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Author Mira Bartok has raised quite a stir with her first fantasy novel, called The Wonderling. “Welcome to the Home for Wayward and Misbegotten Creatures, an institution run by evil Miss Carbunkle, a cunning villainess who believes her terrified young charges exist only to serve and suffer. Part animal and part human, the groundlings toil in classroom and factory, forbidden to enjoy anything regular children have, most particularly singing and music. For the Wonderling, an innocent-hearted, one-eared, fox-like eleven-year-old with only a number rather than a proper name — a 13 etched on a medallion around his neck — it is the only home he has ever known. But unexpected courage leads him to acquire the loyalty of a young bird groundling named Trinket, who gives the Home’s loneliest inhabitant two incredible gifts: A real name — Arthur, like the good king in the old stories — and a best friend. Using Trinket’s ingenious invention, the pair escape over the wall and embark on an adventure that will take them out into the wider world and ultimately down the path of sweet Arthur’s true destiny.” According to the publisher, this new hardcover book has already been optioned for a movie adaptation.

image c. 2018 Penguin RandomHouse

So Finnish company Metsä Tissue [1] has squirrel mascots for it's Serla brand paper products. Because, why the heck not? SQUIRREL! https://youtu.be/frKMtIGZVSs https://youtu.be/9ZULxis_1Jk https://youtu.be/eF6tddznpAw [1] https://www.metsatissue.com/en/Pages/default.aspx
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Guest post by V, who’s gone through a variety of names that people found hard to pronounce and eventually settled for simple. V is a dragonish critter who’s been floating around the outskirts of furry since the early 00’s. They’ve written previously about species identity as lizardywizard, and can currently be found on Mastodon, as @behemoff@dragon.style, and Twitter as magnetongue.

I’ve read a lot (a lot!) of great writing on gender here at [a][s], and Makyo’s recent post “Gender: Furry” was no exception. I must admit, however, that I clicked on the title expecting, hoping for—and yet, deep down, knowing I probably wouldn’t find—something different.

See, as much as [a][s] is a site that dares to go deep into questions of gender, sexuality, and how those things are expressed in the playground of liminal, hot-swappable identity that is furry, there are surprisingly few writings on species as identity.

Therians and otherkin are more common in furry than we seem—when mentioning I’m a therian at furmeets or in chats, I always get at least one person per gathering who admits “Me too”. It’s obvious in hindsight that if anywhere would be a natural fit for such people, of course it would be furry, where we live out a startlingly profound yet largely unspoken agreement: to set aside our human personas completely among our friends, even when not roleplaying. Think about it for a moment. While there’s no requirement in furry to portray yourself as your character, wouldn’t a furry who used a human name and avatar for all their interactions seem weirdly out of place? The default, the expected, is that we uphold the masquerade. Through fursuits, avatars, usernames and conbadges, we ensure that our friends in the community know us primarily for our fursonas, not our physical forms.

Yet despite the obvious overlap, the topic by and large remains the elephant (or wolf, or cougar) in the room that is furry, just as furry seems to be a verboten subject in therian communities. Somewhere down the line, we mutually agreed to ignore each other’s existences.

I’ve got some theories on why, but those will come a little later. First, my story.

I was in college when I first discovered what “transgender” meant.

It wasn’t that I’d been shielded from the world as such: I had a liberal upbringing as a homeschooled child who, unlike the typical American picture of homeschooling, was allowed to research freely into whatever topics took my fancy. It just so happened that those topics were largely “animals” and “science”, and as these were the days before home internet was common, that meant I spent my days with nature encyclopedias and biology books—neither of which (back then, at least) said anything about gender identity.

I do remember using a pencil to black out the “fe” in “female” in an article about frogs, leaving the text, nonsensically, describing the behaviours of the “male and male”. As a child on the autistic spectrum who was particularly picky about words, I told myself I just didn’t like the aesthetics of the word “female”.

I often blacked out the word “human”, too.

But: college. It was then that I first stumbled, in my searching for anime- and manga-themed content, upon the writings of Jennifer Diane Reitz, probably best known (if at all) among furries for the long-running webcomic Unicorn Jelly. The comic was okay, but I was much more interested in the more personal writings of the author, who described in great detail her wrestling with an identity crisis of which I had never heard, but which I instantly found compelling.

It seemed to start out simple—a preference for, and fascination with, “girl” toys over “boy” ones—but by the onset of male puberty she was tormented to the point that, despite the pain and expense of surgery, the isolation of starting anew, and derision and abuse from almost all who knew her (Reitz was born in 1959, among the early modern pioneers of the transgender movement), she set out in pursuit of a remote, precarious and at times impossible-seeming goal: to live life as a woman, despite being born “as a man”.

I read and re-read the story countless times. I put it down to curiosity—here was something I had never before encountered, an incredible story of bravery and triumph—but my innermost self was unconvinced. I didn’t usually get invested in human interest stories, after all; I wasn’t much interested in humans. I preferred to read about animals, or to immerse myself in stories of fantasy creatures. What was the big deal about one kind of human turning into another kind of human? It was cool, but not my thing. And yet here I was, feeling that on some level this story represented me, knowing in some deep-down way that I, too, felt alienated by the body I wore. Despite the clear hardships she faced, I felt that I, too, would willingly subject myself to them in order to achieve what she had: a sense of peace, when she looked in the mirror, at her body’s alignment with her soul.

Over the next several years, and through the encouragement of the internet, I found myself veering first towards a non-binary identity (or “androgynous”, as we thought of it back then), then a male one, before finally settling somewhere between the two. I went back and forth on the topic of hormones, eventually deciding they weren’t for me, but in 2010 I went ahead with top surgery.

It increased my sense of comfort with my body immensely, and I’ve never regretted it. I wish I’d done it sooner. But as I looked further down the paths that were open to me for bodily change, I felt a dissatisfaction that I couldn’t shake. Asking myself what kind of body I wanted, I realised I didn’t want to be a human man, or a human woman, or even something that was both or neither (though lacking visible sexual characteristics sounded nice).

I didn’t want to be a human anything at all.

Not in the sense of not wanting to exist. But in the sense of wanting, desiring features that weren’t human. The human face, with its flatness, its square, bovine front teeth, felt wrong. Flesh felt wrong, this exposed pink-beige wrinkly stuff. Feet, legs, stance: all wrong. Objectively, wasn’t just about anything more beautiful than a human? Even a chimpanzee had variety, its face contrasting flesh and fur, tan and black, light and dark. The human body was utterly bland, boring. Couldn’t I be colourful? And what was with this unwieldy walking-upright thing?

Some of you might be thinking that the fandom had conditioned me to feel this way, that a diet of too much furry erotica had hijacked my natural appreciation for humanity. In truth, I was and am pretty much asexual, and I can look back throughout my whole life and see that even at an early age, these feelings were present. I always preferred animal toys over human ones, always rooted for the dragon or monster instead of the human protagonist. I loved dinosaurs, as many kids did, but I didn’t develop the obsession with facts and species names that marks most childrens’ love for dinos: instead I fixated on oddly specific things like whether the shape of their snouts felt “right” to me, by some strange internal compass that was apparently measuring these things. My fantasy worlds were never populated with humans, and when I found stories with entirely alien casts I jumped for joy, especially if they delved deep into the society and culture of those other species. I absorbed those cultures into my mental worlds and longed to make them my own. I longed, impossibly, for a social and bodily niche that didn’t exist: something not quite animal, something with a complex culture, but not human either.

Not to get too philosophical about the cause of this—I’m fairly agnostic on why I am this way, I only know that I am—but even now I’m still discovering little ways in which my early self-perceptions match the outside world. A few years back, on a recommendation, I picked up the book Raptor Red by paleontologist Robert T. Bakker: a fascinating exploration of his theories about dinosaurs, told from the (imaginary) perspective of a female Utahraptor. I had a breakthrough moment when I noticed the protagonist instinctively identified herself, and potential mates, by the colour of their snouts: Red Snouts like herself were viable mates, while Yellow Snouts were the outsiders. It reminded me exactly of the way that I did, and still do, categorise dinosaurs as looking “right” or “wrong” by their snout shapes. Even if written by an expert, Raptor Red is speculative fiction, but it’s an odd little coincidence.

We can argue proof and evidence all day and ultimately come to no satisfactory conclusion. The only hard fact I have is that this is my experience, and has been my experience since I was young.

No matter what I told myself, I was never quite able to shake it. I tried everything, from telling myself “this is ridiculous” (which of course never works) to fursuits, body paint, even running quadruped along the beach (“it’s the new exercise craze!”). I’ve listened to hypnosis recordings to try to conjure, even fleetingly, the feeling of being in a reptilian body. I’ve seriously considered body modification a la Stalking Cat, whose death touched me greatly: we never met, but he was one of the few people in furry who I felt would have truly understood where I was coming from. I’ve hoped, wished, dreamed and prayed, but in the end, nothing has brought me close to that state that I seek.

After 34 years, I’ve found the feeling comes and goes, and in better times I can accept that if I’m meant to transform, it probably won’t be in this lifetime. Right now I’m in the part of the story where the dragon lives as human for a while, and I’ve more or less made peace with that, though some part of me is still holding out for a virtual-reality miracle.

Still, as someone who is both transgender and, as I’ve occasionally referred to it in understanding company, transspecies, I can definitively say which bothers me more. There are a bunch of things I could change about this human body to make it more androgynous, but I don’t feel they’re worth the effort or expense. But give me the opportunity to become just a little more reptilian, and I’ll be looking for a place to sign before the words are out of your mouth.

I’m not “supposed” to say that. Ask a room full of furries what “TF” means and you’ll find at least one enthusiast; but for all that countless man-, woman-, tod- and vixen-hours have been devoted to portraying the moment when we finally slip off our human masks and become the creature we see inside, we rarely talk about it as a serious want or even need, at least for a minority in the fandom.

Perhaps it’s that masquerade again: just as a fish doesn’t notice the water it’s swimming in, maybe we’ve successfully immersed ourselves in the theatre of furry identity such that questioning it seems to break the magic. Of course I’m a dragon; of course she’s a fox. What else would we be? To probe too deeply into the meta-question of why we chose this is to remind ourselves of the very thing many of us, therian or not, are here to escape: the gap between who we are and who we want to be.

