Is this the new "it never happens"?

[AtomicBlondeRose]

Seeing a lot of sniggering and joking on Twitter etc about students identifying as cats after the recent school news story. Lots of joshing and "oh yes, furries are the new threat" and accusations that people who believe this are off their rocker and exaggerating.

Except...I'm a teacher and I've taught a student who identified as a cat. Didn't have much effect on anything as we didn't have to call her by a cat name (it was a few years ago) and so on but she did identify as one! And I now work at a college and there's a student who wears a tail every day and a few who come in cat ears. And we're very much not on the cutting edge of trends here, so, given the rise in identity-assuming, and that it's a big world, and that teenagers are the absolute target audience for this sort of thing, why would we jump to the conclusion it isn't happening? If you look on Tiktok you can find lots of young people identifying as animals. Why the denial?

Pretending to be an animal in your teens is also staggeringly immature.

So what? Teens are immature. They are allowed to be immature.

It seems a very Victorian attitude: “Now you are a MAN, my son, and must put away childish things!”.

When I was at university (decades ago) the student union was full of young adults watching Rainbow or whatever kids' programme was on at lunchtime. On some level they clearly found it comforting being able to switch off from their new adult lives for a little while.

I know a teenager who attends a school where a handful of students identify as animals. It's a strict school but exemptions are made for those students who identify as something they are not, hence creating the attraction for anyone who likes attention, feeling special or being disruptive in the first place. Of course, one boy was indulged in this way so now other students are following suit. The other students find them eye-rollingly ridiculous but the attention and the special status is the entire point. The school has quite a few trans-identified students so I guess being trans wasn't nough any more. The teachers aren't actually referring to them as cats or foxes or whatever, though. It's more a question of wearing stuff.

What next? Inanimate objects?

Tbh I am much less bothered by people identifying as cats than I am by men identifying as women.

In our household I've got DH on one side saying "All this cat gender stuff is made up by the right-wing gutter press, what do you mean there was a bullying TRA teacher and a recording, I never heard about that on my Good People media, therefore it didn't happen!" while on the other side I've got teen DD telling me "I just read an article that a heroic teacher got cancelled by horrible bigots because she was protecting a helpless trans person from horrendous bullying by evil classmates who denied their identity!"

So it's not so much "This Never Happens", but rather "It Did And Didn't Happen But In Both Cases Genderism Wins"

I think there is a lot of it's too big a problem if it is true and too uncomfortable to think about so I will bury my head in the sand and not engage with conversation about it. It doesn't happen. I'm not listening 🙉 lalalalallalalala

I've seen them saying it's just kids pretending.

Well what is a 'transgirl' if it's not a kid pretending.

They are trying to distance themselves from the logic as usual.

What next? Inanimate objects?

This is a poem written by a woman who claimed to have married the Berlin Wall - it's 'a thing' and it's known as 'Object sexuality'.

I don't know if anybody ever asked the wall directly about 'he' identified, but I suppose it would technically hold true if a self-identified 'object' looked suspiciously like a human and thus could give their own perspective on the matter.

http://www.mit.edu/~mcanulty/i_dream.html

During Covid, DD and her friend identified as wolves. They spoke Wolfish to each other, though they were not allowed to do it in class. I believe it was an anxiety reaction to their world suddenly becoming scary and insecure.
The school indulged them, but didn't let it get out of hand, and it passed.

I think if you believe that there are numerous genders then it automatically follows that cat gender is a thing too. How many children are being taught there are 100 genders, and why should one be less valid than any other? Personally I think it’s a load of rubbish but when activists start teaching beliefs as facts this is the result.

I wonder if any cat furries will be turning up on Pride marches? Could be a felid (!) day for the tabloids...

I don't land on either left or right but my observations of the issues the left attack each other over are a puzzle.

The left does what you say here, focus a lot on money, and as you say attack conservatives for their money decisions. It's very much the prevalent narrative for the left, money.

The right look at the left and see what?

The left shouting non stop about the evil right wing money behaviour.

The left also shout non stop (not here, I know, I'm talking the woke bro and cis sis) about rights for every kink, public display of your anus and sexualised media with no boundaries.

So the right are seeing the left behaving like nonstop sex obsessed exhibitionists whose only morals are anger about the rights approach money.

It's strange here in the middle.

The left only cares about money and the right are a bit freaked out by the left's lack of care about any other morals

I don't land on either left or right but my observations of the issues the left and right attack each other over are a puzzle.

It's all a bit back to front, what happened?

