
Some children, she alleged, would only communicate in barks and hisses. In Colorado, GOP gubernatorial nominee Heidi Ganahl insisted in several recent interviews that students were dressing and identifying as cats, disrupting class, and the state’s schools were tolerating it. NBC News found one example of a school district keeping cat litter on campuses for students to use - but it had nothing to do with accommodating children who identify as animals. “Why would you attack our most vulnerable to get your point across, especially since the point is baseless?” “It’s only used to kind of sensationalize untruth, and to harm our community, in particular our transgender, nonbinary and gender-expansive youth,” said Nadine Bridges, executive director of One Colorado, an LGBTQ rights organization, when asked about the litter box rumors. “What’s most provocative about this hoax is how it turns on two key wedge issues for conservatives: educational accommodations and gender nonconformity,” said Joan Donovan, research director of the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University and co-author of “Meme Wars: The Untold Story of the Online Battles Upending Democracy in America.” And it has not stopped some politicians from picking up these claims and using them to alarm people by saying that this is where protections for LGBTQ students will lead. That has not stopped such rumors from circulating on social media, where they have been repeated like a game of telephone, often with descriptions of friends of friends who supposedly saw such things firsthand.
#Bara furry full#
Three school-age furries told NBC News they have at times dressed up at school, typically wearing just part of their full costume such as a mask or gloves that look like paws, but they’d never heard of any furry ever asking for a litter box. But the vast majority of them still identify as humans, while sometimes adopting an animal-like persona and engaging in short-term roleplay, according to furries and experts, one of whom noted that there are no litter boxes at furry conventions. There is a real subculture of people known as furries, a community of children and adults who roleplay as anthropomorphized animal characters. Rogan did not name the school, and his publicist did not respond to a request for comment. Tulsi Gabbard that a litter box was installed in a school that his friend’s wife worked at for a girl who “identifies as an animal.” A clip of the discussion quickly began to circulate on social media. In an episode of Spotify’s “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast this week, host Joe Rogan told former U.S.


There is no evidence that any school has deployed litter boxes for students to use because they identify as cats.īut the claim has taken on a life of its own among a growing number of Republicans, conservative influencers and political commentators. And during a legislative hearing last month in Tennessee, two Republican state lawmakers discussed the “growing crisis” of public schools providing litter boxes for children who identify as cats, and claimed it’s happening across the state.Īt least 20 conservative candidates and elected officials have claimed this year that K-12 schools are placing litter boxes on campus or making other accommodations for students who identify as cats, according to an NBC News review of public statements.Įvery school district that has been named by those 20 politicians said either to NBC News or in public statements that these claims are untrue.