Perhaps it’s discomfort with what seems, to most rational-minded adults, to be a strange and frightening delusion. To not probe the masquerade is to not have to sit too deeply with the question the outside world often throws at us: isn’t there something unhealthy about choosing to spend so much of our time, money and social lives on the pretense that we’re animals? When faced with this question, we often retreat into our well-worn excuses. “It’s just a hobby”; “it’s just roleplaying”. But do those words really describe the extent to which, for many of us, this masquerade is our lives? Are we afraid of looking at the “extreme” cases of species identity because of what we fear they might say about us?

Perhaps we simply don’t think it’s worth it. To look to the professional world for a diagnosis of “species identity disorder”, per Gerbasi, would be sticking our heads above the parapet to be shot at by any number of trolls. For most people, the risks are too great, the possible rewards too remote. Even in the therian community, I seem to be in the minority when I say that my identity has caused me clinical levels of pain, that I’ve sought therapy for it on more than one occasion. If you’ve found comfortable ways to live with it, then why draw more attention to an already maligned group of people?

And of course it’s not just us we fear harming. People worry that talking about species longings as a genuine struggle for some might tar transgender people, by associating them and their struggles with “those crazy people who want to be animals”. As a trans person myself, I’ve gone back and forth on this a lot. I want to advocate for people with similar species feelings and hopefully, by talking about these experiences, make them feel less alone and that someone else is taking them seriously. And I can’t accept the conclusion that it harms people to talk about this, so we should never discuss it or study it. We may be few, but our feelings are still valid, and for some are lifelong. That shouldn’t just be discounted.

But I also understand that it’s not something that would be taken kindly if we were to go public with it. Although honestly I think few would listen—I don’t think the small subset of furries who could genuinely be said to suffer from “species identity disorder” is powerful enough to make anyone pay attention to us, let alone harm the much larger cause of transgender rights—I know that relating the trans rights movement, and the countless lives that have been lost or shortened in the continued fight for equality, to something that seems so flippant makes people wince. And of course I don’t mean to claim that as a group, we are in need of political protection.

My point is simply that, at least for a handful, it isn’t flippant. I know that can be hard to take at face value, but I’d like you to try. I’d like you to try to understand that when I sat for hours at that college computer, hanging on every word of Reitz’s story of transformation, I wasn’t mocking anyone or playing a game. I didn’t even know what I was feeling at first, why the realisation that maybe I too was trans felt incomplete, not like the life-affirming victory I had expected. I didn’t start going online, all those years ago, with the expectation that I’d ever find anyone like myself. And certainly, I’ve found few, even among furries. But we do exist, and now I know I’m not alone in these bizarre thoughts and feelings.

So, yes, my gender is “scaly”. Because the boxes “male”, “female” and “other” don’t mean that much to me, but this one does. Because the desire to be this has always been with me and always will be, no matter how silly it seems. Because it’s what I would transition to, if I could.

Welcome to the second FWG Awareness Week! This is a bi-monthly event, run by the moderators in the FWG Slack group (Searska GreyRaven, ritter_reiter, and George Squares) as a way to bring focus to minority culture and writers in furry literature. Through features such as interviews, reading lists, and author AMAs, we hope to provide ample material and a safe, respectful setting for inter-cultural dialogue within our diverse community.

This month, we wanted to highlight authors and creators from post-colonial nations. Here to kick off the March edition is Erkhyan! Erkhyan was born, grew up, and still lives in the central highlands of Madagascar. He has held jobs such as illustrator, translator, and various one-shot DIY projects, while his usual hobbies include reading, attempting to write, drawing, spending way too much time on Wikipedia, and video games. He goes around learning to be a fosa — please note the correct spelling! Erkhyan can be found on Twitter under the same handle (@Erkhyan).

Disclaimer: While the Awareness Week project seeks to amplify underrepresented voices and perspectives, please bear in mind that our interviewees comprise one opinion out of many, and do not represent everyone within their demographic.

Tell us briefly about yourself as a creative person – you’re both an author and an artist. How long have you been doing either of them? What are your favorite themes to cover?

I’ve dabbled in both writing and drawing since the mid-to-late 1990s. I got to the point of being able to show my drawings publicly in 2000, and my writing in 2005.

My favorite things to draw are natural landscapes and, unsurprisingly, furry characters. I mostly draw pinups of characters, but when I feel technically able to do so, I like drawing pictures of characters being affectionate with each other.

In writing, a theme I find myself often coming back to is finding your own place to belong in society when said society never made you feel like you had one.

You’ve been around the furry fandom for several years. When did you first enter the furry writing scene, and what drew you to it?

I’ve been aware of the furry writing scene since 2006 (in the days of Yiffstar), but didn’t quite join until 2010 through the late FurRag. At the time it was mostly just a combination of my love of reading and my interest in anthropomorphic animals, but the old urge to write my own stuff quickly resurfaced after that.

Who are your literary and artistic influences, both in furry and in general?

Writing-wise, my biggest non-furry influences are Timothy Zahn and Aaron Allston. On the furry side, there’s maybe too many to count so I’ll only mention a few. Kyell Gold and Kevin Frane were among my earliest influences. Rukis and Ryan Campbell are more recent ones. But the fact is, if I’ve read your writings in the last ten years, chances are I count you as one of my influences.

On the drawing side, Disney movies are obviously my earliest influence. Then came Claire Wendling and Juanjo Guarnido. Then, in no particular order: Chelsea Kenna, Rukis, Nesskain, Kenket, Teagan Gavet, and Kamui, to name a few…

In both cases, I admit I have far many more influences within the furry fandom that outside of it. I have no formal literary or artistic training, and it shows in my choice of inspirations.

You’ve lived in Madagascar practically all your life. Can you tell us some aspects of your culture that you think define Madagascar the most?

If I were to summarize contemporary Malagasy culture in a few words, it would be: heavy reliance oral traditions, the pervasive influence of the spiritual on daily life, a strong preference for DIY solutions and repairs over replacement, and a strong accent on respecting one’s place in both clan and tribe.

Madagascar used to be part of the vast colonial empire that France once boasted. Personally, how do you think the Malagasy culture and identity have developed since gaining independence? Does French influence still make itself felt in everyday life?

French influence is still very heavy on Malagasy everyday life. The French language is ever-present in commerce, education, and the media. People will often switch to French when Malagasy vocabulary fails them. Or when communicating with someone who speaks a dialect of Malagasy that sounds too different to be easily understood. Or, in general, when communicating with members of the various expatriate communities (mostly South Asians, Chinese, and French).

My personal take on the evolution of post-independence Malagasy culture is that a lot of it has had to be rebuilt from shaky foundations. Most of the Malagasy ethnic groups relied almost entirely on oral traditions before, and very little of that was committed to writing before the missionaries, then the colonial authorities either rewrote it to suit their purposes, or outright tried to suppress it. Malagasy literature barely had time to be born before it found itself bound to colonial rules.

Nowadays, very few traditions have survived intact. Most are more or less heavily bastardized, a few (like the fitampoha) had to be resurrected or even reinvented almost from scratch. Malagasy history as the common people know it is often fragmentary and heavily tinted by tribal tensions, and sometimes differs quite significantly from history as academic historians know it.

Much of your art and writing revolves around Madagascan species, as well as Malagasy history. Can you tell us more about these themes, and how you bring them out in your work?

My switch to using Madagascan species and Malagasy themes is actually relatively recent, coinciding with my personal struggles. Being the grandson of a Frenchman and raised as a French-speaker, I grew up severely at odds with the both the tribalism of Malagasy culture, and its painful history with France. It wasn’t until these last few years that I finally started to work on the fact that, regardless of my limited French heritage, I am still mostly Malagasy by blood and have lived almost all my life in Madagascar.

All of that leads to the themes I use the most: the pros and cons of Malagasy tribalism, and the fact that so much of our history beyond the last couple of centuries is throughly mixed with myth. I usually tackle these themes by having characters who are trying to find their place in society despite being (or having become) outcasts. Whenever supernatural elements exist in my settings, I now try to base them on elements that do exist in Malagasy folklore: nature spirits, lingering ghosts, and the taboos enforced by their presence.

Are there any stereotypes or misrepresentations that you’d like to draw attention to?

So many misconceptions about Madagascar wouldn’t exist if not for Pandemic 2 and the Dreamworks cartoon franchise… In particular, how many ports and airports we have and how easy it would be to lock down the coutnry’s borders, how many people actually live here, whether we actually like to “move it move it”, whther or not we’re safe from the plague (ironically, Madagascar is the world capital of plague cases) … Whether one reacts to these with humor or annoyance tends to depend on how often these misrepresentations come up.

If there are misrepresentations I’d like to address, it’s Madagascar as a small island (it’s actually the size of mainland France, one and a half the size of California), and our relationship with Africa. Madagascar is geographically and politically an African country, but our history and culture have been isolated from the mainland for so long that for most people there is just no feeling of sharing much with even our closest mainland neighbors.

As a speaker of Malagasy, French, and English, you’ve been in a unique position to make linguistic observations, such as of place-names and folk etymology common or individual to each language. Do you make use of this when writing stories about Malagasy characters? If so, how do you go about “translating” idioms or other figures of speech?

I tend to stay away from untranslatable idioms and concepts, but otherwise I like to play with language. For example, the etymology of Malagasy names is often much closer to everyday language than in Western cultures. Until the relatively recent adoption of the first-middle-last name system, many people used to have names that said a lot about them: their past achievements, their ambitions, etc. I often make use of that while naming my Malagasy characters, giving them meaningful names that might not always be obvious unless one speaks Malagasy.

In the end, I wouldn’t mind using local idioms if giving them context doesn’t come in the way of a story’s pacing.

Which of your works are you proudest of? Feel free to include any upcoming stories or pieces.

That’s a rather difficult question. I do not have enough finished written works for me to feel proud of them, but I admit I can’t wait to finish my first stories set in Madagascar.

As for my drawing, it’s a hard choice, but recent favorites include “Dazzle the Stage”, “Tsingy Mena”, and “Lefona sy Ampinga”.

Any parting words of advice for aspiring writers or artists in the fandom?

