Furries in schools

[Jamfirstest]

I have name changed for this. Forgive me if this isn't the right board but I need to talk this through to get my head around this.

Another parent has just told me there is a furry community of young people at her dc secondary school which is in my city and an ordinary comprehensive.

The school is humouring the accessories and so on and they now have a designated room in the school to congregate. Apparently there was a request for a litter tray in the toilets though this was denied (google tells me this aspect might have been a hoax attempt).

The secondaries around here are super strict with uniforms. How is this allowed???

So I'm told some children will only respond in animal noises.

I knew what a furry was before. What adults do for fun is none of my business. But this in schools???? Or have I been under a rock?

@Insomniahasclearlygotme

Interesting how "has a litter tray" so quickly became...

As far as I am aware the litter tray she requested was denied but she has been given a designated toilet.

🙄

The trouble with 'is this really happening?' is we can slip from one definition of 'this' to another.

If 'there are litter trays' is debunked, does that mean the rest of 'this' isn't happening either?

I've heard enough first hand accounts from teachers and children to feel confident that something is happening. Yes, it's a kids subculture, but if Darren the Goth had turned up at school in his massive boots, rings and leather coat, they'd send him home, right? Schools/teachers have been so cowed by identity campaigners that they are hindered from pushing back on behaviour that's clearly unacceptable.

Smart kids can spot an opportunity a mile off. "I can wear cat ears and a tail, even though I can't wear earrings or boots. I can refuse to speak in lessons and get away with disruptive behaviour. Great."

This might not mean they're fully signed up to furry subculture. But even if they're just playing with it, some really bad things are already happening. It's not harmless. Some of them will drift further into it than they might ever have planned to. Everyone can see that adults/the school are not holding any kind of sane or consistent line, and disruption is being tolerated. But most of all, when most kids have moved on, the ones who are still all-in on this are the most socially isolated and vulnerable kids, who are being encouraged to isolate themselves further, and have basically been primed to seek out 'furry culture' online. And guess who they're going to find.

I agree with this 100%

?! People identifying as furries at school. I thought that would have been obvious in the context.

I'm not going to waste my time listing out all of the examples. The one my DD most recently mentioned was a girl who identifies as a dog walking around the lunchroom on all fours, mixing up her food (some kind of weird couscous and yoghurt combination) and eating it out of a bowl with no hands. She was visiting another school at an inter-school event and said none of the teachers or staff did anything about it. They just ignored it.

Hmmm, all righty then.

This is what happens when authority is taken away from the adults and handed to the kids with free reign to do exactly what they want.
Who the hell didn't see this coming?
I will get my arse flamed for this (probably) but I call bullshit on this having to accommodate the persons wishes to identify as a dragon and scratch people indiscriminately because of their mental health. These kids are taking the piss.because nobody is ever allowed to say "NO" anymore

It's really annoying for everyone who's experienced this to essentially be called a liar (and their children liars) in the absence of so-called "credible evidence".

If there were loads of instances of parents saying their children were eg being forced to eat everything on their plates at lunchtime but the schools denied this was happening would you also assume that the children/parents are all making it up just because you or your child havent experienced it happening? What "credible evidence" could you get of this?

What school is going to admit in the press that this is an issue for them? None! Yet my teacher friend says they are all fed up with it but get no support from SLT who don't want to address it.

Much of this sounds the same as things have always been. I was a goth in high school - pushed the uniform policy by wearing studded belts, jewellery. Some teachers ignored it, others pulled me up on uniform rules. Our sixth form common room was made up of multiple small rooms owned by friendship groups - so ours was known as “the goth room”. We didn’t meow but we would sometimes speak in Marilyn Manson quotes. Our parents were terrified that we were worshipping the devil and doing drugs, in reality apart from a smattering of underage drinking we were pretty nice kids!

Obviously, if other kids are getting harmed by it, or some kids are getting away with bad behaviour for no reason, that’s different. But teenagers have always had “identities” that they take in to school, and use to push boundaries.

It's amazing how common this is. And how many teens have smart phones.

And yet, no-one has produced any photographic evidence of these children wearing ears in class, or eating out of bowls like animals, or "furry rooms", or litter trays in the toilets.

