to think that children in your child's class don't identify as animals?

[wotnofurries]

inspired by the wearing a tail to school thread, I thought I'd see just how common or otherwise the whole furry/litter tray/identify as an animal thing really is.

Unreasonable = Yes, a child in my child's class does this.
Not Unreasonable = Don't be silly, never come across one in my life.

Two self-identified cats at my teacher-friend's (secondary) school. They periodically disrupt the lessons by crawling round and miaowing.

Sounds like you're being very sensible about it. If only all parents were!

What I don't understand is why teachers allow it? Or maybe this is their attempt to not feed it by ignoring it ?

My DGD is in Y7 and a group of girls said they were therians. When they started coming to school with 'furries' masks, claws and tails the school, very sensibly imo, banned these items and refused to let the girls set up a therians club.

evidence please?

I honestly don’t get how this works? Is the mother on all fours when you see her? Does she meow? How does one identify as an animal, this is actually crazy

Two students in my friends DD class at University ID as animals.

Over 10 years ago my daughter had a girl in her class who identified as a cat. She wore ears and a tail out of school. In class she would purr, lick her arms, arch...teachers tried to stop her but she kept going. She had a diagnosis of autism but was very bright.

Never heard of this throughout DS's time at school. Maybe it's only recently started. He's just left year 11 this year.

If children weren’t given unsupervised access to the awful world of the internet and places like tik tok none of these children would even think about any of this.

there’s a big difference between having a cat fancy dress costume at home in the dressing up box that they chuck on occasionally for 10 minutes pretending to be a cat and then next moving on to being Spider-Man or a princess and the extreme of them expecting to wear it to school and wanting a blooming little tray.

the parents allowing their children to act like this are to blame. School is for getting an education, save your play time for at home.

Why don’t they ever identify as cows, sparrows, snails, eels, warthogs?
It’s always cats and foxes.

And this is where a minority of parents are failing, yes pretend is fine but playtime ends, any parent who indulges this shit needs kid taking off them.

Yes no slugs or pigeons. I’m surprised no boys have decided on skunks. They could just go around farting at everyone.

I'm not sure why you're so sceptical about this, OP. The combination of a normal pre-teen and teenage desire to explore identity and find your 'tribe', combined with the huge levels of social contagion which always exist at that age, plus unfettered internet access among lots of kids, then add idiot adults to the mix who actually think this kind of thing should be encouraged... all of that combined is easily enough to ensure that shit like this genuinely happens in schools. Not all schools, and probably not even in most schools. But in quite a few.

My autistic teen spent a lot of time living as a cat when she was 4 to 6 yrs, I did make her a tail and ears which she sometimes wore out and about. It was very definitely imaginative play.

She's now Year 11 and tells me there are some therians at school, but the uniform policy is pretty strict so they don't get to wear tails at school.

Well sure if that's the case, but what if it isn't?

Unfortunately our society has conferred a degree of legitimacy on the concept of 'identifying' as something you aren't. So I don't think we can be sanguine that this is the same as dressing up as Madonna.

Same reason that men who are transgender probably don't generally identify as middle-aged ladies wearing jeans and a jumper and doing the majority of the housework, I expect. You don't identity as something you don't fancy being!

Just recently retired but during my last couple of years working in education, we had a teenager who was clearly a fox. Not in my department so only saw her out and about. Walked upright - not crawling around or making animal noises - just a pleasant lass who wore a very large fox tail and fox ears. A quiet girl, she had friends, didn't seem to be bullied at all, I was never in close contact to ask why. Until I saw it for myself I'd thought all this identifying as an animal business was a bit far fetched....

As a small child I always wanted to be an animal, I'd crawl around the floor at times and growl at my baby sister. However, I was aged 4 at the time and my mother told me not to be so silly, and that was the end of it. I'd certainly grown out of it by school age at 5. And I had all sorts of other things to occupy me by the time I was a teenager, I really can't understand why this sort of thing is being pandered to or even normalised. But I guess I'm old fashioned...?

I'd say the terms are interchangeable.

Identify as = pretending to be.

It's people who pretend trying to be taken seriously who have started using a different word.

Never seen furry cartoons?

(Please don't Google, I once found some by accident 🤢 )

Year 4 therian at my daughters school- wears a ferret mask and tail. Most of the kids are just bemused by it.

https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=www.thetimes.com/uk/scotland/article/school-allows-child-with-species-dysphoria-to-identify-as-an-animal-k5gsrqnf9&ved=2ahUKEwja_r7Djs2JAxX0VUEAHXlGDwYQFnoECB8QAQ&usg=AOvVaw115iJQNttc5HAoFt3ndirT

https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/scottish-news/primary-pupil-identifies-animal-second-33834639&ved=2ahUKEwja_r7Djs2JAxX0VUEAHXlGDwYQFnoECCIQAQ&usg=AOvVaw1KweDTshqkdqf1g1rmcsfd

https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=www.facebook.com/associationofchristianteachers/posts/some-scottish-schools-are-officially-recognising-species-dysphoria-and-allowing-/947214797436002/&ved=2ahUKEwja_r7Djs2JAxX0VUEAHXlGDwYQFnoECB4QAQ&usg=AOvVaw0jvQoeRutM2J0koSnJZcZV

https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14008295/Now-council-allowed-pupil-identify-animal.html&ved=2ahUKEwja_r7Djs2JAxX0VUEAHXlGDwYQFnoECBIQAQ&usg=AOvVaw3WlGtrEUfobQjgKX9MV_-0

https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/10/07/primary-school-pupil-allowed-identify-animal-scotland/&ved=2ahUKEwja_r7Djs2JAxX0VUEAHXlGDwYQFnoECBcQAQ&usg=AOvVaw1J7jTKpaY8tgpJgZmJv2wN

https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/scottish-news/scots-school-pupil-identifies-wolf-33702286&ved=2ahUKEwja_r7Djs2JAxX0VUEAHXlGDwYQFnoECBEQAQ&usg=AOvVaw0fA3aCAVXbriD5ZNrpoR8O

The 1st 6 Google results can give you all the information you need they include articles from the times, the telegraph, the Scottish daily express and the daily mail. Hope that helps

How does your 7 year old even know what a therian is to "identify" as one? Too much unsupervised youtube/tiktok?

Years ago I knew a guy who had a fox alter ego, he also used to draw sexualised artworks of half women/half vixens and was basically the biggest creep ever. It defo used to be a freaky sexual fetish for weirdos (the tails were attached by butt plug!) so the fact it’s now become normalised to act it out in public and that children are being encouraged to join in is totally sickening (and terrifying).
If some creep in cat ears crawled up to me on all fours and started rubbing their head against me I’d find it hard not to kick them. Hard.

What makes me uncomfortable is the close association that could be made with 'furries' which is a highly sexualised adult fetish that comes along with other paraphilia. I would be keeping a close eye on what the kids are looking at on line.