Honestly, I can’t think of any advice other than: just do it. The furry fandom is so centered on creative activities, it would be a shame not to contribute to it if you wish to. You can always learn on the way—exchanging ideas and tips with other artists and writers is a good way to do that. Keep in mind that, even though you will always have something to learn from others, there’s a chance that you will have something to teach others too. If not in your skills, then in the messages your art and writing send out.

 

Discuss this article in the Guild forums, or learn more about Erkhyan on his SoFurry page. 

From wikipedia:

The alt-right, or alternative right, is a loosely-connected grouping of white supremacists, neo-Confederates, neo-Nazis, neo-fascists, and other far-right fringe hate groups.

The “alt-lite” is frequently contrasted with and compared to the political alt-right, with which it shares some features, but the alt-lite remains distinct from the alt-right in that it claims to reject identity politics—including the white nationalism and racialism of the alt-right—though they share other key features and beliefs.

Learn more from the Anti-Defamation League – From Alt Right to Alt Lite: Naming the Hate.

Below is a guest story sent in by an unnamed furry, shared for awareness about how hate groups gain influence in a subculture like furry fandom.

– Patch

A springboard into the alt-right.

Reading your article: (A deep dive into the Altfurry mission to “redpill” fandom with hate) motivated me to speak up on a similar topic. There’s a bigger number of “conservative” furries, and their less vocal communities, which often serve as a springboard into the alt-right. Those groups often distance themselves from the altfurs because they genuinely don’t like (some) extremist viewpoints of the altfurs (to a degree). But despite that, the membership gets caught in an echo chamber that slowly pushes them towards more and more extreme views.

This is a ground level report. My experience wasn’t in actual altfurry, but I ended up within circles that shared similar sentiment and beliefs about the SJWs, trans people, Jews, “globalists and leftists”, and similar. People often believe that they would manage to spot those and avoid them, but that isn’t true. I did, but still ended up as an active member. Many in those groups don’t fall into the “stereotypical” picture of the alt right. There are often liberally inclined people, gay people, or even trans people. That often conceals the much more extreme members, and makes it seem as a “neutral” place, and sometimes it’s easy to disregard the extreme members.

But constant bashing on certain topics from extreme members and tons of “information” that get dumped onto you, with lack of proper opposition (more vocal people against it get kicked out), slowly distorts perception. Many people stay “moderate” right, but I have seen many pushed into extreme beliefs.

It took me some important self realizations to finally get away out of that cursed echo chamber. I believe it’s important to demystify it and make the community aware of how easy it is to end up, or get pushed into such groups.

It takes time and support to get rid of distorted views.

Before everything, I’m asking for a bit of understanding. I’m not writing to argue, defend or excuse anything, but to give insight in how things like this can happen. I’m still neutral/ambivalent to some things because of how long I’ve been exposed, but I’m trying to get rid of them. Being surrounded by people like those distorted my views. It takes time and support to get rid of them, and it’s been just a couple of months for me, after being in it for a few years.

Compared to your article about alt-furry, my experience was much more grounded, and the groups I was a part of didn’t have that recruiting. I even met some higher ranking members in them personally, and they have shown me what is going on in the upper hierarchy. The groups acted more as a “safe space” for members, rather than a recruiting ground. Some were just alt-lite, and some were alt-lite furries, or had hidden/separate channels for furries. They had a better grasp of real life than what the alt-furs have.

This is just a story of what my experience was, and it is not, and should not be reflective for others. The communities that I was in were more moderate (on average) than the full blown fascist/sexist/racist/xenophobic alt-right ones. But there are still many malignant people in those alt-lite groups, who are just not as extreme as the actual alt-right.  I have never shared the ideas of the alt-right. There is nothing nice to say about them.

When I felt unwanted, their community drew me in.

As a quick profile of myself, I was always voting for socially aware parties, participating in some protests for social and minority rights, and actively working to help people during the massive influx of immigrants and refugees that we had a few years ago. At the same time I was already somewhat participating in right-leaning groups. It wasn’t that I shared beliefs with those people, but their community made me stay.

I understand and feel for the sexual, ethnic or any other minority parts of the furry community and their issues, but the discourse was alienating. It was generalizations like “the whites are again at it”, “cis people don’t understand”, ”they’re a cishet male”, etc. The constant stream wore me down. Trying to raise concerns about it was rarely met with understanding. I never cared that I was straight, cis, and white. Those weren’t an important part of my character.  There were nice people who let me know that they weren’t referring to me in those posts, but it made me feel unwanted.  So I just gave up on the regular community.

I started interacting with other furries who weren’t bringing up politics, or going somewhat against the regular community. It felt better, as I stopped seeing the blame for something that I wasn’t even guilty of.  With time, I started joining alt-lite furry communities.  They made me feel welcome. I could talk about things that might have been controversial and ended up in a callout fest. People there were disagreeing with me but also discussing. They seemed more reasonable and despite politics being an often important topic, people were talking about other things too. It felt good.

These groups weren’t large, but they were spread out, with members in multiple groups leaning towards the right wing. I had time to get to know some of the members more personally, and it was a more varied bunch than I expected. It wasn’t just straight white dudes, but there were gay people, women, variety of skin colors and even some trans people. I was intrigued about how they joined, and I realized that many had similar experiences to mine. They felt unwanted for a variety of reasons, and these communities accepted them. Some were doxxed and received death threats because they were disagreeing with the general community, others were betrayed by close friends and lost support, some were ridiculed for their beliefs in completely unrelated topics, or were disregarded because they weren’t a part of some minority. A decent number of them didn’t join alt-lite groups because of their political or social beliefs, but because those groups welcomed them and offered them acceptance. I was one.

Again, it’s not my interest to defend any of it, but to give an insight and understanding into how these things happen.

Debating or ignoring extremists

Of course, it wasn’t all nice. There were a certain amount of extremists who were alt-right and full blown fascists or bigots. I was cautious of arguing or calling them out, because I didn’t want to get ostracized again, especially knowing how the alt-right can be hostile. But other people were arguing against them. It was something that I hadn’t seen before, so I started participating too. Most of them didn’t share my views, but they didn’t kick me out.

Not many people in the community looked favorably towards the alt-right, maybe agreeing in some broad strokes, but mostly considering them man-children. Most had favorable views towards topics that I found distasteful at best, abhorring and disgusting at worst.  It went from conservative beliefs to creation of an ethnostate, denying trans rights, heavy opposition to what they considered SJW’s, hostility towards non western european / american nations, and global / jewish conspiracy. It paled to the degree of what the alt-right does, but it was there.  I kind of ignored them because there are always maniacs in all groups.

An important rule in many groups was no stirring up drama. It was mostly used when people got personal during discussions, and wouldn’t drop issues. It was supposed to apply to everyone, but eventually there was more leeway for those right wing oriented ones. For a long time I ignored that because I was privately laughing with some of the alt-right, having the impression that they were community buffoons.

The danger of a safe space that welcomes extremists

After being a part of such groups for a while, your beliefs still stay the same, but you start giving leeway to those you disagree with more and more. Using a variety of insults and phrases becomes more and more acceptable, you start ignoring more and more of the extreme views, because you stop considering them as worth of talking about.  You stop minding topics that you’d vehemently disagree with before. The topics brought up almost always end up with some of the more extreme members joining in, so you ignore them. And you don’t notice how your perception gets distorted.

What you’d argue against before, you stop caring, slowly some of the arguments and “information” that you see start having some sense, or at least worthy of being considered. You get assaulted by tons of data that you have to sort to find what is the issue in it. By the time you finish taking apart one thing, three more get thrown at you. You still go against over-exaggerated narratives that they throw at you, but some of the data starts chipping away at you. The more you dig into it, the less you see the whole picture, and the godawful bigoted narrative that they present.

This starts affecting interactions with people outside of the groups. Before you were just pushed away, but now you start getting defensive, which in turn makes people even more upset with you. And you have no clue why, because in your perception, you didn’t change. It pushes you even deeper into alt-lite groups, as they offer also other content than politics. You stop caring about the general population.  The longer you’re in those groups, the less you care about what you disagree with, and more about what you have in common. Art, movies, series, games, food, nature, whatever. You avoid politics, thinking you won’t be affected by it, and feel cozy in the situation.

“No drama” rules = weak defenses

Now the more extreme ones are still tossing awful shit at you, and you don’t care any more. Sometimes a newcomer may argue, and they get kicked, and you don’t care. You just see some leftist arguing with the local extremist who you don’t pay attention to.

When you do take up discussion, both inside and outside those groups, you do it weakly, because you know that its just going to be a constant stream of dumb and annoying things. You stop caring about those topics, as it becomes a self maintaining circle of apathy and not wanting to be involved (again) in something that is too stupid to argue against. You hope that people understand that some of it is inherently bad, so why should it be even talked about. If you try, you have to go against what the alt-right extremists are throwing at you, muddling the whole picture.

The biggest danger of such groups is not realizing that your experience and worldview is being distorted, and being slowly pushed more and more towards apathy, despite their beliefs going against it. Those groups don’t do it intentionally, as the alt-right ones do, but it’s a side effect of constant exposure. It doesn’t matter if someone is social-democrat, labour, conservative, liberal, green, centrist, unaffiliated or whatever other political party they might be. Being in such alt-lite groups affects everyone, some more, some less, and it distorts them.

It becomes hard to get out of those groups.  People argue for or against your beliefs without too much drama, and you feel appreciated without being insulted, you are set with what you have and become complacent and lose empathy to those outside.  You lose motivation to try, and nobody is there to point out what is happening.  If I hadn’t met one amazing person, I probably would be still stuck in those groups, having my perception slowly distorted to be more and more favorable towards the alt-right.

A wake-up call

One outspoken person stayed a bit longer on one server, and didn’t get kicked as fast, so I had time to get to know them. They were somewhat similar to me when I joined, just much more vocal. It felt good to have someone who shares the same social awareness as I do. Up until they got banned, I ignored and dismissed when newcomers were getting kicked out, and cared more about the regulars.  But now the “management” and some other regulars were trash talking them and it was straight up awful. It broke the image that I had.

I started looking into other groups and noticing the same thing. They were straight up awful to anyone who wasn’t a part of them. More and more extremist voices were being tolerated and supported. I realized that I had lost the human touch I had before I became a full time regular member. With time, I slowly started interacting less and less, finally leaving all of them them.

