frameacloud: A green dragon reading a book. (Default)
[personal profile] frameacloud
This blog post was written by Orion Scribner (frameacloud) on 2025 April 26 for Otherkin News, which is a volunteer run project. We welcome other people to submit articles about alterhumanity in current events. Learn more about this project and what we’re looking for.

An anti-furry bill will be heard early this week

Texas House Bill 54, which nicknames itself the "F.U.R.R.I.E.S. Act," has been scheduled for a public hearing on Tuesday, April 29, 2025, at 8:00 AM (Texas Legislature). This is a very early stage in the bill's progress toward becoming a law: it is not yet a law, and this hearing alone is not enough to make it become a law. Eighteen other bills about public education that will be heard during that session as well. Don't let the sensationalism of this bill distract you from the others: sometimes legislators intentionally write outrageous bills not only to satirize the issues they genuinely care about, but to distract attention away from other bills that they hope will pass into law unnoticed (Jones 2024). The government web page at the first link tells where people can submit comment or testify, where to see a live video broadcast of it. Common wisdom in the furry fandom warns to take caution in talking with the media or bringing other forms of publicity. Be aware that the bill author had said that he "expect[s] the subculture to show up in full furry vengeance at the committee hearing" (Bahari 2025). This suggests that he is looking forward to it being bait for an embarrassing spectacle.

Here's a recap of this bill and the urban legend behind it

In March, Republican Representative Stan Gerdes filed Texas House Bill 54 (TX HB 54, formerly TX HB 4814). Here is the state government's page about the bill, and here is their text of the bill itself. Calling itself the F.U.R.R.I.E.S. Act, the bill proposes an amendment to the state constitution to ban public schools from allowing students to do anything on its list of "non-human behaviors." The bill would impose tens of thousands of dollars of fines on faculty for allowing those behaviors, section 6(f), found on page 10. It would redefine abuse to include letting children think that those behaviors are societally acceptable, section 5(1)(A), found on page 7. Gerdes claimed he wrote the bill in response to an incident in the school district of Smithville, which is 45 miles away from Austin and has only 1,885 students. He didn't describe the incident, and journalists found no sign of it there (Bahari 2025; Villarreal 2025). The Governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, publicly spoke in favor of this particular bill, saying that these non-human behaviors were one of his reasons to take government funds away from public schools, using the money for some parents to send their children to private schools instead (Wermund 2025; Wermund and McKinley 2025).

Some of the activities described in the bill never happened in real life. For example, it forbids children from getting surgeries to make themselves look like animals, or using litter boxes in school, in section 2(a)(6), found on pages 5 through 6. It's the eleventh bill that Republicans in the US have sponsored in the past three years based on the litter box urban legend (Scribner 2025 March 18). The legend has been debunked by Reuters Fact Check, PolitiFact, and Snopes (Reuters, 2022; Czopek, 2022; Palma, 2023). Invented and popularized by Republican politicians and public figures in 2021, the urban legend says that public schools in the US have been providing litter boxes for students who identify as animals, which it calls furries. Journalists confirmed that has never happened. Only one district-- that of Columbine High School-- had litter in its emergency supplies for if classrooms were locked down without restroom access for many hours during a school shooting, along with other last-resort options for maintaining some rudiments of cleanliness and dignity while surviving unimaginable conditions (Kingkade et al 2022). That had some media attention in 2017 (Garcia 2017). In real life, use of litter boxes is not characteristic of the furry fandom. Nor do furries typically identify as animals (Plante et al, 2016, pp. 113-114). It has been decades that sexists have made grotesque comparisons between transgender restroom access and animal-people demanding to use something other than toilets, but it is no coincidence that the change from joke to urban legend happened after the 2020 Supreme Court decision G.G. v. Gloucester County School Board in favor of transgender-friendly restroom policies in high schools.

Why are Republicans doing this?

