It still surprises me how much the emotions that wearing a pair of fox ears and tail evokes in me resemble gender euphoria.
If I hadn't experienced it myself, I wouldn't believe it, maybe even offended by the comparison - these two aspects seem so unrelated and on such different levels of importance.
But walking around my apartment with my tail tied on and feeling it bounce against my thighs or pushed against me while sitting on the couch or laying in bed *genuinely* brings that same kind of "what a relief, this is my true form" comfort. It doesn't feel like clothes or a costume, my brain fully just processes it as a part of me - it's wild.
And sometimes, if I'm cuddling with a partner and they stroke my hair or back a certain way for a little while, I feel a mental shift into what I call "foxmode" where my mannerisms become a lot more fox-like - nuzzling, pawing, nonverbal except for little purrs or yips. My surefire indicator of this is my fingers: in foxmode, I scrunch them up so they're only one knuckle long to look more like paws. And when foxmode wears off, I straight them back out. And all of this is purely instinctual: at no point am I like "let's be a little silly and fun right now".
Honestly makes me question if I'm not just furry, but therian. Maybe writing all this out is kinda telling tbh