It’s been a couple of months and rejoining the regular furry community takes a while. Getting rid of distorted worldviews isn’t simple, and there are still issues that pushed me away the first time, but I learned how to deal with those to a degree. I know that I don’t want to end up back in those alt-lite groups.  If I could share one important lesson about it, it would be how to discern people who are misled, from those that are malignant alt-right, and how not to push them into it.

Good defenses.

People can be misinformed, have bad or old information, and use it to argue. At the start that was often me, but instead of being offered information I felt alienated. Also, being honest to oneself about different information isn’t simple, and people often miss it. Looking back now I see a lot of similarity between what people similar to me were saying, and what the alt-right are doing, but there are some important differences.

The alt-right forces you to argue little details, and they want you to do it publicly. They intentionally ignore requests to go back to the general topic. They start swapping phrases and terms as if they’re all the same thing. They always counter whatever is said and don’t back down or accept being wrong, but always try to one-up it. The purpose is to annoy and upset you.

Don’t cede them the spotlight. Call them out for doing something wrong, and if they don’t step back, they’re doing it intentionally. When that happens, don’t waste any more of your time to let them share their views.

When people toss out some generalizations, ask them simply- do they have any questions about it?  Good meaning people, and those who are misled, will have questions. Their tone will change, and they won’t stick to single talking points.  They’ll raise issues they might have, be polite, and ask questions. Don’t be hostile towards them just because what they said had might have bad implications. If nothing else, don’t feed the hate. (Also, please avoid “the cishet white males” posts. It’s hard for me to have sympathy when phrases like sound similar to stuff that the alt-right says.)

A bit of understanding can bring a lot of change – but don’t waste your time if there is none. Thanks to people who offered me a chance and understanding, I managed to get back into the furry community.

Thanks to this guest for their story. Get in touch via the About page to submit guest posts. – Patch

Like the article? It takes a lot of effort to share these. Please consider supporting Dogpatch Press on Patreon.  You can access exclusive stuff for just $1, or get Con*Tact Caffeine Soap as a reward.  They’re a popular furry business seen in dealer dens. Be an extra-perky patron – or just order direct from Con*Tact.

Katie Cook is best known among Furry Fans for her work as a writer and artist on both My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic comics and for her own creation, Gronk. Being something of an expert on drawing adorable things, now she’s written and illustrated an instructional book called Drawing Cute (from Impact Books). “Master of cute Katie Cook teaches you how to draw everything adorable in her first tutorial book with quick and easy-to-follow step-by-step lessons. All you need is a pencil and paper…or a napkin or a wall, depending on how confident you are in your drawing ability. Learn how to turn curvy blobs, shapes and squiggles into more than 200 different things, including fuzzy animals, cute food and inanimate objects like yarns balls, luggage and a toaster. Add nubbins, swishy bits, and little smiley faces to anything and everything to transform it into something really, really cute.” It’s available now from Amazon.

image c. 2018 Impact Books

 

Screen Daily has an article about 10 Lives, a new CGI feature film created by some familiar names. “The film is the second to be produced as part of a joint venture between Chinese animation outfit Original Force and GFM Animation. The first, Duck Duck Goose, will be distributed in China by Wanda Pictures and in the UK by Entertainment Film Distributors… 10 Lives is produced by Penney Finkelman Cox (Shrek) and Adam Zhang, senior vice president of Original Force. The story follows a once scrawny shelter kitten that now leads a pampered life after being adopted. Everything changes when he loses his ninth life. In the afterlife, he escapes and cheats his way into another cycle of nine lives, but he doesn’t realise that each of the nine lives will see him return as a different animal.” As you can see from the article, the film has already set up distribution throughout much of the world — but no word yet about North America. You can just bet, though, that a US or Canada deal is going to hinge on how well Duck Duck Goose does at the box office later this year.

image c. 2018 GFM Animation

For #FursuitFriday here is Kiba's con video from Anthro New England [1]. . [1] http://www.anthronewengland.com/
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reminder that these stream FRIDAY @7pm on YouTube if you would like to join the chat! for all things Dragget: www.draggetshow.com Here is video of it w/ illustrations and more! -- youtu.be/b7_mOg-Hw3M Our Patreon w/ great new rewards! www.patreon.com/thedraggetshow Telegram Chat: t.me/draggetshow Dungeons And Draggets 07 - reminder that these stream FRIDAY @7pm on YouTube…

Cait and her band of lost souls are the captain and crew of the submarine, The Rose. Intent on breaking a string of bad business dealings, they take a job delivering a valuable painting in the hopes of fixing their financial straits. They also intercept and "rescue" a boy being sent by his parents to a ship for delinquent kids that is apparently tantamount to torture and slavery. The rescued boy, however, has other ideas, repeatedly attempting to escape and flee back to his parents. Meanwhile, Cait is dealing with crew squabbles, family feuds, and the ever present threat of pirates (which sadly, don't appear in Act One). The painting, it turns out, is more than it seems, and the crew of The Rose are going to be hard-pressed to keep it in their possession long enough to make the delivery and repair their reputation. The Secrets of the Kraken is set up to have a lot of action and adventure. The pace, however, was a little slow for this reader. The majority of Act One (the first hundred or so pages) is focused on relationships, character-building, and flashbacks to things that have set up the current situation. Near the end of the section, the plot begins to show itself, but I felt like the ending of Act One was in fact more like the inciting incident of the book. For me, that came a little late to feel any sense of urgency. The book is huge, and perhaps, would have moved a lot faster if trimmed to essential scenes only. That being said, the writing is solid, and the characters are rich and distinct. There's enough of interest to hold a reader who is less pacing-focused and enjoys a leisurely exploration of a world and characters in detail. The only hang-up I had with the prose was the frequent repetition of words, which I found a little jarring. Act One hints at many exciting things to come. The pirates and the mysteries in Cait's past, I found exciting. If they come to play as the book gets going, it has the promise to be a truly epic adventure. Secrets of the Kraken will delight the reader who enjoys a long and fully explored epic yarn, who is interested in things nautical, or anyone who just loves a big, meaty read.

(CONTENT WARNING – discussion of sex and abuse.)

Zaush is one of the bigger stars of furry fandom. He’s one of the top most followed artists, who cranks out copious amounts of porn. It’s drawn to a pro level and earns him a full time income on Patreon, with high demand from an audience of furverts who couldn’t find it at a friendly neighborhood porn shop. It’s a perfect niche if that’s what you’re into. Or maybe it’s a dark corner Zaush has painted himself into – judging by concerning practices that have come to light.

I’m not that familiar with his stuff. Personally, I’ve avoided it because that kind of porn turns me off. That’s not because of being judgemental to fetish. In my critical opinion, it’s more like cute cartoon animals doing sticky gang bangs could use all the cute and not so much sticky. And I wish established Disney characters weren’t getting bent out-of-character. But my main dislike is for the stories and power dynamic in them. I love furry art for showing more warmth and feeling than live human actors; but this art gives me bad feelings. The stories seem to reward bullies taking sex from prey like taking candy from a baby.

This brings up common jokes about his characters getting younger and younger over time.

At one point in mid 2017, I even had a disagreement with someone about that – and now let’s cut to the chase. That gut feeling got vindicated. Private messages with a commissioner on Zaush’s personal account have leaked, and warning: 1) they can be described as catering to pedophilic interest. 2) It’s not just art – there’s real pics of little kids in bathing suits used for art reference. 3) There’s also actual porn of the “barely legal” genre.

WARNING AGAIN: THIS CONTENT IS VERY BORDERLINE. IT APPEARS TO BE LEGAL ACCORDING TO KNOWN INFO, BUT YOU SHOULDN’T CLICK IT IF BORDERLINE IS RISKY TO YOU.

• Image 1 – explicit images of adult actress Sammie Daniels
• Image 2 – another explicit image, claimed to be mainstream
• Image 3 – chat
• Image 4 – images of kids in bathing suits
• Image 5 – images of kids in bathing suits
• Image 6 – images of kids in bathing suits

What followed deserves credit; there wasn’t effort to lie, and that helps a lot for an honest discussion.  And, even if borderline-legal, there’s a LOT to discuss. This is part of the point of the article: if this stuff is going to get made, consumers of it should be fully aware of what they’re supporting.

Please send me a DM here or on telegram (@zaush for both) if you have questions. pic.twitter.com/gwvFRhj3RE

— Zaush (@Zaush) March 6, 2018

To break this down, the borderline content is the extreme of cub art. Here’s what I last posted about that – it’s arguable that people who role-play as being kids are doing something harmless and even therapeutic or positive. Boozy Badger, a fandom lawyer, said similar stuff about AB/DL acceptance being harmless or good (for example, supporting people with medical incontinence.)

But there’s a difference between that and using pics of real kids to produce porn of imaginary ones.

Where do you start with what that difference means?

Arguably you could say a fictional depiction of an underage person, like a cartoon, is violative of the law. However, while this could theoretically happen, prosecutions to conviction on such a provision (Federal here, PROTECT Act) are rare. /1

— Boozy Badger (@BoozyBadger) March 5, 2018

Legally, it’s murky; you could start with calling cops, but they probably won’t do anything about it.

But you don’t have to stop with calling cops. Communities don’t run by having people arrested, if there is even a technical violation – and that’s a last resort. Relying on technicality is unlikely to solve a problem; it’s what “borderline” stuff is made to evade. Of course, on the positive side, there’s parents, families, organizers, and institutions to encourage good stuff. This community largely lacks those – but it doesn’t lack people who make effort to create their community.

That’s why we get to talk about it.

Zaush appears to be catering to an audience with a lot of money flow. When I see the talent he’s using, I feel a bit disappointed. If this is the top art furries support, why not aim higher? Good writing should be able to succeed whether or not it involves sex. OK, but I framed this as a problem – if it does good business and people want it, what problem?

Well, that demand comes from a community that gave Zaush a platform – without cons, and publishers, and websites, and users for them, he wouldn’t have his niche. That reminds me of hearing (unverified) that Zaush isn’t accepted as a client by the main fandom publishers – but more to the point, Furaffinity appears to bend rules for his art that others don’t get to bend. Those rules are against explicit art that depicts underaged characters – which Zaush does all but semantically (since they’re just “labeled” as not underage.)