There are a variety of reasons why Republicans are spreading urban legend and why they're proposing laws based on it. The purpose of the urban legend and the bills is to satirize transgender students who ask to use the right restrooms for their genders. Another of its purposes is to justify defunding public schools in favor of private schools. Defunding public schools would make it impossible for some children with severe disabilities to go to school at all (RA Staff 2025 March 6).

Though the bill specifically names some activities that no students have done, it has other aspects that are worded so broadly that it would also apply to a range of behaviors that are normal in children's pretend play, teacher-guided learning activities, and hobby clubs (Codega 2025; Fields 2025). Most children play at being animals or engage in some form of what could be considered role-play as part of education or entertainment. Do Republicans have a vendetta against that, and if so, why? For one thing, fascism and other very controlling government ideologies disapprove of play. Controlling ideologies misinterpret play as only a distraction and diversion. There is little care for its importance for development, learning, discovery, and enrichment. Instead, fascists prioritize molding youth to conformity and obedience in utilitarian purposes in war, labor, and reproduction, with scarcely any life outside of it. Any hobby not in service to the structure is seen as a threat to it, because exploring outside of or making exceptions to the paradigm may lead to questioning it. Instead of approaching unfamiliar ideas with curiosity, thinking is fended off by means of shallow yet emotionally sensational reactions of either derision or outrage.

For another thing, sexists try to misrepresent transgender people as playing make-believe, saying that a transgender child is no different than a child pretending to be an animal one afternoon on the playground. Sexists say that gender confusion is a temporary phase that people shouldn't be encouraged in, should grow out of, or be forced out of by conversion therapy, rather than being allowed to socially transition. This is contrary to everything science knows about transgender people. Transgender people are who they say they are, allowing them to be themselves saves their lives, and obstructing that is needlessly destructive to their survival. The council of the world's largest psychological association overwhelmingly decided for a policy that supports transition as medically necessary and the healthiest choice for transgender people of all ages who desire it (APA Council of Representatives 2024). It also has a policy that recognizes conversion therapy as abusive and ineffective (APA Council of Representatives 2021).

In their urban legend and anti-furry bills and what they use them to justify, we see many values of what now calls itself the American Republican party. Republicans such as Governor Abbott show us that they oppose education for people other than the wealthy. Republicans are against the survival of youth who are different because of being queer, disabled, or other reasons. They oppose young people engaging in hobbies or playtime. If any of this situation feels undesirable or discouraging to you, the end of one of my previous articles about this bill has a section about what you can do to make positive changes to the world around you. There will be an opportunity to speak up about this bill this week. If you do, please make sure you are well-informed and careful.∎


Previously...
Here is a list in reverse chronological order of some of our previous posts on Otherkin News about TX HB 54 and other anti-furry bills in the US:

* 2025 April 19, our second article about TX HB 54: A Roundup of News Coverage of Texas’s F.U.R.R.I.E.S. Act.
* 2025 March 18, our first article about TX HB 54: Texas Governor Wants Constitutional Amendment to Punish “Non-Human Behaviors” in Schools
* 2025 January 18: Mississippi and Oklahoma propose laws against students who identify as nonhuman animals
* 2024 March 24: One anti-furry bill died, the other two wait to be heard
* 2024 February 25: One of the anti-furry bills might become about religion in schools instead
* 2024 February 18: Republicans introduce a 7th anti-furry bill and work to undermine student freedoms on a wider scale
* 2024 February 9: Will Oklahoma Call Animal Control on Students?
* 2023 April 24: Proposed amendment to Montana net censorship bill would ban transgender and transspecies people
* 2023 March 14: A formerly anti-alterhuman but still anti-transgender bill will be heard Wednesday
* 2023 February 22: In US, three anti-transgender bills also oppose alterhumans; similar recent Supreme Court cases


References

APA Council of Representatives (February 2021). APA RESOLUTION on Gender Identity Change Efforts. American Psychological Association. https://www.apa.org/about/policy/resolution-gender-identity-change-efforts.pdf

APA Council of Representatives (February 2024). APA Policy Statement on Affirming Evidence-Based Inclusive Care for Transgender, Gender Diverse, and Nonbinary Individuals, Addressing Misinformation, and the Role of Psychological Practice and Science. American Psychological Association. https://www.apa.org/about/policy/transgender-nonbinary-inclusive-care

