Do you know what a furry is mummy?

Wonder why mental health issues are on the rise. Batshit like this doesn't help. Fetishism being introduced to children.

You called?

Apparently there are lots of furries at DD's school. They bark (and maybe miaow) I gather, and other mums have confirmed being told the same by their daughters. However the uniform rules are pretty strict so i think any actual dressing up could only be done on non-uniform days.

I think this is the point where FWR have jumped the shark

Really? I see this as the point where AdamRyan jumped the shark. But I guess we're all different 🤷‍♀️

And this is why you need to react to this woke gender ideology crap! I've been trying to alert people for ages, but get shut down

Lots on twitter/X, reddit (I keep getting a sub for the costumes pushed because I have faved some sewing subs) and discord.

I think this article gives a good overview. As always, sex sells. I don’t think there is much point in mentioning that some furies get off on it.

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/11/14/us/furries-culture/index.html#

I wouldn’t explain further. I’d let the child think that it’s just like kids dressing up for now.

Most of this ‘furry’ thing in my DC’s school is girls according to the head of year (who seems as puzzled by it as I was)

Can someone not identify as the Queen of the Entire Fucking Universe and ban this shit before it gets even more out of hand?

I mean, if we are supposed to play along with people being animals, then Queen of the Entire Fucking Universe is not too far-fetched.

Also, if HRH could also fire all of the politicians before she hangs up her crown that would be awesome.

It's always surprising to see parents evidencing something undesirable amongst children and effectively being called liars. There's enough reported evidence that this is happening in a minority of schools. If society always hand waves away reports / incidents then that's how abuse escalates.
No secondary children should be going into school dressed / behaving as furries. Not a single one.
Primary children can explore being dinosaurs, cats, aeroplanes and the rest. That's developmentally appropriate.
Any secondary school enabling this should be reported - first as a complaint to the school / governors and if that fails then to Ofsted. I don't believe it's widespread but it should be stopped where it's being condoned.

And yes there's a trend for cat ears in primary school... but that has absolutely NOTHING to do with furries! You can buy these cat ears in claires... they aren't fetish wear it's just young girls thinking cats are cute... my 5yo daughter has some in pink glitter. It's just a trend amongst them right now at school.
I do think the furry panic is a bunch of bullshit tbh. Of course they hear these terms....
I heard terms like 'pearl necklace' 'gangbang' etc in primary school... I had no idea what they meant.. just thought it was funny.. and cool to say them to look grown up. I had a vague idea they were 'sex words'... absolutely none of us were actually doing those things.
This 'furry' stuff is just like that.

My 8yo asked me this a few days ago!
I just explained what it was.
That it can be just adults who like to dress up as animals as a hobby but that sometimes it was also a sexual fetish that consenting adults took part in. I explained it was just a fantasy and not about real animals. More cartoon like animals. I told him its not something he would really be able to understand as a child.
Then he was really embarrassed to have been talking about it with his mates as he hadn't really understood. He said it seemed strange and i said i agreed personally.. but if consenting adults wanted to do that with each other it was none of my business as long as no one is geting hurt by it.
I don't really find it alarming because it's just the Internet. These kids at this age hear these words because someone's older sibling will have shared some meme or tiktok or whatever and found it funny and the younger ones won't get it but pretend they do because they want to be cool..
This is not new. I remember misusing sexual words etc when I was in primary school that I'd come across with no real understanding of what they meant but we just all pretended we knew..
What I'm glad about is that my son felt comfortable in admitting he didn't know what this meant and comfortable enough to ask me about it.
I would never in a million years have felt comfortable asking my parents about the weird stuff I heard in the playground!!

adam several of us are aware of a school where this is happening, I’m wondering if it’s the same one. I have several friends with daughters at that school. Why would we be lying?

It's not a hoax though. My DD went to a joint school event where there were only about 20 girls attending. One of the girls from the other school went around on all fours, went up to the headmaster of DD's school and pawed at this leg and woofed. The poor man didn't know what to do with himself. She also ate her lunch - some kind of pasta salad - directly from a bowl without using her hands. DD said all the kids didn't know how to react so no one said or did anything.

It's a bit like all the rubbish about Satanist heavy metal bands recording albums with subliminal messages you could hear when you played the record backwards/at 60 rpm from when I was a kid. Complete scaremongering with no basis in reality.

Heaven knows what the motivation is for starting these hoaxes.

I think kids identifying as cats/wolves/jellyfish/whatever and insisting the school take it seriously isn't happening.

I know girls wearing cat ears is happening but that's just a fad and is as relevant to "safeguarding" as them lik8ng heavy metal, or being an emo. So meh. Complete aeration over nothing.

At my daughters secondary school recently there was a year 8 girl on all 4s in the playground wearing cat ears and a tail, purring and meowing. She had crowds of pupils around her shouting and jeering, and teachers were trying to get them all to move away.

I don't think we should be asking for photos of kids to be posted 😅

I do agree with you that I think at least some of it is exaggerated or of daily fail level reporting (saner thing).

The increase in kids in cats ears is real, but you only have my anecdotal word for that :)

Young teens have been doing this for years , my friends dd spent a year with a fake cat tail attached to her 12 years ago . Although she wasn't allowed to wear it for school

I have friends whose DC go to a school where this is happening. Its also all over the local Facebook group.

If you don't think it's a big deal why are you refusing to accept that it's happening?

The furry fandom is a hotbed of predators and perverts, including paedophiles and zoophiles. I would not want my kids anywhere near it. Plus those mascot type costumes they were are gross and stinky.

I don't think there's evidence the posts are accurate. And there is evidence that similar stories have been created as a hoax in the US . EDITED and in the UK
https://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/viewpoint/23623894.children-identify-cats-litter-boxes-schools-myth-buster/

I'm of the "photos or it didn't happen" frame of mind about the idea that any schools are allowing children to identify as a wolf, dress up and howl in lessons.

Girls wearing cat ear headbands and saying their spirit animal is a cat is as much of a safeguarding concern as girls doing crystal healing and casting spells. That's also not "being a furry".

What next? Are you going to stop toddlers dressing up as Spiderman?

Not really.

FWR were discussing if you can identify as the opposite sex, why not as a different race, age, or species, years ago.

If posts on this thread are accurate, there are kids identifying as birds and various mammals and some schools aren't sure how to deal with it.

If they aren't just immediately shutting it down with school uniform rules and behaviour code of conduct policies, then is it because they've got some confusion on how to handle it due to how to handle trans- identifying kids guidance? We don't know, but I wouldn't discount it.

Did you see what @Grimchmas posted upthread? It's about lowering boundaries around what's appropriate and what isn't.