Furaffinity content policy

Judging by what was in those PM’s, the semantic exemption is hard to claim any more. Supporting such rule bending (because people want their porn) suggests a community double standard for popularity.

That’s why we get to talk about it.

There’s precedent for regulating this content. Softpaw Magazine was banned from several cons and the Ursa Major Awards, and FurAffinity was unable to make payment processor relationships due to porn on the site. It arguably restricted fandom growth into a niche. Wanting freedom for that is a double edged sword that cuts into other freedoms. And it’s not just about whether Zaush’s stuff is harmless or not – what about relaxing standards so much that actual illegal stuff gets mixed in? There’s precedent for that too, such as when a Softpaw contributor was arrested for illegal images of children.

It relates to a “group ethic” that was in my article: R.C. Fox arrested for child pornography, furries question fandom connections. That can make slippery slope arguments that I disfavor (I don’t think tame cub art leads to child abuse), but a group can still have consistent standards.

As far as Zaush being harmless… that’s also a point of contention; in 2010, he was accused of rape and predatory behavior. He gave a long answer that leaves many people unsatisfied, with no explanation for what a putative victim had to gain by lying – especially since the story came to light from private messages and it wasn’t shared for public attention.

The contents of Zaush’s PM’s came out that way too. How a reader treats those (and if he gets favored) vs. how they treat the private messages of a woman talking about rape (and if she doesn’t) may say something about their standards.

When I had a gut feeling about the content of Zaush’s art hiding a deeper problem, and got vindicated for that… there’s a similar feeling many others have about his behavior. Cops don’t arrest for feelings, thankfully. But on the flip side, an average abuser has many victims and gets away with it for years before getting caught.

That’s why we get to talk about it.

Another issue that followed this.

 

About me – my experience includes years of fighting powerful abusers that few people know about; and by relationship there was another such fight that pulled a family apart. A side supported an abuser, and a side wanted justice but couldn’t get it because statutory limitations ran out before the problem could be spoken about – but a civil judgement was ultimately won. The costs for that are terrible and often only the lawyers win.

That’s why people don’t talk about it. It’s frustrating as hell and has insidious effects.

Another affecting thing is how I most likely have a sleeping disorder that means I’m always writing between midnight and dawn. Dealing with frustration on sleep deprivation should be avoided. And I’ve been religiously replying to all Twitter contacts, but the followers keep rising so much that it’s good to stop trying (I love you all though!)

This was some context for charging in to defend a friend, not even looking at who I was replying to and posting some overreactive stuff. It got this feedback:

(them) Hey patch, i was trying to defend your efforts to expose zaush earlier, and i just gotta say you did a really piss awful job of handling the shit you stirred with it. i really don’t get why over a misunderstanding you needed to go for the kneecaps bringing up someone’s dead husband like that. I really had to ruminate on saying something to you for a while, I’d be lying if i said the way you carry yourself into these things really inspires my trust. It’s one thing to need to straighten out some idiotic bullshit whining about drama and the inconvenience of calling out harmful garbage in the fandom, like, i’m with you 100% on that. And, sure, maybe not everybody uses the word “condone” that way, I did have to look it up myself, but the insinuations you made by bringing up someone who’s literally been dead for two years as if their widower has a vested interest like you did was totally uncalled for, you had absolutely no fucking reason to hint at that conclusion, it was honestly juvenile and really lays bare the sort of exaggeratedly divisive attitude you bring into issues like these. I figured it was better to bring this to you directly to give you the opportunity to consider it yourself. You ought to know that even someone with a wide tolerance to raising hell for the right reasons, like me, has been cringing at the way you do things from time to time and just scoffed at that low blow you decided to take there. Take this from somebody who genuinely wants you to do well and achieve something for this community… i have nothing to gain from saying any of this to you. Please don’t make me regret it. Godspeed.

(me) Bringing up a guy’s dead husband “in the moment” was a horrible idea. It’s not that simple however and would be a mischaracterization to call that an attack, I didnt name either person or direct it at them.  It was a general comment to friends of mine who were being aggressively brigaded from off site. Which a person did before blocking and couldn’t have been expected to see a no name comment. That doesn’t make others involved innocent, and although it was totally unfair of me to talk about one person from the past, it’s a current topic with others that’s constantly brought up about who is defending who and why.  I don’t fault anyone for defending offenders as people either, I don’t want people to be sent to live under bridges.

(them) We’re coming from the same place but how we handle it is super important, and if you want to avoid the perception of being a shallow shit stirrer it’s even more important. The best approach is just to lay out why there’s a problem with that attitude and let it be, digging in like that never goes well.

(me) The whole drama boils down to a friend of mine was unfairly brigaded over a “do nothing” expectation and I overreacted in tone. My friend btw is far from immature or reactively social-justicey about this stuff. In fact i think she’s military and a super clear communicator. If she was upset about being mistreated, that really told me something was wrong.

(them) you’re in a position where tone management is key to success. not necessarily an enviable position.

Laying out what that silencing effect is and does can be more useful than just characterizing them for creating it. I always try to use collaborative language as well:

“I know how much anxiety it can produce to see people in our timelines going on about something like this, but we can’t prioritize our comfort and convenience over other people’s safety” – “When we’re saying ‘leave it to the police’ and shutting down other methods of recourse, we’re not only abdicating social responsibility to communicate a danger to people who may run into this person, but failing to recognize how high the bar is for something like this to become legally actionable — if we wait to meet that threshold, perhaps nothing ever happens and people keep getting hurt.”

Material outcomes > personal dynamics. Collaborative linguistic structures > direct characterization and indictment.

I definitely don’t write this stuff to make friends or I’d stick to safe stuff. You win some and lose some, but I can try to learn from it.

Like the article? It takes a lot of effort to share these. Please consider supporting Dogpatch Press on Patreon.  You can access exclusive stuff for just $1, or get Con*Tact Caffeine Soap as a reward.  They’re a popular furry business seen in dealer dens. Be an extra-perky patron – or just order direct from Con*Tact.

Furclub: “A repeat/regular nightclub event by furries for furries.” It’s a dance party independent from cons. See the list of parties at The Furclub Survey.

The countdown is on for an amazing furry dance party – one day left!

Space Camp is bringing dancing, DJ’s, fursuiting and costumes, craft beer, and waterfront views on San Francisco and the Bay Bridge.  It happens at a massive 1200+ person hangar converted to a brewery. There’s 10,000 sq. feet of indoor fursuit-friendly naturally cooled space, free secure parking, and a huge outdoor patio with food trucks.

It joins Frolic party, Wild Things, and Party Animals as events for SF Bay Area furry night life. Those happen as often as monthly, but this is the first annual Space Camp that won’t come back until 2019. So don’t miss it!

They already have several hundred presale tickets sold. A success for the first party means even better to come.

Kinda exciting. We have 4 flying in from Canada, several from LA, and folks from New York, Seattle, Denver, Portland and more all flying in for #SpaceCampParty THANKS!!!!!!! Guess all those flyers we put out at FC worked! This is going to be one helluva party!!! pic.twitter.com/nHPZP1MSVq

— Space Camp (@SpaceCampParty) February 21, 2018

It’s a team effort for multiple local crews. The mobile sound system is a Burning Man art car with upper deck hang out space. There’s a video wall with lights galore. A Cuddle Dome. And the food trucks include GrilledCheezGuy and Royal Egyptian Cuisine, with a special menu made exclusively for this party.

@NachoHusky (contact on Telegram or Twitter) is the organizer. Check the main site for more info.

• SpaceCampParty.com
• Tickets on Eventbrite
• Twitter
• Meetup
• Facebook
• Faction Brewing – the venue

Like the article? It takes a lot of effort to share these. Please consider supporting Dogpatch Press on Patreon.  You can access exclusive stuff for just $1, or get Con*Tact Caffeine Soap as a reward.  They’re a popular furry business seen in dealer dens. Be an extra-perky patron – or just order direct from Con*Tact.

Founder of Neo-nazi website The Daily Stormer praises Nazifurs and Altfurs as good examples for his wider movement.

One defense of Nazifurs I’ve heard over the years is that they’re just adopting fascist fashion to get a rise out of you, or even that they’re mocking real Nazis. This doesn’t hold up well to me, as ones I knew in 2005 who said they were joking are mostly taking their act seriously now.

Something about staring into the void, I guess. Or maybe I was a shitty judge of character when I spent time with them as a naive 20 year old? It could be a bit of both. Friends of mine have looked on former mutuals with horror when I’ve pointed out how far some have gone.

But people still claim that we’re being ridiculous if we take this seriously. They say that real Nazis could never be – or accept – Furries.

That denialism gets weaker and weaker when real Nazis look at nazifurs and love what they see.

Who is this dude thats promoting Foxler and saying that Nazis should embrace Nazifurs? None other than Andrew Anglin, founder of the premier Neonazi website “The Daily Stormer“. Anglin is the real deal. Nazi, white supremacy, the whole nine yards. Here he is promoting the worst our community has, and holding them up as examples to his own.

It could be a PR move to shame his own people into acting. After all, since people have started confronting these racist assholes, attendance has been dropping at their events and their movement fracturing. I guess it turns out confrontation is the best way to address these people.

Shaming members to act by upholding altfurries, while privately regarding them as disposable tools, would be consistent with history. Gay nazi leaders were powerful until they were purged. (The most consistent thing about fascists is being two-faced for power.) But it’s not like intentions make it any less malignant.

PR move or not, this real Nazi has treated Altfurs as true Aryan Brothers. Altfurs are reaching back and responding positively. In fact, we know they’ve been trying to get nazi leaders attention for a while. Anglin, in current responses to his followers, is taking them seriously and at face value.

Maybe it’s time for the Furry Fandom to do the same.

Note from Patch: This isn’t the first furry connection to The Daily Stormer. Furry-troll turned neo-nazi Andrew Dodson, who participated in violence at the Charlottesville rally in August 2017, reached out to associate with Weev (the Daily Stormer web admin) and Sam Hyde (a funder of the site). Dodson has since been active at cons and with altfurries.

Like the article? It takes a lot of effort to share these. Please consider supporting Dogpatch Press on Patreon.  You can access exclusive stuff for just $1, or get Con*Tact Caffeine Soap as a reward.  They’re a popular furry business seen in dealer dens. Be an extra-perky patron – or just order direct from Con*Tact.