Bahari, Sarah (2025 March 17). Texas bill would ban ‘furry subculture’ from public schools. The Dallas Morning News. https://www.dallasnews.com/news/texas/2025/03/17/texas-bill-would-ban-furry-subculture-from-public-schools/ Archived 2025 April 8: https://web.archive.org/web/20250408185746/https://www.dallasnews.com/news/texas/2025/03/17/texas-bill-would-ban-furry-subculture-from-public-schools/

Codega, Lin (2025 March 19). A Texas conformity bill could impact tabletop roleplaying games in schools statewide. Rascal. https://www.rascal.news/texas-furries-act-tabletop-roleplaying-games-in-schools/ Archived 2025 March 20: https://web.archive.org/web/20250320225725/https://www.rascal.news/texas-furries-act-tabletop-roleplaying-games-in-schools/

Czopek, Madison (2022 December 15). Debunking, rebuttals didn’t stop claim about litter boxes in schools from spreading before midterms. PolitiFact. https://www.politifact.com/article/2022/dec/15/debunking-rebuttals-didnt-stop-claim-about-litter/ Archived 2022 December 15. https://web.archive.org/web/2/https://www.politifact.com/article/2022/dec/15/debunking-rebuttals-didnt-stop-claim-about-litter/

Fields, Alyssa (2025 March 17). Furries, Meowing in School Now a 'Radical Trend,' According to Lawmaker. The Dallas Observer. https://www.dallasobserver.com/news/texas-bill-aims-to-eliminate-furries-in-schools-21926996 Archived 2025 April 9: https://web.archive.org/web/20250409081416/https://www.dallasobserver.com/news/texas-bill-aims-to-eliminate-furries-in-schools-21926996

Jones, Alyse (2024 January 18). How many newly filed bills will become law in Oklahoma?. KOCO-TV. https://www.koco.com/article/oklahoma-new-filed-bills/46431213

Kingkade, Tyler, Ben Goggin, Ben Collins, and Brandy Zadrozny (2022 October 14). How an urban myth about litter boxes in schools became a GOP talking point. NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/misinformation/urban-myth-litter-boxes-schools-became-gop-talking-point-rcna51439 Archived 2025 March 16: https://web.archive.org/web/20250316154051/https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/misinformation/urban-myth-litter-boxes-schools-became-gop-talking-point-rcna51439

Palma, Bethania. (2023 January 30). How Furries Got Swept Up in Anti-Trans 'Litter Box' Rumors. Snopes. https://www.snopes.com/news/2023/01/30/how-furries-got-swept-up-in-anti-trans-litter-box-rumors/ Archived on 2023 March 30.
https://web.archive.org/web/20230330232007/https://www.snopes.com/news/2023/01/30/how-furries-got-swept-up-in-anti-trans-litter-box-rumors/

Plante, C., S. Reysen, S. Roberts, and K. Gerbasi (2016). FurScience! A summary of five years of research from the International Anthropomorphic Research Project. FurScience: Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. ISBN: 978-0-9976288-0-7. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/304540208_FurScience_A_summary_of_five_years_of_research_from_the_International_Anthropomorphic_Research_Project The relevant section of the book is also on the project’s official web page here: https://furscience.com/research-findings/therians/7-2-animal-identification/

RA Staff (2025 March 6). School Choice or School Inequality? Children with Disabilities and the Texas Voucher Debate. Reform Austin. https://www.reformaustin.org/education/school-choice-or-school-inequality-children-with-disabilities-and-the-texas-voucher-debate/

Reuters Fact Check (2022 October 18). Fact Check-No evidence of schools accommodating ‘furries’ with litter boxes. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-furries-rogan-litterbox-idUSL1N31J1KT Archived 2023 February 13.
https://web.archive.org/web/20230213110524/https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-furries-rogan-litterbox-idUSL1N31J1KT

