Furries.... Schools warned not to ridicule

As a child or a purely cosplaying furry, you dress up and pretend to be the animal, or weird anime hybrid animal, that you’re somewhat over-invested in. Your anthropomorphism of the animal is called your “fursona”, apparently 🙄 Weird (to me anyway), inappropriate for school or work but ultimately harmless.

Some people have a furry kink, where they’re sexually aroused by having a “fursona” and/or by other furries. You’d hope this was an entirely adult part of the phenomenon. (To be quite frank, I can imagine little that’s less arousing than dressing up as Bambi and trying to hump Thumper, but you do you so long as it’s safe, sane, consensual and preferably behind closed doors with no children involved or exposed.)

But what does one DO as a furry?

I’ve one personally taught a furry in school, about eight years ago. They didn’t tell many people. They tools me it was a hobby. They wore school uniform at school. This was before I taught any trans children.

Furries exist. Furry children exist and go to schools. All you need to be a furry is a costume. You could be at a school with several furries and not know it, just as you wouldn’t necessarily know how many children were train spotters.

Ah yes, otherkins 😆 A lot of this nonsense started off on tumblr about 15 years ago.

This has to be a pisstake. When I was at school if I thought I could get away with pretending to be a cat and miaowing at the teacher I 100% would have 😂

Private communication anonymised to remove identifying details:

A School in the North East:

"Quite a few children are identifying as furries in year 10 at one high school. Whether their identities are recorded or validated by staff is another matter. The teachers seem to ignore it except for one girl who is non-binary and identifies as a dog and has been given a fob to use the teachers toilets."

Obviously not your LA @LuluBlakey1 but it would not be surprising if there were clusters of children identifying as Furries and/or Therians due to social contagion.

Several parents have been interviewed for this article:

Inside the world of the Furries: Why is the number of children claiming they're cats on the rise - and why are teachers indulging the new subculture to the alarm of parents?
UK schools are seeing a phenomenon of teenage pupils identifying as cats
22 June 2023 - Daily Mail
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12223999/Inside-world-furries-cat-pupils-dressing-whiskers-tails-school.html

As with all this lunacy, it has come to us from the USA.

Making a Safe Place for Students Who Identify as Furries, Therians, and Otherkins
2018 - by a US High School Counselor
(In the author's first blog post in 2013 she says that she had been a High School Counselor for 12 years at that point)

The comments on are well worth a read too.
https://forhighschoolcounselors.blogspot.com/2018/02/making-safe-place-for-students-who.html

LuluBlakey1 if a school had told you that it had children who were identifying as Furries, what action did you, as as an advisor in behaviour / attendance / guidance and support for headteachers, and your Local Authority plan to take?

Politicians care about voted and money more than humans.

I wish I was good at accounting to show them how much this ideology has wasted and will waste in compensation. I think that those who wrote the guidelines in organisations should be pushed to be imprisoned and to pay from their own pocket compensation not the taxpayers.

The blood scandal inquiry came to this conclusion, that prison time and financial consequences needs to be born by individuals in future. Lessons learned are safeguarding themselves not the vulnerable when there are no consequences for them only the taxpayers and their victims.

https://twitter.com/the_tpa

@LuluBlakey1 @Froodwithatowel always good to know where our tax money is being spent though!

This.

Not to mention with the papers involved, the LAs frantically arse covering and ministers writing to OFSTED to demand snap inspections....

it's hardly likely that a head teacher is going to say yup, they're identifying as teapots and dragons and all sorts and we're the next Daily Mail headline. It's a question strongly encouraging the response 'no'.

I would also really like to know how you checked with schools and what was asked @LuluBlakey1
I would presume for it to be on 'official' records it would by necessity mean that there is an official option to include animals on the school records? Otherwise surely the answer will always be none.

That’s a good article, and none of it is secret if one has grown up on the internet.

Furries have always been considered the bottom feeders of the online communities, met everywhere with ridicule and contempt.

The Guardian? Are you serious? You might as well cite Pink News.

Bad Journalism on ‘Furries’ Has Let Down Children and Animals
Nov 8, 2021 - 4W
Journalists failed to connect "furrydom" to child abuse and animal torture and irresponsibly promoted the community as safe for children.

https://4w.pub/bad-journalism-on-furries/

What was the question?

"There are ridiculous stories going around that schools are encouraging children to identify as animals. There's nothing like that going on in your school, I hope?"
or

"I would like to be reassured that your school respects children's identities. How are you supporting children who identify as animals or wish to come to school in an animal costume or dressed as a Furry?"

I realise that these are ludicrously bad questions if a LA wants to avoid priming schools for the desired response.

It would be potentially outing to disclose what you and your neighbouring LA actually said but could you give a general idea?

A more reliable picture of what is going on might be to ask Ed Psych's what they know.

Or ask parents to contact the LA if they have any concerns in this respect about the schools their children attend?

100% this.

Remove your child out of any school that allows this.

Reading the mother's comments I would be wondering why she was texting her mum, why her mum was texting her back saying she should walk out and why she was recording. It really sounds like they were trying to set up the teacher. Typical daily mail sad face story.