This week I wanna talk about furries. Surprise!
Ok, I also want to talk about the internet hate machine, unnecessary proselytizing, and feelings of persecution over a lack of acceptance, something that marginalized people are already well acquainted with.
There are a few news stories this week on my mind. Kiwi Farms, a longtime notorious forum intended only for hateful content and doxxing of individuals that they do not like (aka people like me who dare to exist visibly online), is in the spotlight again. Currently the site is offline, and while I doubt that it is permanent this time, I can be hopeful. After a trans Twitch streamer was repeatedly attacked via users on the site, people have been demanding that Cloudflare drop Kiwi Farms as a client.
There is also an article going around about Evangelical Christian Furries, a term that many people already find funny and shocking. The furry community is overwhelmingly queer and generally accepting of various identities and beliefs. What doesn’t work out so well is trying to convert people to your faith, while simultaneously worrying that you’ll be doxxed for doing so.
I won’t pretend that everyone in the furry community would be kind enough not to try to bring harm to this group. The distrust is real, and is healthy to have. Christian groups routinely persecute and literally demonize others who do not fit their preferred view of the world, one in which some people deserve rights and some people deserve to die.
I’m active and out in a time where being so gets you labeled as a groomer. Where sharing LGBTQ history is equated with promoting “deviant sexual proclivities”, as if there is any real meaning behind that phrase at all other than scaring and mobilizing a base.
I don’t know how well these evangelical furries will work out in their mission. The Furry Raiders are straight up Nazis who are still active and trying to cause disruptions, to varying degrees of success. Before that it was the Burned Furs, also fizzling out due to ostracization in the community. Outside of the furry world you’ve got groups like the Texas Log Cabin Republicans, who have basically given up trying to have the GOP acknowledge and support them as gay Republicans.
I live in a country that is ostensibly more liberalized and democratic than a good portion of the world. While I know intrinsically that this is not true, it still shocks me that so many legal and political fights in America come down to people saying, “my god says that I can’t do this, and my god also says that you can’t either”, and enshrining that in law.
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If you made it this far, why not share this newsletter with a friend? Or share with me some of the things that you found that you liked this week. Either way, I’m thrilled!