Texas Legislature (2025 March 15). Texas House Bill 54. Texas Legislature Online. https://capitol.texas.gov/BillLookup/Text.aspx?LegSess=89R&Bill=HB54

Texas Legislature (2025 April 24). House of Representatives Notice of Public Hearing. Texas Legislature. https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/89R/schedules/html/C4002025042908001.htm Archived 2025 April 25. https://web.archive.org/web/20250425165649/https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/89R/schedules/html/C4002025042908001.HTM

Texas Legislature (2025 March 13). Texas House Bill 4814. Texas Legislature Online. https://capitol.texas.gov/BillLookup/Authors.aspx?LegSess=89R&Bill=HB4814

Van der Loos, M. A. T. C., Hannema, S. E., Klink, D. T., den Heijer, M., & Wiepjes, C. M. (2022). Continuation of gender-affirming hormones in transgender people starting puberty suppression in adolescence: a cohort study in the Netherlands. The Lancet. Child & Adolescent Health, 6(12), 869–875. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2352-4642(22)00254-1

Villarreal, Daniel (2025 March 13). GOP legislator files bill to stop ‘furries’ from using litter boxes in schools. LGBTQ Nation. https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2025/03/gop-legislator-files-bill-to-stop-furries-from-using-litter-boxes-in-schools/ Archived 2025 March 14: https://web.archive.org/web/20250314064854/https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2025/03/gop-legislator-files-bill-to-stop-furries-from-using-litter-boxes-in-schools/

Wermund, Benjamin and Edward McKinley (2025 February 13) Texas Gov. Greg Abbott says vouchers could lead to less funding for public schools. Houston Chronicle. https://www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas/article/greg-abbott-school-vouchers-20165943.php Archived 2025 February 18: https://web.archive.org/web/20250218163839/https://www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas/article/greg-abbott-school-vouchers-20165943.php

Wermund, Benjamin (2025 March 13). Greg Abbott cites debunked claim that public schools catered to ‘furries’ in latest voucher push. Houston Chronicle. https://www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas/article/greg-abbott-furries-vouchers-20220159.php Archived 2025 March 15. https://web.archive.org/web/20250315071709/https://www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas/article/greg-abbott-furries-vouchers-20220159.php
frameacloud: A green dragon reading a book. (Default)
[personal profile] frameacloud
This blog post was written by Orion Scribner (frameacloud) on 2025 April 19 for Otherkin News, which is a volunteer run project. We welcome other people to submit articles about alterhumanity in current events. Learn more about this project and what we’re looking for.

Previously, we wrote an in-depth article about the F.U.R.R.I.E.S. Act, a Republican proposed constitution amendment that proposes to criminalize allowing “non-human behavior” in public schools in Texas, which has been supported by the Governor. You can read it here. If you aren’t familiar with this news story yet, please read it first so that you can understand this one.

One more thing I noticed after I wrote my article is that the wording of the two F.U.R.R.I.E.S. Act bills isn’t completely identical after all: one of them has a typographical error in it. The version filed as Texas House Bill 4814 (TX HB 4814) says the F.U.R.R.I.E.S. Act stands for Forbidding Unlawful Representation of Roleplaying in Education, missing the final word of the initialism. The version filed as Texas House Bill 54 (TX HB 54) ends the initialism with Educational Spaces. I had assumed that its author, Republican Representative Stan Gerdes, must have filed the bill a second time because of this error, instead of correcting the introduced bill text afterward. However, in a post to his Facebook on March 14, Gerdes wrote that the bill

“now has the support of Governor Greg Abbott and Speaker Dustin Burrows, who recognize the importance of keeping distractions out of our classrooms. Speaker Burrows has reassigned our legislation as House Bill 54, a low bill number that signals its priority status in the Texas House! I’m grateful that our leadership is taking this issue seriously and ensuring that Texas schools remain places of learning, not roleplaying. I’ve appreciated the conversations I’ve had with my own Smithville ISD Superintendent on this issue—our educators should be focused on teaching, not managing classroom disruptions from kids pretending to be animals. This is common sense. Let’s get it passed.”

