offered to demonstrate this. These are based on interviews conducted with 17 Australian trans young people, focused on their relationships with their animal companions. Two themes related to “senses” are developed: (1) young people valuing bodily connections with other animals, and (2) “authentic affinity,” which we define as bonds based on sensory relationships experienced as reciprocal, genuine, sincere, and uncoerced. These themes use the idea of authentic affinity - arguing that the young people framed their sensory connections with other animals in terms of genuine liking and connection precisely because their animal companions don’t speak (with human language); that because “these guys really only understand your emotions, they’re like therapy.”