I don't think "kui-tan and tanuki-morphs have the same mod" necessarily implies "kui-tan and tanuki have near-identical genes". The purpose of furry TF mods is not to make the user turn into an actual animal, but to make them turn into an anthropomorphised version of that animal. That would necessitate that the genes granted by such mods would not be the genes present in the corresponding animals, but rather the genes that would result in the desired outward appearance, which are almost certainly not the same. A racial TF mod, however, would give the user the same genes as those found in the corresponding species. It just so happens that kui-tan genes make one look like an anthropomorphised tanuki. Besides, perhaps there actually is a separate tanuki-morph mod, it's just that Steele doesn't have access to it at the moment.
Also, the fact that ausar, humans, gryvain, kaithrit, kui-tan, suula, laquines etc. are naturally capable of interbreeding to produce fertile offspring implies that those species already have near-identical, DNA-based genes arranged in pretty much the same order within 23 pairs of chromosomes*`. This would make racial TF mods much easier to produce, since you'd only need to make up the relatively small differences between the races**; furry TF mods would likely be an offshoot of the same tech that uses novel gene sequences instead of already-existing ones. Add in the fact that they can all live in the same sorts of environments (except for gryvain, who need mods to be able to breathe oxygen but otherwise still fit), and the significance of the differences between not only different races, but between x-morphs/persons and 'race that resembles x', probably isn't as great as you think. Lifestyle choices would be somewhat different depending on specific biological needs (ausar probably require less water than a human modded to look like an ausar without being one), but social structures would likely shift to deal with these similarities and the blurred boundaries that come with them. For example:
- It's implied that 'Hybrid/Other' has been a valid race option on the UGC census for a long time, since 'half-ausar' has recently been added so that the many half-ausars out there don't have to use the 'Hybrid/Other' option.
- Extrameet differentiates between modded and unmodded members of the same race by [race] and [race]+, so perhaps some government authorities do something similar.
*It also implies they're all the same species under the current definition of the term. Perhaps the definition is changed to include 'must have evolved on the same planet' (which still doesn't account for intraplanetary interspecies hybrids like naleen-zil or myr-nyrea), or (more likely) the common usage of the term is different from the scientific/technical usage.
`It could just be an astronomically unlikely coincidence, but with so many species exhibiting this similarity, most people would probably look for other explanations as to how this came about. Whether any of those explanations are correct or it really is a coincidence is completely unknown.
**There's also the fact that at least some racial TF mods, such as Ausar Treats, were originally developed to counteract mutations to the genomes of members of that species, and others subsequently used them for racial TF purposes.