Given that the bill is associated with treating an urban legend as though it’s happening in real life, anything else he says about his bill is reasonable to view with doubt. Whatever the reason for the two different bill numbers, the bungled initialism is the one that most of the news articles repeat. At least one news source ends the initialism as “Education and Schools,” which doesn’t appear in either of the bill texts. I’m also skeptical of exactly what conversations Gerdes had with the Smithville ISD Superintendant, if any, for reasons that show up later in this post. I don’t recall seeing Burrows say anything about the bill, either.

Here is a round-up of some more of the media coverage about and response to the bill since I last wrote about it. This is a reference list, sorted alphabetically by surname of the author, with my own annotations about the accuracy of each article and any new information it contributed.

Bahari, Sarah (2025 March 17). Texas bill would ban ‘furry subculture’ from public schools. The Dallas Morning News. https://www.dallasnews.com/news/texas/2025/03/17/texas-bill-would-ban-furry-subculture-from-public-schools/ Archived 2025 April 8: https://web.archive.org/web/20250408185746/https://www.dallasnews.com/news/texas/2025/03/17/texas-bill-would-ban-furry-subculture-from-public-schools/

Media Bias Fact Check (MBFC) says that this Pulitzer Prize winning newspaper for a region of Texas has a right-center bias and high credibility. This article accurately says that the litter box rumor has been debunked, and that the bill is connected with Republican efforts to use taxpayer dollars for private schools, though it doesn’t bring up that this means defunding public schools or the connection with satirizing transgender students. This article adds important new information about the story: some written statements about the bill were provided directly to the Dallas Morning News for the above article from the legislator, Rep. Stan Gerdes, and a spokesperson for Gov. Greg Abbott’s office, Andrew Mahaleris. Bahari reports, “Gerdes acknowledged furries soon might show up at another place: the Capitol in Austin. ‘I fully expect the subculture to show up in full furry vengeance at the committee hearing,’ he said in a statement, adding that he will not tolerate theatrics during the legislative process.” Sounds like Gerdes meant for the bill to be bait for a spectacle. The same statement also claims that “he wrote the bill in response to an incident in Smithville ISD, but he did not elaborate. Smithville is about 45 miles southeast of Austin. Neither Gerdes nor the school district immediately responded to a request for more information Monday from The Dallas Morning News.” Over a month later, there still has been no public comment from that school district to substantiate Gerdes’s claim.

Billson, Chantelle (2025 March 26). Texas GOP lawmaker introduces Furries Act after falling for the litter-boxes-in-schools hoax. PinkNews. https://www.thepinknews.com/2025/03/26/stan-gerdes-texas-furries-act/ Archived 2025 April 2: https://web.archive.org/web/20250402063947/https://www.thepinknews.com/2025/03/26/stan-gerdes-texas-furries-act/

PinkNews is an online magazine focusing on LGBTQ+ pop culture for the UK and worldwide. MBFC says it has a left bias and high credibility. That may have been true once, but sadly, PinkNews has started using generative AI in their process for writing their articles, judging by a flag that appears on the end of some of the web addresses that they linked to in their article: /?utm_source=chatgpt.com. This reveals that PinkNews used the genAI ChatGPT as though it was a search engine for discovering those links. PinkNews also gives an inaccurate history of how the litter box urban legend arose and spread, giving the wrong dates and crediting the wrong people. PinkNews says the legend started in the early 2000s and only credits its popularity to a single deleted tweet from a random sports coach in 2023. This is very far away from the facts: the legend was invented decades later than that, in 2021 and 2022, and was very visibly popularized by a number of Republican politicians and public figures. The fact-checking sites Reuters, PolitiFact, and Snopes have all covered this history as part of debunking the urban legend. If PinkNews had been even partly overseen by a human who cares about writing accurate news articles, they would have proofread their machine-generated story against at least one of those fact-checking sites.

