Do you know what a furry is mummy?

[FridayForever]

Asked my ten year old.

She proceeded to tell me it's where adults pretend to be animals and they'd played it at school cos they thought it was funny.

How do you explain to a child without much concept of sexuality what a fetish is? And that it's not the same as kids pretending to be animals, which is of course perfectly normal play.

Ten years ago if you'd started a thread saying that boys were identifying as girls and wearing wigs and skirts to school no one would have believed you either.

On the contrary - people like Jim Gamble (esx head of CEOP) in the article upthread take it seriously. It doesn't mean that furries are in all schools (apart from the legitimate play of little children in primary schools). But there are enough instances of children reporting to their parents that some children in some schools are bringing furriedom into schools. And that's inappropriate as has been repeatedly explained upthread.

Safeguarding wise, it's a dangerous approach to dismiss what children tell you without checking further. Most parents know that and anyone experienced in safeguarding knows how dangerous it is to tell children they're lying when they try to tell us about things that make them feel uneasy.

You're entitled to your views, but when you repeatedly try to shame and sneer at parents talking about their children's experiences you can expect to be called out. Most of us know that listening respectfully to children is good parenting and, where they're bothered by something, following it up is what good parents do. That's the great thing about Mumsnet - it provides a forum where parents can explore parenting and get advice and support.

By parents for parents as it says on the tin.

Oh @AdamRyan stop being the science police on the thread. Fine, real lived experience, that work for you?

When people have tried to verify these Internet stories about people eating like cats at school and requesting litter trays, they have been found to be a hoax.
It's just you banging on about litter trays here, Adam, as if that's some kind of gotcha. Posters on this thread have explained the experiences they've had with their own kids. If you choose to call them all liars, which it seems effectively you are doing, they I don't know why you bother staying here.

Of course they would have believed it! Trans identifying people were around when I was a kid and I started to know trans identifying people in my late teens, which was much longer ago than ten years

Ten years ago I was posting on this board and there was lots about trans people and trans identifying children.

This programme (controversial at the time) is 7 years old!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b088kxbw

@AdamRyan I think you know we need receipts...

"When people have tried to verify these Internet stories about people eating like cats at school and requesting litter trays, they have been found to be a hoax"

Are you sure they were hoaxes??

This was a letter sent out to parents by Monmouth School:

www.southwalesargus.co.uk/news/23925839.west-monmouth-school-row-cat-litter-trays-continues/

I don't know about stuff happening in schools but if you want to look for receipts around fandoms, furries etc go and have a look at AO3. It's a hugely popular site and has tons of fan content.
From what I can gather - I don't use the site myself as I'm too old and dull, but there's a huge amount of online teens (plus older and probably younger) enjoying mostly harmless nonsense around this but as ever there's a sinister side and lots of scope for interaction with weirdos and people you wouldn't want anywhere near your children.

I'm not giving you my UN from 10 years ago (mainly cuz I can't remember it 😂) but heres a thread from the time with links to many other threads discussing trans issues

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/2125455-Why-has-the-trans-sex-gender-debate-emerged-at-this-moment

Again, that letter proves nothing. A rumour started that children were using litter trays at school (in line with the hoax as per numerous links upthread) and the school wrote a letter saying "there is no ‘provision for any pupils who identify as an adult of any kind.’"

It's a story about nothing other than schools are being forced to respond to parents concerned about a hoax.

See also: MoMo hoax https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/technology/2019/feb/28/schools-police-and-media-told-to-stop-promoting-momo-hoax

Killer Clown hoax
https://www.west-midlands.police.uk/your-options/killer-clowns

Both things my kids have gone on about. MoMo definitely exists,because someone in year 8's cousin saw her and now they are dead 🙄

To summarise so far then, this issue is about 2 things, boundaries in school (where they should be, how they should be enforced) and boundaries around adult communities.

Some parents are concerned about animal related behaviours demonstrated in their kids schools.

If schools are tolerating it, they should get a grip and enforce the boundaries around behaviour that kids need to feel and be safe.

I don't understand what the repeated assertion that this is 'all a hoax' achieves. Safeguarding is based on accurate risk assessment, not ignoring possible problems (that's not to say the possibility of problems should be exaggerated either).

No one is saying hoaxes don't happen.

No one is saying we should just believe things with no evidence.

There is evidence that several fandoms/subcultures including furries attract some less than savoury characters that it's not appropriate for children to mix with. There is a sexual side to some people's involvement in these subcultures.

That is not to say that everyone involved with these groups does it for sexual reasons but some clearly do.

Children may get attracted to these subcultures by the fun dressing up side.