Look, how could we possible do better than simply the title for this one? It’s a new full-color graphic novel written by Pamela Ribon and illustrated by Cat Farris. Publishers Weekly has a review: “Ribon (Slam!) and Farris (Emily and the Strangers) collaborate to deliver a winning slice-of-life romantic comedy with a twist. After dumping her latest terrible boyfriend, 28-year-old Nora unexpectedly falls in love with an American black bear she meets in the woods. ‘The bear’ is no ordinary wild animal: He’s kind, wears a hip Arcade Fire T-shirt, and has a great fondness for juggling, cuddling, and craft beer. The two enjoy a nearly idyllic life together, despite objections from Nora’s family and friends, but when their honeymoon phase passes, Nora’s life falls apart all over again—before winter sets in, the bear must abandon her to hibernate in the mountains…” My Boyfriend is a Bear comes to us from Oni Press in mid-April.

image c. 2018 Oni Press

A new animated Grinch movie? Fair enough. At least it isn't live action.
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Hello everyone!

We open this week's show with an exciting announcement about our upcoming guest appearance on the Life on the Swingset podcast! Thanks again to our lovely hosts for inviting us-- we had a blast and please feel free to stop by our show anytime!

We also discuss the latest comic from OhJoySexToy that focuses on discovering polyamory and the mistakes that people often encounter.

Our main topic this week is on Stale Relationships. We discuss what makes a relationship stale, how to reinvigorate a relationship that's gotten routine, and how to identify if it's even a relationship that is salvageable. 

We close out the show with some feedback on Episode 071 concerning our advice to the questioner on real life appearance vs online presence and a question from our Telegram chat (salut Tiyu) that asks whether or not a quarter-life furry crisis is something that people go through within our fandom.

For more information, including a list of topics, see our Show Notes for this episode. 

Thanks and, as always, be well!

FA 101 Stale Relationships

Submitted by Fred Patten, Furry’s favorite historian and reviewer.

The Fuzzy Princess, vol. 2, by Charles Brubaker. Illustrated.
Martin, TN, Smallbug Press, February 2018, trade paperback, $10.99 (175 pages).

The Fuzzy Princess, volume 1, was reviewed here last September. These are the adventures of interstellar Princess Katrina of St. Paws and her bat (Chiro) and bear (Kuma) escorts, and the humans on Earth that she moves in with (Jackson, a boy wizard, & his older sister Jordan) and their friends (highschooler Gladdie, her little sister Tara, and Rick). Kat and her companions come to Earth in a flying box (cats love boxes) that has her large interdimensional room inside it. Kat has a detachable tail that can be magically turned into anything. Kat, Chiro, and Kuma use magic/alien technology to make other people see them as normal humans. Kat’s ongoing adversary is Krisa, a rat spy from Mousechester who is usually locked inside a birdcage.

The Fuzzy Princess is Charles Brubaker’s Internet humorous comic strip, in color (this reprint volume is only in black-&-white), updated three times a week. It’s not gag-a-day; there is an ongoing story line.

But! Brubaker also publishes The Fuzzy Princess as a series of independent comic books from 24 to 36 pages, printed on demand by IndyPlanet in Orlando, Florida. This volume 2 reprints the comics from #8 to #11, with some new material. These also appear on the Monday-Wednesday-Friday online strip.

The Fuzzy Princess volume 2 contains four adventures. Kat, Jackson, and Gladdie explore a neighborhood “haunted house” that is the lair of three robbers who disguise themselves as movie monsters. Kat organizes a combined human Christmas party/St. Paws Winter Fest. Kat’s mother Queen Felicia visits Earth to make sure that she’s all right, and Krisa uses the occasion to try to steal Kat’s detachable tail, with the help of a fat bully called only “Bloated Whale”. Kat and Jackson have to babysit Gladdie’s spoiled little sister, Princess” Tara, who blows up a TV set and menaces Jackson with a scrap yard’s giant electromagnetic. Mr. Tim, Jordan & Jackson’s exhausted next-door neighbor, falls asleep in the middle of their apartment-house hall one night. Kat & Kuma, not wearing their human disguises, try to take him home and he wakes up on them, thinks the talking cat & bear are the result of a dream, and leads them on a wild night to Joey’s Pub where Kuma wins an open-mic contest as a bear reciting haiku, Kat gets drunk on catnip, and she demolishes Sparrow, a hulking bully.

The Fuzzy Princess is funny. It’s worth reading whether it’s an online comic strip, an independent comic book, or these reprint paperbacks. Enjoy.

– Fred Patten

• Buy on Amazon

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Here is a cute ad for an event at the bar STYX in London. You can find out more here: https://www.nuclear-winter.co.uk/ [1] "For winter 2017/18, Tottenham-based venue STYX were putting on their first ever season of events, Nuclear Winter. As their regular designer and illustrator, part of the mini-brand involved me producing a short, animated social media ad to promote the season's dining experiences and themed bars." [1] https://www.nuclear-winter.co.uk/
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This episode sees T-WolF return! The former host of the Paws Button joins Tugs in the Seattle studio to read your emails, and talk about all things video games! You know what to expect here - nerd time! Roo and Tugs also clear out the mailbag, play Space News, an olde timey ad, and more!





NOW LISTEN!
Show Notes
Special Thanks

T-WolF, our guest.
Rivet
Rose
Shane
Miski
Dee the Otter
Timid Grizzly
M'Falme
Moss
Blaze Maestro Thouldt
Skylos
Dark Technician

Music

Stay Fresh!: Ben Briggs - Splatunes!. GameChops, 2015. Get a copy of the whole album at http://music.gamechops.com/album/splatunes
Gauntlet Theme Remix: PrOtagonist. YouTube, 2014.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tA4Da81BWdI
De-De-Destruction (Kirby Star Allies Remix): THNGameRemixes. YouTube, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTXM7ItMo6o 2018
Dance Through the Danger: Cristina Vee - Shantae Half Genie Hero. YouTube, 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71lLnE8gJnU
Overwatch Remix: Plasma3Music Remixes.  YouTube, 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beZhAL_Fcx8
Final Fantasy XV Remix (Stand Your Ground) [Trap]: Musicality. YouTube, 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmTRBuZuTiw
To the Phantomile!: Sky Tenkitsune. YouTube, 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4geMzbGMp4
Metal Gear Solid Theme (Trance Remix): Unknown. YouTube, 2008. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Qi-baSPcXk
Trainwreck of Electro Swing - A Hat in Time Remix: Plasma3Music Remixes. YouTube, 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2c1iSpk3u1A
Cuphead - One Hell of a Time (Electro Swing Remix): The Musical Ghost. YouTube, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeNb7v2ElAQ
Rainbow Mashup: Eternal Sushi. YouTube, 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8cz-90n6iE
Undertale Asgore Remix: SayMaxWell. YouTube, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afIFUtH1Z5M
New Leaf 7PM: Krister Lawlor. YouTube, 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRL9gHAA9Is
Prelude / New Discoveries: Nobou Uemats from Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn Soundtrack. FINAL FANTASY XIV © 2010-2016 SQUARE ENIX CO., LTD. All Rights Reserved. Used per Materials Usage License.

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The following people have decided this month’s Fur What It’s Worth is worth actual cash! THANK YOU!

 
 
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Next episode: Video Games in the Fandom V! It's a season classic and it's time for it again! Send your comments by February 19, 2016! S7 Episode 10 – Video Games in the Fandom V - This episode sees T-WolF return! The former host of the Paws Button joins Tugs in the Seattle studio to read your emails, and talk about all things video games! You know what to expect here - nerd time! Roo an

Gender: Furry was originally commissioned for and published in Furries Among Us II, released by Thurston Howl Publications. You can purchase Furries Among Us II here. Do pick it up to read this and other essays by fascinating by some of furry’s finest minds. The anthology has been nominated for Best Non-fiction Work in the Ursa Major Awards! You may vote for this and other wonderful furry works here.

Many people, I suspect, use the idiom, “hindsight is twenty-twenty,” in a way that is better served by other, more appropriate words or phrases. The sense in which I hear it most commonly used is perhaps more adequately covered by the beautiful portmanteau, “regretrospect”. That is, now that things are said and done, I regret a lot of what happened during this adventure.

Also, it’s my second favorite portmanteau after “congratudolences” and really ought to see wider use.

No, I think “hindsight is twenty-twenty” is better reserved for cases when seemingly unrelated occurrences come together to form an outcome that seems to be greater than the sum of the parts. It fits best when you look back at your life and see disparate, unconnected events come together to make the situation you find yourself in now.

I came out to myself and my (at the time) fiancé as transgender over a process of several months. It began sometime in 2010 or so, when I started to feel like I was able to put words to the things that were making me feel bad. I began by identifying as genderqueer, and although that label still fits very well, I adopted ‘transgender’ in 2015 as the one that I use in day-to-day life to describe myself, as it leaves the fewest questions as to why I’m a six-foot-two rectangular man-shape in feminine clothing and makeup.

But we’re talking about hindsight, so it’s worth bringing up that one of the only things I ever stole was the book “The Boy Who Thought He Was A Girl”, back in second grade. I’m guessing at the title here, as I can find no record of it through casual Googling, however, I remember that it was a trashy, essentialist book about a boy who wanted to learn how to kiss, which somehow made him girly and, thus, confused about whether he should actually be a girl. Of course, in the end, his understanding of his gender role as a boy were firmly straightened out by strict-yet-loving family.

Or perhaps another step in this path of hindsight was sneaking into my step-mom’s spare room when I was about twelve and trying on one of her old dresses. At that point, I had yet to become the lummox that would be my post-pubertal destiny, and so the dress fit, albeit poorly.

Or, hey, skip ahead to 2006, when I had just turned twenty and realized that it felt just as good to role-play online as a vixen as it did as a tod, though I told myself at the time that it was because I wanted to experience more relationship configurations than the male homosexual relationships I’d had to that point.

Each of these things, and so many more, felt like an independent, unconnected occurrence to me. It’s only in hindsight that I can see that there were aspects of me straining towards some way to feel happy and comfortable. When I was growing up, they were simple oddities, but now just another way to see the present more clearly.