Bollinger, Alex (2025 March 24). GOP governor tells rally that kids are using litterboxes in classrooms. The crowd agreed. LGBTQ Nation. https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2025/03/gop-governor-tells-rally-that-kids-are-using-litterboxes-in-classrooms-the-crowd-agreed/ Archived 2025 March 26: https://web.archive.org/web/20250326051627/https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2025/03/gop-governor-tells-rally-that-kids-are-using-litterboxes-in-classrooms-the-crowd-agreed/

LGBTQ Nation is an online magazine in the US that specializes in queer-positive news. MBFC says it has a left bias and medium credibility because it doesn’t label its opinion articles and uses loaded words. LGBTQ Nation has had several pieces on the litter box urban legend. This article focuses on that aspect of the context of the bill, and especially on how a number of Republican politicians and public figures have promoted the urban legend during the past few years, and that its purpose was to criticize transgender students having access to public school restrooms. Otherwise, this article doesn’t add new information about the bill.

Codega, Lin (2025 March 19). A Texas conformity bill could impact tabletop roleplaying games in schools statewide. Rascal. https://www.rascal.news/texas-furries-act-tabletop-roleplaying-games-in-schools/ Archived 2025 March 20: https://web.archive.org/web/20250320225725/https://www.rascal.news/texas-furries-act-tabletop-roleplaying-games-in-schools/

Rascal is a site for news about role playing games and culture, run by three people. Rascal doesn’t have an entry in MBFC. Although it’s a small news source, this is an especially well written article that was cited in the article by Them.us. It offers some original insights to the story from a couple of lawyers, and looks at the bill from the angle of being part of another moral panic, similar to what happened in the 1980s when the Satanic Panic spread urban legends about Dungeons and Dragons being dangerous. A ban on role play is a ban on a part of the Constitutionally protected freedom of expression in public schools. One lawyer, Tess Lynch, compares cat ear headbands with the black armbands in the landmark case about students’ freedom of expression, Tinker v. Des Moines, which is the same thing that my partners Page Shepard, House of Chimeras and I said about it in our convention panel about anti-furry bills a couple of years ago. The other lawyer, Noah Downs, says that the bill text is worded in such a broad way that it could ban or criminalize school clubs for Dungeons and Dragons and many other play activities organized or approved of by teachers.

Esguerra, Vanessa (2025 March 20). A Texas bill could ban ‘furries’ from public schools—yes, really. The Mary Sue. https://www.themarysue.com/a-texas-bill-could-ban-furries-from-public-schools-yes-really/ or https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/a-texas-bill-could-ban-furries-from-public-schools-yes-really/ar-AA1BjM4r Archived 2025 March 23: https://web.archive.org/web/20250323101320/https://www.themarysue.com/a-texas-bill-could-ban-furries-from-public-schools-yes-really/

The Mary Sue is a feminist online magazine for women about geek culture. MBFC says it has a left bias and high credibility. It focuses on fact checking what the furry fandom is really like, as part of the magazine’s interest in fandoms, but only barely implies that the bill has an anti-LGBT context.

Fields, Alyssa (2025 March 17). Furries, Meowing in School Now a 'Radical Trend,' According to Lawmaker. The Dallas Observer. https://www.dallasobserver.com/news/texas-bill-aims-to-eliminate-furries-in-schools-21926996 Archived 2025 April 9: https://web.archive.org/web/20250409081416/https://www.dallasobserver.com/news/texas-bill-aims-to-eliminate-furries-in-schools-21926996

The Dallas Observer is a newspaper established in 1980 and appears to have a left bias, focusing on local businesses and lifestyle. It doesn’t have a listing in MBFC. The above article was cited in several other news sources because it has an interview with a member of the furry fandom, Andrew Kaiser, about what he thinks of the bill. Kaiser had been active in the fandom in Texas, but he’s one of many LGBTQIA people who move out of that state to flee conservative politics. Kaiser explained that since the fandom is known for having many LGBTQIA people in it, “any legislative discussion or any Republican talking points regarding furries are considered as a proxy attack on that [LGBTQ+] community.” Although the furry fandom has its sexual aspects, much of it is carefully kept separate from that, and animal characters and role-play are normal in children’s media and play. Kaiser pointed out that many conservative bills that are supposed to protect children from seeing anything remotely associated with sexuality are really “a disingenuous attack on people that [conservatives] don't like.”

