The Forbidding Unlawful Representation of Roleplaying in Education, or FURRIES, Act, filed by Austin-area Republican State Rep. Stan Gerdes, would “prohibit any non-human behavior by a student, including presenting himself or herself, on days other than exempt days, as anything other than a human being.”
The law would allow for exempt days, such as Halloween and other school dress-up days.
The law defines “non-human” behavior as “any type of behavior or accessory displayed by a student in a school district other than behaviors or accessories typically displayed by a member of the homo sapiens species,” with provided examples being:
Using a litter box for the passing of stool, urine or other human byproducts
A personal or outward display, except during a school play or by a school mascot, through surgical or superficial means of features that are non-human such as using tails, leashes, collars or other accessories designed for pets
Using fur, other than naturally occurring human hair or a wig made to look like human hair
Artificial, animal-like ears
Other physiological features that have not historically been assigned to the human race through a means of natural biological development
Students who bark, meow, hiss or make other animal noises that are not human speech
Licking oneself or others for the purpose of grooming or maintenance.
I always tell people, that they won’t stop at LGBTQ+ people, and will eventually go into persecuting other subcultures.
What is it with them and this absolute conviction that kids are pretending to be cats, it’s literally not happening and yet they’re upset about it.
If they are going to make things up and then be upset about those made up things can they not come up with something less weird than kids being cats? Why not be upset about all the Dark Lords in schools, or the uptake in alien abductions?
If you’re complaining about gay people, you’re not complaining about us denying you a living wage.
If you’re complaining about transgender people, you’re not complaining about us denying you medical care.
If you’re complaining about furries, you’re not complaining about us denying you education.
I guess we really want you to complain about those things.
Because their base thinks it’s real so they can claim a win over a non existent issue and their base will eat it up.
It also distracts from real issues impacting people. So they can say yeah we haven’t gotten to that yet but look at all this other stuff we “fixed”.
i cannot begin to describe how utterly fucking stupid this is.
I genuinely thought i died and went to hell when i first read this, this bill doesn’t even make any fucking sense. Child exhibiting “non human behaviors” could be considered “child abuse” according to this bill.
How the fuck do you even enforce this?
Overreaching Authoritarianism.
Standard Republican kit.
pretty much.
Why on earth are they pursuing this. We all know this is not a real problem.
If it was a scare crow to attack trans rights, they have achieved that. They have pulverized trans rights in many places, especially bathroom access.
Who stands to gain from this? It is not a real problem!
The rage machine requires fuel.
This is at the very core of everything that is happening.
not all of it! some of it is just exploitation and pillaging.
I swear to fuck; nobody ever gives pillaging the credit it deserves.
the rage is the point. the feeling of a win is the point.
the cost to the tech industry is an acceptable cost; these people do not connect cause and effect.
Fascists are always trying to enforce their idiotic worldview as a display of power - it also has a bonus of distracting people from their disasterous economic policies.
They’re
stupidsimple.deleted by creator
Fascists are so stupid, they start to believe their own propaganda. Can’t even remember, or at least be bothered to remember, that they made this up to scare normies.
well also. once you drum up enough fear, you can act on that fear. when you act on that fear you can do something that masquerades as something else. they say this is about keeping furrie play out of school. but the powers they got themselves will go a long way to labeling any kind of “out of the ordinary” behavior autistic kids do as being furrie play. this is all going accrording to plan
The law defines “non-human” behavior “any type of behavior… [not typically] displayed by a member of the homo sapiens species,”
NATHON!! STOP ACTING LIKE A HOMO ERECTUS YOU NEANDERTHAL!
also im pretty sure “human” means ‘under the homo genus’ not ‘homo sapien’ but its not like it matters to them
The law defines “non-human” behavior “any type of behavior… [not typically] displayed by a member of the homo sapiens species,”
“My fellow Americans, I’m pleased to tell you today that I’ve signed legislation that will outlaw Florida forever.”
Surely any behavior performed by a human is behavior that is performed by humans and therefore anything is authorized under this act. Lots of humans do dress up in cat ears, so dressing up in cat ears is human behavior.