Presenting it as 'all harmless fun' and suitable for children is therefore not accurate and parents are right to be concerned about their children's involvement in such things.

Normalising words like 'furry' is not a good idea as its helping to break down boundaries that help keep children safe. It's not safe for them to be involved in adult communities.

It's all about boundaries around what was previously considered to be adult behaviour. Identity politics and the Internet has allowed this to bleed into school life. Its difficult to see how ignoring this benefits children in any way.

A great responsible post @crunchermuncher.

May I add the suggestion that if your children are reporting this, then talk to the school. They need to know - if they're unaware of it then there may a safeguarding issue with the individual child that they should be checking. And if (hopefully they're not) they're enabling, it then that's a problem that needs a complaint.

It was watching that programme that made me realise that the idea of transsexual children had gone beyond a Louis Theroux documentary about weird stuff Americans do. And I think his programme was only a couple of years earlier.

So that's how new the idea of transsexual children is to most of us.

It was a couple of years after that when I had a conversation with someone who worked in a school in which a child had just started identifying as transsexual. She was baffled by the whole idea of referring to this girl as a boy.

This stuff is very new.

How can it be very new when completely non-biased scientists have found non-binary Vikings?

You CAN'T explain what a fetish is without reference to sexuality but you shouldn't have to! The word furry DOES have sexual connotations to it and has no place in a school.

I keep going on about hoaxes because posters keep posting hoax-like posts about children identifying as cats/eating like cats out of bowls/howling like wolves in lessons/purring at the teacher.

It's ridiculous panic about something that isn't happening.

Concern about children being groomed online, fine, very sensible.

Concern about adult fetishists using the furry fandom as a way to access vulnerable victims, fine, something teachers and parents need to be aware of (and I'm sure they are).

Spreading rumours that children are literally identifying as cats with no evidence, not fine. Conspiracy theory scaremongering.

I don't know why the conspiracy theory exists, but equally I don't know why people believe covid vaccines were injecting us all with nanobots. I'm just doing my bit to combat misinformation.

Just because you're choosing to believe other parents' accounts as 'hoax-like' doesn't mean they are 🤷🏻‍♀️

This is your response to crunchermuncher's very balanced post about risk assement & safeguarding children?

When parents share their children's anxieties or concerns, most women on Mumsnet listen. There've been countless balanced and thoughtful posts on this thread yet you've consigned them all to conspiracy theories, lies and misinformation.

Personally I reckon it's not in the spirit of the site to accuse parents of lying but I rarely report allegations like yours. It means that Advanced Search remains a useful tool for those wanting to make up their own minds about which posters engage in good faith, even when we disagree and which posters dominate certain threads, repeatedly criticising others and making allegations about their motivation.

Yes. Your desperation to not believe what is happening is pretty eye-opening. Do you normally come onto other threads and tell people that their experiences didn't happen or is it just those that threaten your ideology? 🤔

It's like a hamsterwheel

Your experience is that your DD told you that a kid visited the school who demanded to be treated like a cat and ate out of a bowl like an animal (or something). I believe she told you that

I don't believe it actually happened though, because its a well known hoax. Knowing teens, its more likely she passed on some rubbish a friend of a friend told her definitely happened.

I'm not credulous enough to believe my children when they tell me about hoax stories ("my mate Charlie saw the killer clowns in weston with a knife coming after him and he had to run away!")

I certainly don't go and report them as "fact" on the Internet.

In any case though, even if the child did do that (which would be extremely unlikely on a school visit, given teenagers are wired to get almost painfully embarassed if they stand out at all) I still don't understand why this has resulted in people jumping to there's an epidemic of schools letting children identify as cats which needs to be stamped out.

Anecdote isn't evidence.

And conspiracy theories are harmful.

And also, not believing something isn't about "desperation". Especially when there is no evidence for that thing. I'm as entitled as anyone else to believe what I want and debate the reasons why I believe it.

This board has a reputation for evidence and fact. You don't have any. I don't have to believe your version of the world just because you tell me to.

Feel free to report me. I don't think I have directly called anyone a liar. I'm not sure what to say about posters regurgitating known conspiracy theories. It seems like a good thing to be able to challenge, if not we never would have got to a position where we can challenge people posting TRA "facts" and opened peoples eyes to how the TRA agenda was being manipulated.

It's probably a good question for @mnhq.

Also, I agreed with cruncher. In the nature of a conversation I was replying to this:

I don't understand what the repeated assertion that this is 'all a hoax' achieves.

Hoaxes are dangerous. Conspiracy theories are dangerous. We need to be mindful of them, as safeguarding experts know.