Furries.... Schools warned not to ridicule

I was at a party last week and noticed a child (looked to be around 12 or 13) wearing a fluffy tail.

When I saw her at the buffet about 15 minutes later she had added a cat mask to the ensemble. To be clear, this was not fancy dress. She was wearing normal clothes but with a furry tail and a cat mask.

At the time I thought to myself, surely this can't be a furry thing as would this child's parents have allowed her to come to an 80th birthday party dressed like this if it was... then I saw the articles and threads a couple of days later on this very topic and realised that yeah, looks like it was a furry thing.

Typical Guardian nonsense imo.

Yes, journalists should have been more cautious as the recording only shows someone using the example of identifying as an animal.

But you have a real issue of teachers not merely being unethical, but probably acting illegally to promote gender ideology in schools. They are violating the principle of political neutrality and spreading an arguably harmful ideology to children.

So a culture war started by the left-wing, and they are even trying to indoctrinate children in schools.

When anyone responds they will use the line, "right-wingers are exploiting the issue as a distraction".

Yeah, no, it's a very real issue that deserves the attention and much tougher action against teachers.

😂😂😂

OP clearly hasn't even read the article she posted:

^"Mr Gamble insists his organis­ation has seen no evidence of Furries in any school he deals with and believes the vast majority of cases are hoaxes....

...But he added: “By over-reacting and over-magnifying the issue we feed an unhealthy curiosity".^

The OP article doesn't seem to be about kids doing anything at school like wearing a costume, or about them literally identifying as animals.

So I'm going to say that they shouldn't be mocked by teachers.

I don’t think anyone’s going to ridicule a little child for playing a game of make believe. But the teenagers - do we not think most of them are just taking the piss and seeing what they can get away with? Trying to find the boundaries, as a PP said, and perhaps we should as a society be bloody well holding some?

I refer you to the very same reply you quoted.

If you can find me any study which cites furries as a reason for teachers leaving the profession, I will gladly read it.

Given your previous response to requests for any form of hard evidence though I will not be holding my breath.

What this shows is how captured safeguarding professionals are. Jim Gamble (quoted in the article) used to run CEOP and as far as I'm aware was well respected. He should have an insight into dubious online communities and the dangers to children, so for him to seriously advise adults about managing this rather than identifying the mental health challenges that serious species identifying represents is yet again adults abdicating responsibility.

Furries are generally an artistic and hobbyist group, like cosplayers - people who dress up as their favourite fictional characters, for fun. The majority of those in the furry community busy themselves with creating artwork or costumes. It's an exercise in creativity, not a ploy to convert the youth into demanding the school serve up their lunches in a dog bowl.

The Sun and the Daily Mail are doing what they do best - Whipping up sensational stories to feed on anxieties and fears.

This article is an interesting read.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jun/26/girl-didnt-identified-as-a-cat-post-truth-politics-media-gender-identity

If you can find any surveys that include that I'll happily take a look. But research into the teaching crisis at the moment lists low pay, excessive administrative requirements, stressful working conditions due to large classes and excess hours required, high workload etc as the reasons why teachers are leaving. I haven't seen any studies citing "child identifies as cat or similar" as the reason.

https://twitter.com/OliLondonTV/status/1673351272097804288
I guess being intimidated by this community must be tough if you are teaching at Rye Collage, must easier to shout at girls that deal with gangs of Dudes like this.

👏🏼

So nothing to do with getting told they could be struck off for a 'hate' crime for not going along with the cat persona or 'literal violence' of hurty feels?

One day the child will grow out of it and feel utterly mortified that adults went along with their fantasy and allowed them to make a fool of themselves.

This, the adults playing Hagrid, who know better, should be ridiculed

Beg to differ. Knowing I was likely to have to deal with this nonsense, knowing that I was working in a Stonewall champion school with a very active LGBTQIA++ club (run by a TRA teacher in my dept, a somewhat aggressive 6"+ male), knowing that my union would throw me to the wolves for harbouring GC views ... All that was a significant reason to get the hell out of teaching. Not the top of the list but oh god, it registered.

I'm a bit torn here. Obviously individual children should never be ridiculed especially when they may be in distress. To "validate" these identities would actually be a form of ridicule because clearly no adult in their right mind actually believes a child is a cat, so they're just playing along to make the child feel good in the moment which is incredibly cruel. One day the child will grow out of it and feel utterly mortified that adults went along with their fantasy and allowed them to make a fool of themselves.

But perhaps a certain of ridicule directed towards the ridiculous can be a healthy thing, and maybe society wouldn't be in the place it is if we weren't so afraid to point out the ridiculous, and maybe very distressed children wouldn't be identifying as animals if there were a healthy amount of ridicule surrounding the idea that a human can be an animal instead of this "anything goes" attitude.

Teachers are leaving in droves due to low pay and poor working conditions.

This kind of thing doesn't even register.

I don't know how these teachers manage to keep a straight face 🤣it's madness

And they wonder why there is a massive shortage of teachers.

Radical suggestion: teachers teach their subject, pupils concentrate on lessons.

I wouldnt bully them or ridicule them. But I wont go along with the lunancy either. In the same way that, sure change your name from James to Sally (or Hannah to Mike) but I wont agree that you've switched gender. Ill show respect but I wont support the delusion.