McCormack, Caitlin (2025 March 17). Texas bill aims to ban barking, meowing and other ‘non-human behavior’ in schools to tackle furries trend. New York Post. https://nypost.com/2025/03/17/us-news/texas-bill-moves-to-ban-non-human-behavior-in-schools-to-eliminate-furry-trend/ Archived 2025 March 17: https://web.archive.org/web/20250328092550/https://nypost.com/2025/03/17/us-news/texas-bill-moves-to-ban-non-human-behavior-in-schools-to-eliminate-furry-trend/

MBFC says the New York Post is a newspaper with a right-center bias and medium credibility. I notice that the New York Post is a tabloid that has a consistently transphobic slant in its reporting, judging by the headlines in its transgender tag. This is relevant because this bill arose from anti-transgender urban legends. This is a poor article with no new scoop to offer of its own, and which fails to mention that there is no truth to the Republican politicians’ claims about furries disrupting schools. The New York Post treats the litter box urban legend as though it was fact.

Mion, Landon (2025 March 19). Texas lawmaker proposes bill targeting furries; measure seeks to ban 'non-human behavior' in schools. Fox News. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/texas-lawmaker-proposes-bill-targeting-furries-measure-seeks-ban-non-human-behavior-schools Archived 2025 April 6: https://web.archive.org/web/20250406225521/https://www.foxnews.com/politics/texas-lawmaker-proposes-bill-targeting-furries-measure-seeks-ban-non-human-behavior-schools

MBFC rates Fox News as a questionable source. Interestingly enough, even this article by Fox brings up that the litter box rumor is a debunked urban legend. However, Fox only says that the rumor “circulated online,” which is far less visibility than it demonstrably has had, even in this same article, where Republican politicians are promoting it as part of their platforms. Fox otherwise focuses on Gerdes and Abbott’s claims about furries being problems in schools. This allows the article to give the impression that there could be partly some substance to the claims about furries, even though they’re well-known to be baseless. It mentions that Abbott talked about “the furry issue as a motivating factor to allow private school choice vouchers,” but doesn’t explain that the vouchers would be made by sending taxpayer dollars away from public schools. Fox gave just enough of the facts to almost but not quite criticize Republican politicians or say something false.

Qureshi, Arshi (2025 March 20). ​​TEACHER'S PET: High school students identifying as cats & using litterboxes & leashes in class target of new crackdown with $25k fine. The US Sun. https://www.the-sun.com/news/13822175/texas-wants-ban-furry-culture-school/ Archived 2025 April 11: https://web.archive.org/web/20250411123606/https://www.the-sun.com/news/13822175/texas-wants-ban-furry-culture-school/

MBFC says the US Sun is an online-only tabloid with a focus on sensational news, a right bias, and mixed factual reporting due to failed fact checks and promotion of misinformation. The Sun outright says that the litter box urban legend is true, and fails to mention that it has been consistently debunked.

Ramirez, Juan Carlos (2025 April 6) Legislature should not focus on furries during current session. North Texas Daily. https://www.ntdaily.com/opinion/legislature-should-not-focus-on-furries-during-current-session/article_91a6ee7c-1f8c-4561-a665-5753a64b78bb.html Archived 2025 April 19: https://web.archive.org/web/20250419214919/https://www.ntdaily.com/opinion/legislature-should-not-focus-on-furries-during-current-session/article_91a6ee7c-1f8c-4561-a665-5753a64b78bb.html

Established in 1916, North Texas Daily is a student paper of the University of North Texas. MBFC doesn’t have an entry about this news source. Although this is an opinion article, it does well at summarizing various news sources related to this story. The author’s stance is that the bill distracts from real issues that lawmakers need to address about schools in the state. It doesn’t get into the context of Republican opposition to public schools or LGBT rights.

