The Forbidding Unlawful Representation of Roleplaying in Education, or FURRIES, Act, filed by Austin-area Republican State Rep. Stan Gerdes, would “prohibit any non-human behavior by a student, including presenting himself or herself, on days other than exempt days, as anything other than a human being.”
The law would allow for exempt days, such as Halloween and other school dress-up days.
The law defines “non-human” behavior as “any type of behavior or accessory displayed by a student in a school district other than behaviors or accessories typically displayed by a member of the homo sapiens species,” with provided examples being:
Using a litter box for the passing of stool, urine or other human byproducts
A personal or outward display, except during a school play or by a school mascot, through surgical or superficial means of features that are non-human such as using tails, leashes, collars or other accessories designed for pets
Using fur, other than naturally occurring human hair or a wig made to look like human hair
Artificial, animal-like ears
Other physiological features that have not historically been assigned to the human race through a means of natural biological development
Students who bark, meow, hiss or make other animal noises that are not human speech
Licking oneself or others for the purpose of grooming or maintenance.
Can we start torso-kicking these people? Why do we have to be civil?
I wonder how much of this is borne out of the hysteria over kids supposedly using litter boxes.
I had some gomer on the Denver Post forums that kept insisting it was not only a thing, but an epidemic. I kept asking him for the supposed evidence of this claim, all he could say was that he “talks to lots and lots of parents and teachers” and “the media won’t report on it”.
It’s trivial to verify. Slap 20 bucks on the table and say “20 bucks you can’t list a location with a litterbox for furries”
“talks to lots and lots of parents and teachers” and “the media won’t report on it”.
Ain’t gonna get you 20 bucks. Need a location. If you get a location, call 'em. They’ll confirm or deny. (They’re gonna deny)
Filing this under “Closeted conservative so ashamed of their kink that, instead of discussing their feelings with a therapist, psychiatrist, or even a trusted friend, believe everyone must share their taboo thoughts and therefore be preëmptively punished to stamp out the contagion since the only honorable alternative is undergoing apoptosis like some malfunctioning cell”.
Students who bark, meow, hiss or make other animal noises that are not human speech
I’m not quite sure what it is exactly (/s), but maybe—just maybe—this is yet another attempt to fuck over and ostracize transfem and autistic people, but instead of being direct about it, using furries as the boogeyman.
Also to arrest basically any kindergartner.
Imposing this bullshit on children who often have vivid imaginations and like to play make believe shows just how much the Republican party actually cares about children.
So they’re scared of people becoming furries. I know a few furries, not in the scene myself but furries are genuinely some of the nicest people I know. And also this bill seems ableist because I knew an autistic person that would growl whenever he had a meltdown. He wasn’t a furry, it was just how he was wired.
Priorities.
Licking oneself or others for the purpose of grooming or maintenance.
Good luck trying to enforce that. Most people lick a small wound on their hands an fingers. It’s our subconscious that triggers that.
Licking a wound isn’t grooming or maintenance though.
How will my friends know I care if I can’t lick them? (I don’t actually have any though, so it’s hypothetical)
And here I was imagining a whole moosey moose squad of which you are a part. Maybe you just need to find each other?
That sounds like it would require leaving the house, which I am less and less inclined to do. Hypothetically though, sure!
Hypothetically, We’re Winning! I’ve known a few introverted Meeses over the years, and am completely sympathetic.
I can’t wait for all IT infrastructure in Texas to get compromised over this. The amount of excellent it and comp sci guys that are furries is staggering. And there are a few online collectives that can and will do damage to personal and government entities over shit like this
The amount of excellent it and comp sci guys that are furries is staggering.
Computers don’t judge. And you can be anything you want behind a screen.
They already lost their porn privileges. Guess they want to lose the rest of the internet, too 🤷🏻♂️
Texans, next time you look at the prices in the grocery store, remember that this is what your representatives are spending their time on.
Or, you know, when your kids are dying of measles.
Or when your kids are dying from school shooters…
Man they are still caught up on that fake story somebody sent to one of these morons claiming kids were using litter boxes in school. It never happened but they’re going to try to legislate it away anyway.
The lesson here is don’t troll these idiots, they’ll fucking believe it and then start passing idiotic laws for non-problems.
These are the same sort of dumbfucks that absolutely believed the “LSD stickers/tattoos” bullshit way, way back and would insist on schools passing out flyers based on that stupid urban legend.
