Any "fluffies" (children identifying as cats) at your child's school?

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I had no idea this was a thing until this week. Parents are fully supportive. Is this happening across the UK? Apparently they're being provided with a litter tray in a private room. I thought being allowed to wear ears and a tail was going beyond reasonable but the litter tray seems completely unhygienic and a step too far in role playing how they feel about their identity.

If someone in the school I work at wanted to identify as a cat I’d point out that animals aren’t entitled to a free education and cats by law have to be microchipped…..

Ah yes, your username explains it. Gotya!

I think the difference is that the children actually professed to believe that they were cats, not just roleplaying as cats.

They were listening to therian music about inter-species love stories and started arguing for animals to have equal rights to humans.

I think what concerns me is that it seemed very much an exploration of identity, not just fun.

So if these fictional children have a litter tray in the classroom does that then mean that they drop their trousers and curl one out while everyone else in the class is trying to do long division.

I don't think animals have preferred pronouns do they? (Pre-furred perhaps?)

But as with gender, some schools and teachers take your position, if I remember your earlier post correctly, that the school does not change name and pronouns without parental consent, but there are others who feel that this is not always necessary right? It's a contentious issue.

Maybe it's similar with the animal thing, and that there are teachers who so strongly believe in respecting identities that they are willing to allow uniform rules to be bent with cat ears etc. Maybe they would feel hypocritical if they supported social gender transition but not animal.

Ah I believe the litter trays are to be placed in one of those fictional spare rooms all the schools just have waiting to be used

No evidence to suggest this is widespread.
We are following DfE guidance.
It would be a very odd thing if a school was to accept an animal identity at all, or indeed any pronouns not agreed to by the parents!

Also, it doesn't matter what individual teachers "believe". They have to comply with policy.

No idea about school kids but saw a gathering of furries today in the city centre, adults in full animal costumes, most weird

I don't expect it is widespread, I'm just saying the conditions are there in both the subculture amongst a small number of pupils and the ideology of some teachers, that schools going along with animal identities in some small ways could happen.

How in this world does this ridiculous hoax still have legs?

Small children like to play pretend and dress up - a child wearing a set of fake cat ears is not noteworthy. I saw a tiny iron man at the market earlier and wished him "good morning, Mr. Stark" not because I think he's actually Iron Man but because playing pretend is part of childhood. No one is allowing children to urinate in litter pans in a classroom or confusing this with an actual identity.

And tweens/teens will happily jump on these things as an opportunity to wind pearl-clutching adults up, becuase that's what teens do. They don't think they're cats or whatever either.

I have no idea what schools allow and don’t allow (I can believe the litter tray part is a hoax) but children identifying as animals and calling themselves furries is definitely happening. There are children at my DD secondary school in the north of England and I have been shown tik tok videos of them.

And the fact that it gets them on tik tok and gets views is probably a big part of the reason why they do it

Honestly I prefered it when I was younger and the odd kids (I was one of them) were all goths and emos but every generation has its thing

Being 'on the furries scene' is not a new thing. It's an (I'd have thought wellish known) sexual fetish. The way it's trickled down in more recent times into tween territory and become something more blurry lined whether a 'gender concept' or trendy (ie the cat ear headbands etc) is quite scary, despite my earlier more dismissive post. Because whilst the 'litter tray in schools' thing is a load of rubbish, it didn't originate from nowhere. An agenda is being pushed quite hard here. Paedos seeing what they can get away with as per.

We adults can also identify as other animals. I'm a bear but unfortunately have just missed out on hibernation. Maybe I can be a cat until the autumn so I can sleep all day!

This should be a non problem.

Kid wants to ID as a cat?

Fine.

No chocolate as it's poisonous to all creatures except humans.
No bed, they can curl up on the floor or a chair.
Lots of yummy cat food to eat.

I'd give it half an hour.

It's highly improbable.

Tragically the “cat litter trays” that sparked this rumour in the States were not for cat-identifying children, but for soaking up blood in the all too likely event of a gun massacre.

Why not go and wring your hands over that?

I can imagine doing it to take the piss, to wind others up.

Just as I might ask for a Cornish box when asked to tick against my nationality.

NC for this.

My 11yo DD has told me she identifies as a therian, which she catagorically tells me is not a furry.

As she's in primary, going into secondary in Sept, I've gone with the playing along bit within reason, she adores cats, thinks they're cute and fluffy and has a nice life. So obviously she's now decided she was one in a previous life. I've treated it as I would any make believe.

she adores the warrior cats series, so currently has lots of cat masks which she then creatively turns into replicas of the cats from the books. She has some fluffy gloves. I've told her she can prance around in the garden/house however she wants, but she doesn't go out and do it. so she does quads in the garden etc. she sometimes films herself, but I'm tight on checking tech and currently she has very limited social media. I've talked to her about not posting stuff and sharing it. I've explained it's a fad, but stuff like that once out follows you. I've been clear, it gets sent, she loses her tech.

She has a friend who's obsessed with it and always messaging her about it, and she does more painting then etc. But besides an odd time wearing fluffy gloves she doesn't go out with anything else, because I'm really clear I'll bin everything if she does. There is absolutely zero way I'd allow anyone to affirm she's a cat, now or in a previous life, or spiritually. No matter how many quizzes you can take to say which cat you align to. I told her I did the death quizzes, when I'd marry, what job I'd do. As yet, all miserably wrong. (Thankfully).

luckily she's heading to a school with a very tight school uniform policy, a solid no no nonsense approach, and the friend is going elsewhere too. I'm pretty sure knowing DD, the goth phase is imminent anyway.

I would have said it was highly improbable that schools would support children socially transitioning, and in a few cases even doing so behind parents backs, but here we are.

A girl identifying as a cat is clearly ridiculous and no sane teaching professional would play along with it.
Whereas a girl identifying as a boy has clearly just found her true inner self and needs to be protected from the pure hatred and bigotry of anyone who thinks she still might be a girl.

This is a hoax that has been going around for a couple of years now.

Apparently the said child wears a collar, only drinks from a bowl and only uses a litter tray.

This is just not true.

Some children with additional needs may have animal alter egos but there is no way any school would allow this to happen to this extent.

There are adults who dress as animals for sexual reasons but again this wouldn’t be allowed in a school or work place.

It's not a hoax. Read the thread to see how many of us know some at our kids schools.

I have no idea what you mean by your last paragraph, but schools have to abide by DfE guidelines and, believe it or not, aim to include parents/carers wishes and the interest of the student in their support for the young person.
Stories like this are actually quite harmful.

The thing people are calling a hoax is the litter trays

Unless you actually have seen litter trays in schools for children to use then yes this is in fact a hoax