Child identifies as a wolf ... WTF?

Where?

Sounds like a lot of nonsense used to fuel & justify transphobia .. which appears to be rife in this thread!

Hmm, my eldest daughter is in secondary school and has told be on quite a few occasions that there is a small group in f kids who behave like animals and call themselves ‘furry’s’

Absolute bollocks imho. Why aren’t the parents stepping in to quash this shite?!?

The thing with all of these ideologies that encourage people to identify of something outside of their biology, is that somewhere down the line, there is someone standing by ready exploit that confusion for their own sexual gratification.

Furry community is clever really. Ahhhh look at the harmless fuzzy suited people pretending to be animals. Nope. They are not 'pretending to be' they are 'identifying as' and they are most certainly doing it as some kind of kink/fetish.

Any teacher/parent/medical professional encouraging this bullshit is actually putting children on a path to joining fetish communities. They will see those people and think they are 'their people' but almost all furry communities are kink groups. And I am not being pearl-cluthching, it's just a fact. If I was the only kid in school that identified as a cat - and had been encouraged to pursue my belief - it would be hard to find like-minded people in real life, so where do I go? Online. What do I find? The furry community. Quite possibly whilst I am under sixteen and not in a great place mentally speaking.

Well done everyone.

😧😧

Bloody hell.

https://www.reddit.com/r/otherkin/

'I recently discovered I'm Otherkin with my kintype being a shadow person and I've been looking into ways to be more like my kintype and ways to ease species dysphoria'

'Otherkin are individuals that identify as nonhuman in some manner.
Otherkin is NOT a work of fiction, roleplaying, or part of the furry fandom.'

https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/features/why-be-human-when-you-can-be-otherkin

https://metro.co.uk/2021/12/25/how-otherkin-are-celebrating-christmas-15805753

For those who think this stuff is all made up and never happens.

It's not that long since the faux-progressive talking heads on political chat shows were telling us none of this was going on, hee hee, it's all made-up right-wing culture wars. I wonder if they'll apologise for being wrong or, worse, if they knew as well as everyone else that schoolteens were pretending to be animals and chose lies to facilitate their own culture wars?

Anyway; act like parents, act like teachers and stop this nonsense going on. People seem to be scared to discipline their children.

“if I actually watched tiktoks I'd understand more about the world.”

I've heard of this. Teenagers identifying as cats. They sit purring in the class and the teacher respects this. I was having a discussion with my own teenage daughter about this and I said how the world has gone mad. We ended up arguing about it as she was so adamant that what they were doing is 100% normal and if I actually watched tiktoks I'd understand more about the world. Her exact words. I'm glad I'm not growing up in this generation

It certainly does!

Happily, the article also covers the joy that drag queen story tellers can bring to children too 😍

I'm looking forward to our crayon-wielding poster from earlier doing me a nice and simple drawing to explain how teaching children to twerk is enriching. Or perhaps there's another poster who could help me understand how Rainbow DBM could support the children to learn about their own identities?

Oh bonfire, that ticks off so many of the LGBTQ+ rainbow award and the Artsmark at the same time 😍

*satire

Or, perhaps more in line with the furry theme, story-telling led by a colourful monkey.

How wholesome 😍

Obviously my only issue with it is that the monkey's name is incorrect. Looking at that costume, the dildo is the only bit that isn't a rainbow. Other than that, where's the harm? 🙃😬

https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/07/13/the-rainbow-dildo-butt-monkey-is-no-laughing-matter/

Wolves in school should be banned like peanuts

This is what happens when you replace "the three little pigs" with "the drag queens go swish swish swish."

Wolves in school should be banned like peanuts

Absolutely.

Children are being told that they can identify as lesbian, gay or bi - or that they might identify as one of these things when they are older.

It's a complete highjacking of LGB. Nobody needs to identify as L, G, B or straight. You just are one of these 4 possibilities. And it can take time to figure yourself out in this respect.

When they are framed as an ever expanding range of "identities" it's very confusing for children. Identities come with rules about what constitutes the identity - if you don't fit that one, perhaps you're a different one or you're gender-fluid etc etc. Blending sex (male/female) and sexual orientation (LGB/straight) into "identities" and having children learn about them during the emotional turbulence of adolescence is a recipe for chaos and distress.

“being supported to learn how to identify ”

no no no.

This presupposes that a person can “identify” as something other than that which they objectively ARE ie male or female and human.

Who is going to provide this “support”?
Someone who has already adopted a magical belief system that boys can become girls and humans can become animals?

That’s pushing fairytale fantasy on impressionable youngsters and has ZERO place in education.

I absolutely was a cat ….when I was four.
Of course that was silly, I’m actually a seal 🦭

Very true @WarriorN . Managing boundaries, enabling our children to grow and develop in safety is critical. It's reasonable to express the view that allowing something like furries to be uncritically explored in schools is pandering while still accepting that parenting (& teaching) involves ensuring respect for children, that they know their views will be heard while establishing firm boundaries.

There needs to be a clearer understanding of what controversial issues are and what's age appropriate / acceptable for a mainstream classroom. There used to be but that's been undermined by some of the queer theory groups who've produced porn soaked materials for schools.

There's a reason teachers plan lessons - especially when teaching controversial subjects. There are times when you don't allow a free for all and teachers use techniques for enabling / guiding discussions. Try teaching sex ed to a class of 13 /14 year olds and you quickly understand how important it is to ensure safety in discussions and have boundaries. It's not easy but it's what good teachers do - provide a safe learning environment so that all children can thrive.

Insisting that teachers must discuss all these aspects of sex / sexuality is naive. It's what led to Warwickshire Council having to withdraw some dire SRE online materials that were completely age inappropriate, deeply hostile to women and girls with the examples of porn and probably illegal in terms of breaching the Sexual Offences against Children Act.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/3795892--All-about-me-Sex-Relationships-primary-education

That Vice article. Have American parents' brains leached out their ears entirely?

My job as her mother is to support her purpose and joy...

Let me stop you right there! Your job as a parent is to be the adult in the room.

Pretty certain I identified as a cat at one point. Adults and teachers just assumed (correctly) I was playing same daft game (“oh you’re a cat are you? That’s nice”)

Simpler times.

being supported to learn how to identify

This is now the tricky area as sexuality has been hijacked. It's not L G and B.

As "pride" now includes transgender (a mental health condition as requires medication ) and all ranges of fetishes such as "furries" (if it's a sexuality it's beastiality), discussions with children about this is very problematic.

supported to learn how to identify

No teachers should be helping or supporting children to learn how to identify as anyone or anything.

Gender identity (including cat gender, therian identity and any other species identity) is a belief. Teachers should not bring their personal beliefs in to school.

Sorry, I wasn't referring to you, I meant the many posters on here saying parents are "pandering" to children identifying as furries and schools are enabling it in PHSE.

That's too absolutist for me, I think teenagers are best educated through open discussion and being supported to learn how to identify and set their own healthy boundaries. In my opinion that requires discussing controversial topics and teachers ensuring all voices are heard ( so not allowing students to insukt each other for e.g.)