I remember being in sixth grade when they had a bout of that going around our school, and I was like, wait, what? And I had a lot of doubts. And that’s when I was in sixth grade. Years later, you could look it up and see what nonsense it was. Anyway, I was at TWO different jobs where someone was trying to “inform parents” with some printouts they had about you guessed it, the bullshit LSD stickers nonsense. The first time, I told them “you know, this is urban legend, right?” I get immediately treated like I’m some kind of criminal that does not want to protect the children.
I suspect the bullshit around litter boxes will have a similar lifetime among those that are hard of thinking.
The lesson here is don’t troll these idiots, they’ll fucking believe it and then start passing idiotic laws for non-problems.
Throwback to when 4chan started memeing about pizzas, and the resulting chain of events led to a real pizza parlor being shot up by a right-wing nut job who thought it was full of pedophiles.
IIRC it did have a hint of truth, like most things do. They then spun a totally different story from it. The hint of truth is it was for school shootings where they couldn’t leave the classroom for an extended period of time.
Instead of addressing the real issue, which is that school shootings have become so common that preparations like this need to be made, they spun it into a story that the schools were pandering towards furries. As always, it’s all smoke and mirrors to keep people distracted and give them an enemy, so they don’t force representatives to actually help them.
The weird thing is for some reason people will lie to perpetuate these falsehoods
Like I do therapy and I talk to teenagers regularly because teenagers need mental health support, obviously. And sometimes they’ll bring up shit like this: “my school installed a litter box because of these woke kids”
But even the most basic of prodding: “did they really” with a tone of like “come on” and they’ll backpedal, “well no, but like there are kids that have fursonas and shit”
It’s crazy to see it start so young. They’re realizing at like 16 they can get adults to gang up on the kid they think is weird by being dishonest, and adults buy into it because it’s a chance to bully someone weaker and politicians jump on it because it’s a new wedge issue to distract people from class consciousness
And what’s crazy is that by some perspectives if I call them out on this dishonesty and point out this cycle I’m indoctrinating them
And when you try and tell anyone who bought it they say there is evidence, while never being able to provide any.
They will say this legislation proves its real. Why else would this legislation exist? I’m sure the lawmakers have all the evidence.
I’ve just taken to saying “provide me with evidence or shut the fuck up” usually followed closely by “how about one that’s from multiple independent sources and not from a fox opinion piece or personal blog”
It’s funny a Portuguese person just told me the same story happened in PT to justify anti-trans positions. So it’s the same bullshit story, localized, and repeated.
Just like how antisemitic stereotypes with no basis (blood libel etc.) have been repeated in many countries for hundreds of years. Even before the internet, memes were used for the effective spreading of suspicion and hatred.
The lesson here is don’t troll these idiots, they’ll fucking believe it and then start passing idiotic laws for non-problems.
Exactly this. Just like flat earthers (and that super bizarre one about time cubes or whatever), the rubes will gobble it up and eventually people will get hurt over it.
Another one is the Birds Aren’t Real meme, which I think is pretty funny, but you just know that an innocent birdwatcher will get shot some day because an extremely mentally unwell person will assume that they’re some government spook checking on the “drones”.
I always love using that example to dismiss some concerns about deepfakes sparking national conspiracies.
Nobody even tried to fake a picture of it. I’ve seen photos on lemmy of people shaving their heads in weird ways or making some horrible bean-themed food just for the karma. Throwing an empty litter box in an empty classroom takes much less effort yet nobody even bothered.
Ok, I’m new here and I HAVE to ask what’s up with beans. If it’s not too uncool to ask
Beans are amazing. What else do you need to know?
Beans were just some sort of meme that popped up randomly. I think it was one of those “mods are asleep quick post [x] before they wake up” types of things, and it quickly spiraled until half of everyone’s feed was just beans.
I was around when it happened, and even I don’t understand it.
Ugh. So uncool. ~j/k I dunno either~
I did a small dive and found an account of an apparent legit case of a litter box in a school, but it was for an option for extended school shooting drills
https://www.denverpost.com/2018/03/03/school-shooting-preparations/amp/
Yup, camp toilets are a similar concept. It’s just a 5 gallon hardware store bucket with a snap-on toilet seat lid. You line it with what is essentially a trash bag, just to make disposal easier. Then you use a gelling agent (just like what is in disposable diapers to allow them to soak up a bunch of moisture) to reduce sloshing and smell. It’s handy for when you’re going to be away from toilets for a day or two, but don’t want to (or aren’t able to) dig a hole to shit in.