I think that it’s fairly common that one comes to terms with a portion of one’s identity in this fashion. Before I came out as trans and made the question of sexual orientation at least twice as complicated, I went through the process of figuring out that, despite being born male, I was also attracted to other boys as well as girls. Those ‘crushes’ in elementary school make more sense, and so on.

There had to be some lever that pushed each of those instances from a collection of loosely related occurrences into the formation of a strong facet of my own identity. With orientation, it was obviously the rush of hormones that came with puberty: all of the sudden, ‘liking boys’ took on a new tenor.

With gender, it was almost entirely the furry subculture’s fault.

I found furry at the age of fourteen or so through the website Yerf!, and later through a FurCode generator. At the time, though gender was quite confusing for me when viewed in hindsight, I identified as a cis gay male. Furry, then, was a welcome haven from home life, where it was cool to be a teenage fox boy thinking about dating other teenage fox boys.

As I grew up and continued in my development as a person, filling in bits of my concept of self as one fills in gaps in a puzzle when the pieces are found, furry helped yet again in providing a framework in exploration and comfort.

Gender expression of the author’s character as portrayed in visual commissions over the years.

The figure above shows the ways in which the sex of my characters in art that I commissioned changed over time. On the Y axis, you can see the genders expressed in the commissions, and on the x, the date of the commission. There’s a very clear trend from male to genderless, then from genderless to female over time, then from female (as an idealized form of myself) to a specifically trans fox (as I started to get comfortable with my identity as a transgender person). I’m not alone in this progression, either, as many have found the utility in having a mostly safe space in which role-play is common and accepted behavior in which to explore various aspects of their identity.

There’s a very good reason for this, too, but first, lets hear from other critters using furry as a lens to help in the explorations of their gender.

When I think of Indi, I think of the colorful coyote/otter (read ‘coyotter’, or simply ‘yotter’) that I’ve gotten to know fairly well over the past few years. When I met ver for the first real time, it was at a room party at a convention, where we were tasting various types of mead. I can’t remember if ve had made vis way to the room party from my invitation or at the behest of our mutual friend, Tealfox. Either way, I was glad to have the chance to meet up.

Over the years, I would find myself catching up with ver again and again. At cons, sure, but also at vis house with vis owner Elanna, where I stayed for a few days in order to experience the delight that is Bandaza, a yearly celebration occurring near the end of November, which involves what must been the greatest concentration of postfurries I’ve ever seen.

As is perhaps evident from vis pronouns, Indi’s identity falls somewhere outside the realm of ‘male’ or ‘female’. Ve describes verself as neutrois transgender, as having a sense of gender that’s neither masculine nor feminine nor a combination of the two. This carries over into vis online representation; ve isn’t simply a coyotter, but a synthetic one, often plush. After all, while plush toys and other synthetic beings may have a semblance of sexual characteristics, it’s easy to imagine them not having an internal sense of identity along binary gender lines.

Ve describes verself as having medically transitioned in order to deal with the body dysphoria (unhappiness with one’s form or self) that is part and parcel of being transgender. This helps ver, along with finding modes of presentation to avoid social dysphoria, to exist in a concordant way with the world around ver.

In Indi’s words, “Furry helped a lot by being a place where the answers to basic questions of identity (species, gender) are almost always fill-in-the-blank.” Some of the best things that furry has to offer is that these things which mean the most to someone working on their own identity are taken at their word. For example, from the point of view of an FtM person — someone transitioning from female to male — to say, “This is what I am, and that’s all that you need to know,” is huge. The validation that one gains for being taken as and interacted with as what they say they are is no small thing.

Indi writes, “At its best, furry treats identity as consensual and fluid; you are what you say you are, and what you say you are may change and evolve in the future, temporarily or permanently.”

Although there are many ways in which this can take place, the act of creating one’s own character, the means by which they interact with the rest of the subculture, is something that furry excels at. “Anthropomorphic forms also provide a rich toolkit of options for bodily self-expression,” writes Indi, “With countless species, real and imaginary, and a mix-and-match approach to species signifiers and primary/secondary sexual characteristics. All this allowed me to keep tweaking, trying different ways of being me until I found the one that felt the most comfortable and accurate.”

That said, furry isn’t the haven it might seem to be for someone exploring something as complex as gender.

Indi explains: “In furry chat venues, a common expectation is that sex will happen or at least be discussed, which means many choices about presentation and identity are interpreted in sexual terms.” It’s easy to see the ways in which this could interact with gender, given the complex interactions between sexuality and gender. “The “what do you have in your pants” question, the archetypal inappropriate question for trans folks, is almost always on the table.”

This goes doubly so for non-binary genders. For those who present in a way way that lands somewhere between male and female, or outside that spectrum entirely, the issue of attraction and sex can become troubled, as Indi notes, “Further, presentations that seem difficult to interact with sexually, like those that de-emphasize both masculinity and femininity, will generally be given the side-eye or pointedly ignored.”

I met Lumi, on the other hand, shortly before writing this piece when someone retweeted one of her posts. She had lined up drawings of her character over the years, with short explanations, and it was easy to see a similar trend as outlined in my own graph above: her character started male, then began to shift more feminine through a process of experimentation towards the female character she is drawn as to this day, in alignment with her female identity.

“Prior to coming out as female, I talked to some friends about it,” she says. “I struggled a lot with the identity, even after coming out to friends, and then to everyone online. I considered myself non-binary for a while and went by they/them pronouns. This is because I don’t experience much gender dysphoria so I didn’t feel “Trans Enough” to consider myself female.”

This is a sentiment echoed by many as they work their way through figuring out their identity. Non-binary identities are, of course, just as valid as binary identities, and for many, the ‘end goal’ is neither masculine nor feminine, as evidenced by Indi’s journey, while for others, they’re a step on the path. No states of identity can be said to be purely transitional, and none can be said to be purely final.

For Lumi, the non-binary portion of her journey happened to be transitional. “Finally, I settled on female but it still took me a while to “settle in” to being this gender. Since I can remember, people online have always assumed I was a girl anyways. Most people don’t even know I’m trans, since I hardly ever mention it. They just assume I’m a rad cis girl.”

“I feel like a fursona is a reflection of yourself. I don’t believe that my fursona is me, but rather she is like someone I aspire to be,” Lumi writes, referring to the ways in which furry helped in solidifying identity. “Since she’s a fictional character, it’s always been easy to experiment with her and my gender identity was part of that experimentation. She has always had the ability to shape-shift and I always found myself drawing her as a girl even when she wasn’t.”

On a hunch that these sentiments go far beyond just that small sector of furry, I started a small, informal poll on twitter, and got inundated with responses. The poll itself was simple:

Hi.

Tell me about how furry helped you with figuring out your gender identity!

Thanks.

— Tweet from @drab_makyo on July 6, 2016

The responses were overwhelmingly positive, though some had a few caveats. Many said that the opportunity to create a character as an ideal form of themself offered them the possibility to find a way to be more true to more aspects of their identity than they might have had in the first place. Furry, it seems, provides a constructive and creative place in order to explore.

You’ll note, however, that I didn’t say ‘safe place’ above. Many of the caveats to furry being a good place to explore gender surround the fact that, in a lot of ways, many furries who identify as trans or non-binary (as well as intersex folks) feel fetishized more often than not. Gender, as we well know, goes far beyond just the interactions of genitalia.

Another caveat that I heard was that, although the subculture provided a healthy means to begin exploring gender, many felt that the thing that helped them mature in their identity was seeing representation outside of the fandom, as well. This was especially true for some of the non-binary folks that I got the chance to talk with. Some mentioned that their exploration ceased at the point where they created a character for themselves to match their perceived identity and went no further without some external representation.

There’s much more that I can say on the matter of why furry might be good for exploration, and I will shortly, but first, there is far more data available than just a single twitter poll! After all, as Executive Data Vix for [adjective][species], it’s my job to administer the Furry Poll, the fandom’s largest market survey, and then to go for deep dives into that giant pool of data.

To that end, I started pulling some numbers from the 2016 Furry Poll. There were 3194 total responses to look at which were relevant to our topic at hand. Here are the questions that we asked:

1. What is your age in years?
2. What best describes your gender identity?
   • Masculine or mostly masculine
   • Feminine or mostly feminine
   • Other (NB: there were a series of options, including a write-in option, which, for our purposes, have been boiled down to an ‘other’ category.)
3. Does your gender identity now align with your sex as assigned at birth?
   • Yes (I am cisgender)
   • No (I am not cisgender)
   • It’s complicated (exactly what it says on the tin)

What all did we get? Well, nothing too surprising, and let me explain why.

The ideas that we hold to be true without proof comprise our doxa. That is, the things we assume to be true, or to be the case without needing to have anything backing those assumptions up. When one looks around the furry fandom at time of writing, one is likely to find a subculture made up mostly of those presenting masculine.

Gender identity of respondents in the 2016 Furry Poll.

To that, the survey offers only confirmation. A bit more than 75% of the respondents — certainly a supermajority — responded that their gender identity was masculine or mostly masculine. Although one’s expression or presentation used as a predictor has its flaws, a glance around the average convention space bears truth to this claim: we can mark that down as one point for our doxa reading things correctly.

Gender alignment of respondents in the 2016 Furry.

Now, how about we look at gender alignment; that is, let’s take a look at the breakdown of how folks’ gender identity aligns with their sex as assigned at birth. For example, a trans man who was assigned female at birth but identifies as a man now, would be someone who would fall under the umbrella term of ‘transgender’, while a man who was assigned male at birth would fall under the term ‘cisgender’. Additionally, for the sake of completeness, the survey also offered the choice for the respondent to answer that the answer was more complicated than these two choices would allow (we did not ask for further details, and had we, we would not, of course, be able to share them while preserving anonymity).

The most noticeable part of this, on the surface, is that one sees a great deal more trans-feminine (those who identify as feminine and yet whose sex as assigned at birth does not match with their identity, in this instance) than trans-masculine folks. It’s understandable that the “other” category, small as it is, contain a more even distribution, but given the uneven distribution in reported gender identities, it makes it all the more striking that there are so many trans-feminine respondents.

