Furries.... Schools warned not to ridicule

[Lightningstrikess]

https://www.thesun.ie/news/10935640/parents-teachers-warned-schoolkids-furries/

That’s a good article, and none of it is secret if one has grown up on the internet.

Furries have always been considered the bottom feeders of the online communities, met everywhere with ridicule and contempt.

I would also really like to know how you checked with schools and what was asked @LuluBlakey1
I would presume for it to be on 'official' records it would by necessity mean that there is an official option to include animals on the school records? Otherwise surely the answer will always be none.

This.

Not to mention with the papers involved, the LAs frantically arse covering and ministers writing to OFSTED to demand snap inspections....

it's hardly likely that a head teacher is going to say yup, they're identifying as teapots and dragons and all sorts and we're the next Daily Mail headline. It's a question strongly encouraging the response 'no'.

@LuluBlakey1 @Froodwithatowel always good to know where our tax money is being spent though!

Politicians care about voted and money more than humans.

I wish I was good at accounting to show them how much this ideology has wasted and will waste in compensation. I think that those who wrote the guidelines in organisations should be pushed to be imprisoned and to pay from their own pocket compensation not the taxpayers.

The blood scandal inquiry came to this conclusion, that prison time and financial consequences needs to be born by individuals in future. Lessons learned are safeguarding themselves not the vulnerable when there are no consequences for them only the taxpayers and their victims.

https://twitter.com/the_tpa

Private communication anonymised to remove identifying details:

A School in the North East:

"Quite a few children are identifying as furries in year 10 at one high school. Whether their identities are recorded or validated by staff is another matter. The teachers seem to ignore it except for one girl who is non-binary and identifies as a dog and has been given a fob to use the teachers toilets."

Obviously not your LA @LuluBlakey1 but it would not be surprising if there were clusters of children identifying as Furries and/or Therians due to social contagion.

Several parents have been interviewed for this article:

Inside the world of the Furries: Why is the number of children claiming they're cats on the rise - and why are teachers indulging the new subculture to the alarm of parents?
UK schools are seeing a phenomenon of teenage pupils identifying as cats
22 June 2023 - Daily Mail
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12223999/Inside-world-furries-cat-pupils-dressing-whiskers-tails-school.html

As with all this lunacy, it has come to us from the USA.

Making a Safe Place for Students Who Identify as Furries, Therians, and Otherkins
2018 - by a US High School Counselor
(In the author's first blog post in 2013 she says that she had been a High School Counselor for 12 years at that point)

The comments on are well worth a read too.
https://forhighschoolcounselors.blogspot.com/2018/02/making-safe-place-for-students-who.html

LuluBlakey1 if a school had told you that it had children who were identifying as Furries, what action did you, as as an advisor in behaviour / attendance / guidance and support for headteachers, and your Local Authority plan to take?

This has to be a pisstake. When I was at school if I thought I could get away with pretending to be a cat and miaowing at the teacher I 100% would have 😂

Ah yes, otherkins 😆 A lot of this nonsense started off on tumblr about 15 years ago.

Buy the difference is noone is trying to put the furries & therians on hormone treatment, castrate or mutilate them. Identifying as an animal is absolutely seen as a phase they will grow out of...
However if a child identifies as the opposite sex thdy are not given that chance to let the phase run it's course... It's so sad.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-11390103/amp/12-year-old-BOYS-asked-PREGNANT-bizarre-NHS-poster-says.html

Scottish hospital here too...

Sorry wrong thread.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-11389979/amp/Should-let-people-identify-dragons-plants-DISASBLED.html?ico=amp_articleRelated_with_images

I’ve one personally taught a furry in school, about eight years ago. They didn’t tell many people. They tools me it was a hobby. They wore school uniform at school. This was before I taught any trans children.

Furries exist. Furry children exist and go to schools. All you need to be a furry is a costume. You could be at a school with several furries and not know it, just as you wouldn’t necessarily know how many children were train spotters.

But what does one DO as a furry?

As a child or a purely cosplaying furry, you dress up and pretend to be the animal, or weird anime hybrid animal, that you’re somewhat over-invested in. Your anthropomorphism of the animal is called your “fursona”, apparently 🙄 Weird (to me anyway), inappropriate for school or work but ultimately harmless.

Some people have a furry kink, where they’re sexually aroused by having a “fursona” and/or by other furries. You’d hope this was an entirely adult part of the phenomenon. (To be quite frank, I can imagine little that’s less arousing than dressing up as Bambi and trying to hump Thumper, but you do you so long as it’s safe, sane, consensual and preferably behind closed doors with no children involved or exposed.)

@BabyStopCryin its therians mainly in schools.. These make animal noises, wear cat ears & tails or whatever animal they are identifying as.
Therians believe they are animals born in the wrong body. They identify & act like animals.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12219913/amp/Children-identifying-cats-wearing-ears-class-warns-Britains-toughest-headteacher.html

Come on there is no way that isn't a wind up

@whyisegg if we were told 10 years ago men would be allowed on women's hospital wards, in women's prisons, changing rooms & toilets, take over women's sports & woman would be referred to as non-man people would say it was a wind up & scaremongering but here we are.

Yep - I think much that has been written by the DM about this is rubbish.

The cats are red herrings... 😂

Just to add to what @HarpyValley has said, I also see an educational side to furries.
A furry, if my experience is anything to go by, also does a lot of research on their chosen animal character - their biology, habitat, etc. There is also a lot of artwork involved as furries design their fursona. I've seem some amazing creations. Fursuit makers must earn a small fortune because the serious suits are very expensive and very detailed. I believe a decent fursuit costs upwards of £8K.
So not a poor persons hobby. Furries are probably all around you and you never notice. Like train spotters....

Yes! There was a very 😯clip on gogglebox not that long ago, from Alice Levine's series 'Sexually Active' about virtual furry sex.

Moopsi · 27/06/2023 10:48

They were clearly talking about a girl who identifies as a cat. And the girls said afterwards that the whole conversation with the teacher (telling off) started because they said in class that it was crazy to identify as a cat...

The school denies that any pupils "identify" as a cat. Several posters here think it's not happening.

Why would the girls bring up the subject of another pretending to be a cat? I wonder if it's because another kid is claiming to be a cat? I'd say yes, otherwise, it would defy logic.

And that so-called teacher is incredibly ill informed and he should be bloody sacked!

@SinnerBoy the teacher hadn't a breeze... Those girls were spot on. They should have been up teaching the class. The teacher honestly was so incorrect on every level, I'd imagine the TRAs were even shaking their heads in bewilderment when that audio clip was released.. She was so far off the mark🤣

I wouldn't be surprised! She's probably lacking in self awareness to see what a complete fool she's made of herself.