Riedel, Samantha (2025 March 26). Texas Republican Introduces Bill to Address the Nonexistent Problem of Furries in Schools. Them.us. https://www.them.us/story/texas-republican-legislation-furries-in-schools Archived 2025 April 10: https://web.archive.org/web/20250410001653/https://www.them.us/story/texas-republican-legislation-furries-in-schools

Them.us is an online magazine for LGBTQIA people, which MBFC rates as having a left bias and high credibility. This article is an accurate summary of the context around the bill. It also points out that the bill is "likely to fail as its predecessors have … not least because Texas legislators have filed over 10,000 bills in the 2025-2026 session so far.”

Villarreal, Daniel (2025 March 13). GOP legislator files bill to stop ‘furries’ from using litter boxes in schools. LGBTQ Nation. https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2025/03/gop-legislator-files-bill-to-stop-furries-from-using-litter-boxes-in-schools/ Archived 2025 March 14: https://web.archive.org/web/20250314064854/https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2025/03/gop-legislator-files-bill-to-stop-furries-from-using-litter-boxes-in-schools/

Another article from this online magazine. This is a good summary, focusing on the spread of the litter box urban legend among Republican politicians. In regard to the Smithville school district that Gerdes had said had a furry incident, this article notes that the district “serves only 1,885 students … [and no] known news reports covered the alleged incident.”

Villegas, Patti (2025 March 18). Texas Lawmaker Unleashes F.U.R.R.I.E.S. Act: No More Barking In Classrooms. The Dallas Express. https://dallasexpress.com/education/texas-bill-would-ban-furry-behavior-in-schools/ Archived 2025 April 19: https://web.archive.org/web/20250419215048/https://dallasexpress.com/education/texas-bill-would-ban-furry-behavior-in-schools/

MBFC says the Dallas Express was founded in 2021 and has a right wing bias and medium credibility. This is a poor article because it fails to mention that the litter box rumor has been consistently debunked by fact-checkers as an urban legend, which is a crucial part of this news story. It makes it sound like the politicians are responding in a reasonable way to a bizarre youth fad. The Dallas Express selectively quotes the furry who was interviewed in the Dallas Observer to make it sound like he’s normalizing these behaviors in schools, instead of any of the parts where he said that it’s not happening like that.

Generally, what we see in this round-up of news articles is that right-wing news sources vary in what degree that they will admit that the Republicans who support the bill are basing it on a debunked urban legend. Meanwhile, left-wing news sources vary in how much they get into the context of the bill to explain what Republicans are getting at. If any of these articles make you feel concerned or unsafe, please read my previous article about the bill and focus on the part about things that you can do, such as writing to your elected representative, or building solidarity with your local community.∎

frameacloud: A green dragon reading a book. (Default)
[personal profile] frameacloud
Summary: In the US, Republicans have introduced the third and fourth bills this year that would ban students from being furries in public schools, with a pair of identical texts introduced as Texas House Bill 54 and HB 4814. Called the F.U.R.R.I.E.S. Act, these bills propose to amend the Texas Constitution to prohibit students from displaying “non-human behaviors” at school, to call schools that allow it abusive, and to punish the schools with expensive fines. Texas Governor Greg Abbott spoke approvingly of the bill and claimed it was in response to schools supposedly letting students behave as animals and use litter boxes. That was a debunked urban legend that Republicans invented in 2021. The purpose of the urban legend and the bills is to satirize transgender students who ask to use the right restrooms for their genders, and to justify defunding public schools in favor of private schools. Republicans oppose education for people other than the wealthy, and oppose allowing LGBTQIA people to exist. Below, find out more about what these bills mean and what you can do about them.

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Otherkin News is a collaborative, volunteer-run blog for sharing news for otherkin, therianthropes, fictionfolk, plural systems, and all sorts of alterhumans. You can join and post here about current events in our communities and newspaper articles that are about us. The person moderating this is [personal profile] frameacloud. Everyone is welcome to subscribe and explore our tags.

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