This is, perhaps, a shadow cast by society at large, making it more enticing for a trans-feminine person to seek refuge in a welcome subculture. For someone assigned feminine at birth to be into stereotypical masculine behavior is not a big deal. We even have a word for that: tomboy. It’s value-neutral in many circles, and downright positive in some. But for someone assigned masculine at birth to behave feminine, well, there’s a word for that, too: sissy. A welcoming environment for someone to explore along those lines — from masculine to feminine — is, therefore, not so difficult to foresee. It’s also why the demographics of those interviewed for this piece fall more along these lines. It has little to do with minimizing the transmasculine experience, and quite a bit to do with the demographics involved.

There is a certain peril to dating not one, but two wordy, genderful critters, and being married to a cisgender gay man who has stayed with me through my own transition (who, for his part, mentioned that the benefit of furry was that it exposed transgender identities to him as something more than what you’d hear from the news, adding to the personhood involved). When I began this project, not only did I have plenty of story to tell, for myself, but both partners leapt at the chance to help, whether it be through interviewing or through beta reading the final piece.

Forneus and I met over Twitter back in 2011 through a mutual acquaintance, and bonded during an impromptu metal concert in one of the elevators at Further Confusion in 2012. It was loud, there were cats, I stuffed my fursuit paw in someone’s mouth by accident. Good times.

Forneus has been with me through most of the time I’ve been consciously exploring gender. They sat and listened to me complain about the lack of non-binary representation, the problems inherent in getting the requisites met for starting hormone replacement therapy, and the whole process of coming out at work.

At the same time, I was there much of their own journey. While I’ve landed somewhere on the feminine side of neutral, they have been experiencing things differently: “I’d say I’m somewhere in genderqueer land, leaning feminine. What that means for me: I’m mostly fine with the body I was born with, but my presentation is a lot more “stereotypically” feminine based on modern American stereotypes.”

I had the chance to ask them if they felt comfortable expressing their identity both within and outside of furry. “Yeah, for a few reasons,” they said. “The consequences that directly impact me are a lot less likely to be problems. I’m not going to lose my job or an opportunity at a job, I’m not going to have to work with the random troll every day, et cetera. It’s a lot easier to disengage, I guess, as long as I keep myself honest on it.”

“Everyone’s already primed to the concept of an ideal self,” they continued. “Even straight cis[gender] furries, so “my ideal self is me, but with different bits” feels really easy to explain most of the time. [Even] from within the broader trans community, there’s definitely a tendency to feel like I’m not “trans enough””

Outside of furry, though, things were less comfortable. ““If I show up to this interview in a dress, it’ll raise questions” is something I had to deal with a lot during my last job search, for example.” The world at large rarely cares about our ideal selves, and often makes sweeping judgements based on presentation. “I’m not convinced that HRT would be right, so I’m not doing it,” they mention. “The “next step” is coming out at work. I don’t currently feel capable of doing that.”

Lexy, my other partner, expressed similar thoughts. While furry, “helped by having open and kind people to talk with, and to explore gender identity with,” life outside of furry offered much more in the way of obstacles. She hasn’t been able to take many steps yet largely due to family issues, and has described her path as, “Working towards finding a safe environment to transition. I currently feel fairly uncomfortable due to not being able to transition, but overall I feel like furry has helped a lot in feeling more comfortable with myself.”

So is furry a net win, over all, for furries? “Yeah, for sure,” says Forneus. “It’s definitely helped me figure out my own sexuality, if nothing else, and I know a lot of cool trans furries. So that’s pretty helpful too, having good friends with both a shared interest and a nominally-similar life history.”

Lumi agrees: “I’m very comfortable with my identity, and I feel it fits me very well. I almost fell game to the idea of “Well you have to be really girly to be a girl,” but now I’m more like a tomboy girl. Yeah, sometimes I might be rude and I’m not into dresses and makeup, but at the end of the day, I am one cool chick.”

Indi sums things up nicely, saying, “Even three years ago I never would have believed I would be able to go this far, to feel like I’ve almost entirely managed to express myself as the human-AU version of a glowy swishy neutral-gendered rave critter. It hasn’t always been easy, and there’s still a lot that could be done to make it smoother, but I think I’m in a good place. There’s always ways to improve, always new things I think I can try, but each move seems to be smaller than the last, and I’m far more comfortable with myself than I ever could have imagined I’d be when I started trying.”

Given the stories of those exploring and expressing gender and identity through the framework of furry, the obvious next question that needs to be asked is “why?”

Naturally, these sorts of things are not answered by any simple quip, nor even a single article like this. That said, there are some things that we can point to that might help explain just why the furry subculture plays as big a role as it does in the formation of its members’ identities, gender and otherwise.

There are a pair of twinned concepts within the realm of psychology that have been applied to this topic in particular. Aaron Devor, a sociologist and dean of graduate studies at the University of Victoria in Canada, described them most succinctly in their paper, “Witnessing and Mirroring: A Fourteen Stage Model of Transsexual Identity Formation.”

The stages themselves are interesting, of course. They describe the path that a trans person might take as they work through the process of coming out, transitioning, and so on. I’m not going to list them here, to save on ink — the paper is free, easy to find legally online, and worth a read on its own. However, I’d like to talk about the twinned concepts mentioned in the title, as they play a much more integral role when it comes to figuring out why furry might be a good place for so many to explore identity.

Witnessing is the idea that we gain something in the way of validation by having others see us as we see ourselves. For someone who is solidifying the image of themselves as they feel others ought to see it, to have someone outside themselves perceive them along those lines is incredibly validating. For trans women to called ma’am, or trans men to be able to use the men’s room, or for non-binary folks to be referred to by their proper pronouns…all of these things are a form of witnessing, and help to reinforce the individual’s sense that they are doing what is best for their life.

To go along with that, mirroring is the idea that we gain validation by way of seeing others who are like us. For folks in the early stages of transitioning, this comes both in the form of seeing other folks in the early stages — the “I can do it too” effect — as well as folks later on in the process — the “See, it can be done” effect. When we see something of ourselves reflected in others, it adds a bit of realism to something that might have once only been a fantasy.

Within my circle of friends, we talk of the ‘gender cascade’. Someone in our lives will come out and start exploring their own gender more openly, and we’ll think to ourselves, “Oh, hm. If they can do it, so can I!” or perhaps, “Goodness, now that I’m confronted with this, I’m starting to question my own identity”. For me, although there were several such people, the one I think of most immediately is Indi; watching vis explorations within the realm of gender is what got me to think seriously about all of my own internal struggle about gender identity. Ve, in turn, had vis own influences, stretching all the way back into the distant past, each of whom influenced others, creating a cascading flowchart of gender.

This goes far beyond just our little in-group. Folks have often talked about the cascade, perhaps using terms such as ‘transplosion’, or one news source’s amusing choice of ‘transgender mania’. In both cases — either constrained by the constituents of a subculture or relatively unrestricted and part of society at large — those who are questioning their gender, or even those who are certain but unsure of beginning transition, can gain validation through witnessing and mirroring. That is, they can allow themselves to be seen as they are in safe contexts and see others who are like themselves in order to gain the confidence to move forward.

Furry provides fertile soil for this sort of thing due in large part to the fact that we explicitly design the image that others think of when they think of us, through the formation of our personal characters, avatars, or fursonas, however you want to think of it.

If you flip back to the graph of the sex of my characters that were represented in commissioned furry art, you can see a very definite shift away from male. At first, I shifted from masculine to explicitly genderless, because my assigned identity had become so painful to me that my instinct was to escape. From there, as I gained confidence and with validation from others, I started to incorporate more and more feminine aspects into my characters.

Your character is an unspoken-yet-explicit way for a fur to say, “This is how I ought to be seen.” For trans folk, it provides a useful tool in terms of exploring gender identity: although mirroring becomes mudding in many circumstances (for those role-playing as a different gender, being outed as such isn’t exactly desirable), it sure as hell makes witnessing easier. I became a fox girl on the internet long before I got the letter that allowed me to start hormone replacement therapy.

There’s a conclusion that I draw from all of this, though it took me some time to connect the dots, pull it up, draw it all together, and many other metaphors.

When I started associating with animal people on the internet, I did so as a fragile teen who could barely admit that sex was a thing that existed, much less as a being with a sexual orientation, never mind one that might not be straight, or even sexually active. Meeting and interacting with sexual, non-straight, and happy folk helped change that over the process of a few years, and a few halting relationships.

Fast-forward a few years, and there I was: a mid-twenties person in the middle of an identity crisis. What was I? Was I nothing? Sex was a panic-riddled minefield of unmet expectations and awkward feelings of being built wrong. Was a I woman, with my my dreams of motherhood-but-not-fatherhood? Was I something in between, with the fact that womanhood discomfited me in a different way than manhood?

Here, unlike with my orientation, I had enough experience to both look around me and see those going through something similar, as well as to take a step to be seen as who I felt that I might be. I started out haltingly, and went down a few wrong paths (looking at you, plush phase; love me some plushies, but it’s not me), but I found myself a niche. It came in the form of a description and a few megabytes of graphical data culled from the minds and tablets of some artistically minded and decidedly amazing friends. It led to me confronting my therapist one day and saying, “Hey, can you write me a hormone letter?”

Fast forward another year or two, and where am I?

I’m putting together the pieces of the fact that this isn’t a uniquely trans thing, though this is an article on the intersection between gender and furry. Neither is it a uniquely sexual thing, though the intersection between sex and furry is worth an article of its own. It’s something one layer up. It’s membership in a community that provides a mechanism and a place for these discoveries to take place.

Is it a uniquely furry thing? Almost certainly not. There are many different subcultures out there that follow the same pattern. The My Little Pony fandom is a wonderful example, providing a similar outlet to those who claim membership. However, there’s no doubt that furry played a rather large role in identity for me, just as it did for so many other folks. There’s just so much to be said for the fact that we build the avatars that we use to interact with others here, beyond even what many other subcultures do.

Without furry, I might just as well have come out as gay, then neutrois, then genderqueer, then trans, then all of those other wonderful labels. But would I have felt safe doing so? Would I have gotten all of the validation that I needed to feel healthy doing so? Would I have come away with countless other brothers, sisters, and non-binary siblings in whom I could confide, admire, and rejoice?

I don’t know. There’s a lot to account for. My life has treated me well, in all, and I feel privileged to have lived it. That said, I’m not convinced that there would be an outlet that would have provided such for me.

Would there be one, outside of furry? I rather think not.