Well… now that’s an answer. Guess I’ve asked for it, haven’t I? 😀 Thanks for being thorough.

Now, I know nothing of WH 40k. My take on the “post” vs “trans” difference, is that “post” refers to whatever will come after, whether more or less humanist, while “trans” refers to a “beyond” state, or specifically an incremental evolution from humanism. While “post” doesn’t necessarily seek the destruction of humanity, something like a self-annihilation would still qualify as “post”, but becoming a global hive-mind, which we’re kind of doing right now across the Internet, would be both “post” and “trans”.

The “trans” in transgender however, means more of an “across”, as a switching from one to another. I think the meaning of “beyond” from how I see transhumanism, would be better matched by genderqueer, which itself is an umbrella term for a lot of different aspects that are neither this, nor that, nor nothing, but something else.

It’s a good point that we might already be posthuman, and transhuman in both meanings: from barely human, we’re on the path, to whatever lies beyond. Humans still get born as “just humans”, but from then on very few come to be nothing more than human for any extended period of time. Unless… we include in humanism the augmenting ourselves with external accessories, and replacing parts with replicas as closely functionally similar to the original as possible.

Interesting that you’d mention furries, I guess you’re right in that it’s a form of transhumanism. If we could, and made it legal to, transform our bodies at will, that would definitely lead to a lot of variation. Both in external appearance, and in internal structure. Guess that ties into the body modding and tattooing trends. From that point of view, social rejection of furries would be a xenophobic reaction we’re already seeing in some parts of society. Hopefully body modders would become allies. I wonder if both the popularity of body mods, even as simple as tattoos, and the push for the acceptance of non-heteronormative behaviors, could be in part a reflection, and in part a building block, of some sections of society wishing for a larger evolution. In that sense, the fight for trans and queer rights might actually be seen as the fight for early forms of transhumanism. That’s… interesting.

I wonder what the next steps could be. It’s on one hand positive, and on the other kind of sad, that large sections of society haven’t even reached a heteronormative parity, while we’re talking here about going way beyond that.