Bristol university published a guide to gender that included 'catgender':

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/catgender-bristol-university-pronoun-guide-b2010087.html

Here's an earnest explanation of 'catgender'

https://www.reddit.com/r/lgbt/comments/11b1yz6/catgender_are_not_what_people_think_they_are_and/

And a wiki on 'xenogender':

https://lgbtqia.fandom.com/wiki/Xenogender

It's interesting to see this rise in 'xenogender'.

Children believe what you tell them, by and large.

If you raise small children to believe there are 100 genders:

As the BBC film shows this teacher doing, then how can a school possibly then deny their claim to any specific gender?

And this Reddit sub for xenogenders is informtive:

https://www.reddit.com/r/XenogendersAndMore/

I am finding the extreme trans activists push back on this to be enlightening. So many have declared it a ridiculous notion, yet fail to grasp this is an official, published gender. And if it could not be possibly valid, why is any gender valid.

They really cannot have it both ways.

This is exactly the dissonance that came about with Bryson’s sentencing. What has become very apparent is that gender identity is only relevant to the ‘right type of people’. Anyone else who claims a gender identity that has not been approved by the group is excluded.

Such a tolerant and inclusive group. The hypocrisy alarm is so clangingly loud that it really is being heard by the wider population now.

There are 13 year old ´furries’ at dds school. I haven’t sought the details, but tbh it seems more pleasant to assume that they are identifying as cats than to imagine that we are dealing with the more traditional meaning of furry here.

There are numerous cases as males identifying as girls of a very specific age - such as a 4 year old girl.

'Otherkin' identification is a very much a thing and people indulge in it to greater or lesser degrees. There are community support boards for people who identity in such ways.

Identity labels and markers have become a perfectly normal and almost expected thing for many young people. I can also see how children on the autistic spectrum could easily end up following this trend.

I'm sure their 'hobby' is innocent, but the problem is where it will lead them if they browse the internet or search for other furries on-line.

The issue isn't the kids, it's the way adults respond. I used to play ponies pretty obsessively as a kid- up to age about 12- with a couple of friends. We spent every playtime being ponies, would run in a sort of lollop pretending to be cantering, make little jumps etc etc. All fine. What wouldn't have been fine would have been adults responding as if this was actually our identity, that we should be treated as ponies in lessons, were actually ponies, or that anyone pointing that out was a hateful bigot.

Once you're an adult, you're allowed to play make-believe as much as you want but the rest of the points remain. Adults playing make-believe should be allowed to get on with it in peace. Doesn't mean the rest of us have to play.

'They really cannot have it both ways.

This is exactly the dissonance that came about with Bryson’s sentencing. What has become very apparent is that gender identity is only relevant to the ‘right type of people’. Anyone else who claims a gender identity that has not been approved by the group is excluded.'

It's also what happens when you have a system that relies on existing understanding but simultaneously denies and undermines that understanding.

For example, genderism relies on everyone 'knowing' what sex they are and then applying a modifying belief to produce a 'gender identity'. Then the fact of sex is denied entirely, and we are left with 'gender identity' untethered from biological sex. We can only know what 'gender identity' we are, or anyone else is, by some mysterious inner process. It's not related to our sex.

So by this logic, how do you explain reproduction to children if you've told them sex is something we can choose? That their 'gender identity' is an arbitrary belief with no relation to their body?

We've had people on here try to argue that children can be taught that 'people with penises' can get 'people with vaginas' pregnant, but this falls down when we have people concurrently arguing that Isla Bryson's penis is female, or that as a transwoman they are 'biologically female'.

I think everyone retains some childish/childlike interests and characteristics through life, but part of growing up is knowing the time and place. I knew of many people at my workplace who dress up for as characters for conventions and one who was open about taking part in furry events. They didn’t bring it to work, other than not hiding the fact that’s what they do in their downtime. Fine. If they’d turned up to work in character and expected everyone to treat it seriously, however, I’d have thought them utterly silly, trivial and childish.

Teenagers are old enough to understand that it isn’t necessary to share your inner child in all contexts.

So, by all means wear tails and indulge in ‘play’, but don’t be surprised that others judge this negatively. It’s the lack of maturity in adapting to different situations that we’re judging. That not everything is or needs to be about your interests.

I am in a rush on my way out and have not phrased that well. I'll try again later. It's something to do with hollowing out words, severing their meaning and connection to material reality, but then trying to pretend the empty words still have meaning.

But being a furry tends to be a fetish.
No one needs to participate in other peoples fetishes.