Anonymous "my cousin's friends kid goes to a school with a girl who meows" posts on social media prove diddly squat.

I regularly see a boy dressed as a wolf out and about, with a lanyard from the local 6th form college.

Probably harmless, I find my eyeballs rolling a lot.

@WhatAMessWales I agree with everything you wrote, particularly about it being the more marginalised and vulnerable children who continue to be made more vulnerable by this.

@Cazpar I know. Funny that.

So now it's all made up because the press haven't published a photo of a (probably vulnerable) schoolchild wearing fox ears and a tail taken by another schoolchild in contravention of school rules? Right...

If you want photographic evidence just search "furries in school" on Twitter/X. I don't think any of the photos are from inside school grounds as that would be illegal.

https://twitter.com/SULLY10X/status/1782934725344034976?t=OHGADM1M9nolQiEZEfC3zw&s=19

Footage of kids in the US saying how they are affected by furries at their school.

Interview with the group of kids. Interestingly, near the end, when asked why the teachers don't intervene they say that the head's daughter is a furry so she supports it!

https://twitter.com/scarlett4kids/status/1782201886927429859?t=unU131SSpDJJUTinz68axQ&s=19

Someone stop the world, I'm getting off.

There are furries at my kids school, tails, ears and whiskers (allegedly some kids have whiskers on elastic type bands, can't quite picture it myself!) all get taken off for science, DT, and food tech. for health and safety, otherwise the school don't seem to mind. I haven't asked but am confident there are no litter trays or anything remotely worrying about the current trend. It's the girls who like to pretend, and no they don't meow, bark or hiss in class (they do have their own animal 'language' for use with each other at break and out of school... although that could be all youths....it all sounds alien to me!) dd is not a furry herself, a couple of her friends are. I know as adults we read more into it, and as another poster has pointed out, for some kids who really do 'believe', there could be issues if they become isolated and go on line to seek out others. However in DD's friendship group it's more akin to the punks, goths and hippies of my school days!

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2024/apr/26/megyn-kelly/fact-checking-claim-that-a-utah-middle-school-allo/

www.foxnews.com/media/school-district-responds-rumors-kids-identifying-furries-student-protest.amp

https://www.ksl.com/article/50985141/no-evidence-of-furries-in-nebo-school-district-despite-allegations-social-media-firestorm

Of course the schools deny it!

But there is actually footage of furries at that school, proving that the school is lying:

https://www.theblaze.com/news/contrary-to-salt-lake-tribune-fact-check-photos-and-videos-appear-to-show-multiple-students-dressed-and-behaving-as-furries-at-utah-school

Culture.war.

You don't think a video of a normally dressed child walking on all fours on what is obviously a theatre stage and in a playground could have any other explanation at all?

DD was annnoyed about the welfare centre staff at her school being slow to respond when one of her (newly-diagnosed T1 diabetic) friends was having a medical episode. DD said they were “probably looking after the girls who identify as cats instead of doing anything useful”. I asked how the identifying as cats manifested and apparently a few of them wear paws, which strikes me as a bit inconvenient at school, but I am told they take them off when they need to write (or in the lab).

I asked if the cats hung around together and DD laughed - no, they don’t have friends. So in her school at least it seems to be kids who are vulnerable in some way who are affected by this nonsense.

Oh come on. Have you actually read the report? Or the hundreds of comments from parents in the articles YOU linked to saying that despite the school denying it they have seen it too?

I mean, you're seriously going to extremes to deliberately disbelieve something there is ample evidence of. Perhaps ask yourself why you are so invested in doing so?

First of all it's "there's no photographic evidence, I'll believe it if I see photos"

When photographic and video evidence is provided it's "there must be some other explanation for these photos and videos of schoolchildren wearing animal masks and jumping around on all fours and the large group of children, supported by their parents, protesting at the behaviour of furries at their school".

I mean, really.

@Cazpar
What would you say is going on?
Do you think the whole thing is fabricated and no children have adopted these animal personas to any degree, or just that the more extreme stories of litter trays etc are tabloid exaggerations?