No, Furries Aren’t Taking Over American Schools.

Finding the Courage to Challenge Indoctrination with Compassion.

Otakuthon 2014 fur-con participants. Photo on Wikipedia by Pikawil on Flickr. License: CC BY-SA 2.0

CONTENT WARNING: EVERYTHING… YEAH. THAT TOO.

ACT I

“I pulled my daughter out of that school,” J said.

Halfway into my sandwich, I didn’t know how to respond.

Wait. Did I not know? We’ve all seen the consequences of being honest in recent years.

Yet my inner goddess refuses to lie anymore. Damn the consequences! She knows what it is to people-please for 40 years. We’re only as sick as our secrets, the saying goes, and talk about destroying communities! Never again, even if it means being Ron DeSantis’s personal Nelson Mandela someday. I’ll probably never finish grieving all I’ve lost, and all I’ve hidden.

Nelson Mandela in 1994, revisiting his South African prison cell on Robben Island, where he spent 18 years of his life. (Jurgen Schadeberg / Getty Images)

I guess I’m writing this to figure out how to respond to J. Or to get honest. Or something.

What do I think about what… J is saying, anyway, that they’re teaching in that school? The edge in J’s voice suggests that if I do get honest with myself, I’ll have to choose:

1. Risking our beloved…