But the same concept applies for when you’re going to be trapped somewhere (like a classroom) for an extended period of time. Like, for instance, during a school shooting. When you have 30 kids in a classroom, there’s a very good chance that at least one of them will need to piss after an hour or two. And nobody wants to deal with human waste in something like an open trashcan during a lockdown.
And as an added bonus, the bucket can be used to store all of active shooter supplies when it’s not in use. So everything is in a single location to quickly grab and prep. Active shooter happens? Great, just grab the big bucket out of the closet, dump all of the supplies out, and you’re ready to go. Now all of your tourniquets, styptic bandages, etc are accessible.
But it quickly got distorted into “they’re making kids use litter boxes to indoctrinate them” instead.
That’s how this whole “kids are identifying as cats and using litter boxes at school” shitshow started.
what? absolutely troll these idiots now that you know they are very susceptible.
just do it in a way they pass good laws out of fear instead.
This idiocy must be weaponized
While you’re right about that being fake, it’s just pandering to their base who do take issue with forms of self-expression that are common amongst queer, trans and/or autistic students. Things like wearing a collar, a tail or cat ears are absolutely relatively common and this bill targets those all the same.
My daughters love wearing cat-ear headbands. It’s cute, they like it, end of story. Nobody has thrown a fit about it yet… 🤞🤞
The lesson here is to actually troll these idiots, but with stuff that lead to idiotic laws so inconvenient that even their voter base will hate them for it.
Give them enough rope, and they’ll hang themselves with it.
“Using tails, leashes, collars” - the B&D crowd isn’t going to like that
They’re going after easy targets like schools because if they targeted furries in the state government, all of the IT infrastructure would crumble.
I’m frankly shocked it hasn’t already, the pay for government IT jobs is kinda shit, and they’ve been trying to slash federal employee benefits for years (theres been recent rumors of increasing mandatory FERS deductions and turning insurance into a voucher program). they’ve started going after anyone LGBTQ+ federally as well.
Ultimately the problem is that that works in their favour. Remember the Republican position is “The Government doesn’t work and if you put me in charge of it I’ll prove it!”, so the only thing they need to do is destroy anything they can get their hands on. The only part of the government they care about (other than their specific seat) is the military. They will gleefully watch everything else burn and then point at the ashes as proof they were right all along.
They piss on the DoD and call it rain too, just not as much. Contractors generally make more than the civilian employees at the cost of potentially getting screwed over at the end of the contract or during a shutdown (realistically, I’ve heard it doesn’t happen that often, they’ll usually just get hired by whoever gets the next contract), and civilian employees just get more stable work hours and benefits (separate annual/sick leave pools, insurance, etc); if shit needs done after hours, they’ll call the active duty folks in, and if they cant make things work it’ll wait till morning.
Edit; forgot where i was going with this and rambled a bit. TL;DR, they want to replace everyone DoD with contractors and active duty. People who can easily be fired (ran by companies that bribe politicians) and people who can be imprisoned for saying “no.”.
Hah, that made me chuckle. I recently attended an outdoor market in my area that for some reason had an unusually high number of furries wandering around it. I was really curious what the bus factor of that market would actually be.
Yeah in this case I kind of meant the corollary to a bus factor. Essentially if everyone at that market disappeared, how many companies would be severely impacted?
No worries, I understood what you meant. It’s like that photo of all the furries on an airplane… Pray it doesn’t crash or else the world infrastructure is done for 😂
Wow.
I remember learning about dinosaurs as an elementary schooler after Jurassic Park came out, and spending a few months on the playground pretending to be a velociraptor (well technically they’re closer to deinonychous but w/e) … apparently that is now banned, because otherwise I might have become a scaly, for life?
Wonderful.
Former pterodactyl from third grade here
apparently that is now banned, because otherwise I might have become a scaly, for life?
I’m not seeing a denial…
Closest I ever got to being a scaly was… enjoying those old dinosaur comics from almost two decades ago, where the gimmick was it was the exact same 4 panels every time, buy with different dialogue?
But uh no, I do not have a … scale suit? Scale-sona? I don’t even know if thats the right terminology.
I just had a few friends who were DeviantArtists decades ago, and am vaguely aware via osmosis that there is a subset of furries with dino personas.
So children are not allowed to play anymore. It breaks my heart knowing how important expressing the connection to a favourite animal is for many kids. I know nazis go for easy targets, but the fact they target children is just nauseating to me.
