Do you know what a furry is mummy?

This makes me rub my temples in silence.

If adults validate the idea that a boy can become a girl then why not a cat or a wolf?

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

It's definitely happening in local schools near me. Some parents are worried while others seem to be in denial. It's causing disruption in lessons and the teachers don't seem to know how to handle it.

If adults validate the idea that a boy can become a girl then why not a cat or a wolf?

If you can't see it, I recommend Specsavers.

What exactly is the risk from a trend for wearing cat ears?

I do agree that there is a risk from online groomers and parents should be talking to children about furries online, but I really can't get too get up about kids dressing up at school.

You wonder what the heads of these schools are thinking.

The DfE were very clear that schools should not be allowing this (other than the natural play that little children engage in in the primary school playground).

There's no place for furries in schools - they're places of learning. It's worth parents complaining to Ofsted if a school has completely abandoned their common sense about this. While I'm still sure it's a tiny minority of schools it's unacceptable.

They did that in Rochdale. 😡

There's been a significant increase around my way of teen girls wearing cat ear headbands constantly and claiming in serious tones that their spirit animal is a cat. I wonder if that is related.

If I were an organisation trying to gain access to children for nefarious purposes, I'd start lowering their inhibitions around a group of people with questionable behaviour by inviting them into that group and making it look playful and appealing.🤢

So no point in having uniform rules, if you're not going to enforce them? When I was at school, a long time ago, there used to be a phrase you don't hear much these days: in loco parentis. Schools have, first and foremost, a safeguarding responsibility for children.

Apply their standard uniform rules?

But to be honest I can't get too het up by kids dressing up in ears and tails at school, any more than them dying their hair blue or wearing an anime T shirt or being a goth.

You must live in west Kent :). I saw that too! Most comments in Facebook under the post I've ever seen in that group!

The adults in these communities are not innocently pretending to identify with animals, it's a hugely dysregulated community. See the article above about the national convention in the US. Trying to pull kids into it is not a "nothing to see here" thing.

Indeed. Most schools quite rightly won't entertain it and I'm sure that primary children picking this up are just attracted to the cuddly cute nature.
The danger as always is the appropriation of this by predators - usually but not solely - via online communities. There's far too much evidence of this which is why parents have to be alert and check where this is coming from - and not be shamed by anyone suggesting it's wrong to ask and check.

It's that safeguarding balance between vigilance and paranoia.

What do you think schools should be doing, in the light of this, Adam?

This is interesting
https://theconversation.com/what-are-furries-debunking-myths-about-kids-identifying-as-animals-and-litter-boxes-in-schools-193908

Furries don’t identify as animals; they identify with animals. In the same way that cosplayers typically don’t believe they are actually Spiderman, furries don’t think they are their fursonas

Is furry an orientation?
It’s not. It’s a fandom. However, it’s worth noting there are many marginalized statuses within the furry community. Depending on the study, we find more than 70 per cent of furries identify as LGBTQ+ and more than 25 per cent are gender-identity diverse.
Furries are bullied at almost twice the rates of non-furries, and our forthcoming research indicates that four to 15 per cent are on the autism spectrum.

Meh.

@ireallycantthinkofaname a therian has an animal gender identity. So the bird therian mentioned up-thread will be a bird trapped in a girl's body.

Absolutely. It is very much happening in two local girls' schools, as confirmed to me by several children and their parents. I can't believe the schools don't enforce the normal uniform rules. It does seem to be the magical power of 'identity' again. The school I teach in is super strict and no kid would dare come in with ears and a tail. Long may that last!

I remained unconvinced that all furries are fetishists. You can easily find furries claiming not to be. This all looks a bit moral panicky to me.

The trans activists will tend to respond to claims of children being allowed to identify as animals in school being made up (and one certainly gets the impression they may have been exaggerated). But can they give a coherent reason why, if it did actually happen, they would be opposed to it?

It's a conspiracy theory in the states. Not sure where it comes from. I'm wondering if similar conspiracies are taking hold here - I highly doubt any uk schools are letting children howl like wolves in lessons.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/culture/2022/nov/04/joe-rogan-school-litter-boxes-kids-furries-gender

https://www.reddit.com/r/skeptic/comments/199fifa/why_do_people_want_to_believe_furries_have/

The dismissal often relies on a sleight of hand by declaring "it's all fake news" and then adding sotto voce "that they're given cat litter trays to use to go to the toilet". John Ronson did this on his recent Radio 4 programme Things Fell Apart (series 2) to effectively say that if this single item of misinformation exists, then every other claim made about the bizarre and harmful identities all around us must also be untrue.

Furries have had sexual connotations for many years, even I know this.

But it seems schools don’t quite get the more sinister concepts aka it’s just kids having fun…..

Iding not using!