Wow there sure is a lot of behavior and accessories not “typcal to homo sapiens” makes me wonder what the hell they even mean here by “typical”, it’s like calling someone “objectively not normal” while ignoring that your entire view on normality is based on what you have been exposed to. I am not a furry or a therian or anything, but the flaws in this law absolutely allow it to be applied to just about any “behavior or accessory”
There are enough furry conventions that you cannot say it’s not typical. Also have you not interacted with children at all? Because they play as if they’re cats or dogs or wolves and many other animals all the time, are you saying that typical child behavior is not typical human behavior?
I feel there has been a misunderstanding here.
Im not saying anything against furries, I am instead stating that our ideas of normality are entirely socially constructed, meaning this bill could be applied to basically any behavior depending on your interpretation of what is “typical to homo sapiens” I could, for example, state that it is normal for someone to be a furry, as humans have a long history of portraying themselves in similar ways. I could also say that a piercing is an “atypical” accessory not permitted by the rules. There is no such thing as normal. To call something weird is just to simply state that you haven’t been exposed to it enough for it to qualify as weird for you.
These are the same people that defined us all as female afterall.
It would be so funny if schools start “dressup weeks/months” with rotating theme in protest
Man they are still caught up on that fake story somebody sent to one of these morons claiming kids were using litter boxes in school. It never happened but they’re going to try to legislate it away anyway.
The lesson here is don’t troll these idiots, they’ll fucking believe it and then start passing idiotic laws for non-problems.
And when you try and tell anyone who bought it they say there is evidence, while never being able to provide any.
They will say this legislation proves its real. Why else would this legislation exist? I’m sure the lawmakers have all the evidence.
If there’s one thing we can be certain of with Texas legislators it’s their competency
I’ve just taken to saying “provide me with evidence or shut the fuck up” usually followed closely by “how about one that’s from multiple independent sources and not from a fox opinion piece or personal blog”
how about one that’s from multiple independent sources and not from a fox opinion piece or personal blog”
and oops it isnt actually proof its just a headline because the article debunks it immediately.
The lesson here is don’t troll these idiots, they’ll fucking believe it and then start passing idiotic laws for non-problems.
Throwback to when 4chan started memeing about pizzas, and the resulting chain of events led to a real pizza parlor being shot up by a right-wing nut job who thought it was full of pedophiles.
I don’t see how they ignored an actual case of sexual assault at a pizza parlor…oh it’s because he was a Republican mega donor.
Also, the Google results for ‘Vander Esch assault pizza ranch’ have at least five different “digital newspapers” pushed to the top of the results with a different story that does not match the record of the legal proceedings.
The weird thing is for some reason people will lie to perpetuate these falsehoods
Like I do therapy and I talk to teenagers regularly because teenagers need mental health support, obviously. And sometimes they’ll bring up shit like this: “my school installed a litter box because of these woke kids”
But even the most basic of prodding: “did they really” with a tone of like “come on” and they’ll backpedal, “well no, but like there are kids that have fursonas and shit”
It’s crazy to see it start so young. They’re realizing at like 16 they can get adults to gang up on the kid they think is weird by being dishonest, and adults buy into it because it’s a chance to bully someone weaker and politicians jump on it because it’s a new wedge issue to distract people from class consciousness
And what’s crazy is that by some perspectives if I call them out on this dishonesty and point out this cycle I’m indoctrinating them
Like I do therapy and I talk to teenagers regularly because teenagers need mental health support, obviously. And sometimes they’ll bring up shit like this: “my school installed a litter box because of these woke kids”
this is literally just how fascism works btw.
Step 1: lie, make it as preposterous as you can
Step 2: if you aren’t called out, further it, legitimize it, make it real, gaslight people into believing it ACTUALLY happened.
Step 3: If you are called out, downplay it, gaslight the other party, it’s such a preposterous claim that it couldn’t possibly be fabricated, otherwise why would anybody talk about it, it’s so easy to immediately disprove, surely you must be wrong if you haven’t already seen the proof, i mean everybody, EVERYBODY is talking about it? Haven’t you seen it? Would be a shame if you got caught up in the legislation (or similar legislation) yourself wouldn’t it?
Step 4: win.
It’s funny a Portuguese person just told me the same story happened in PT to justify anti-trans positions. So it’s the same bullshit story, localized, and repeated.
Just like how antisemitic stereotypes with no basis (blood libel etc.) have been repeated in many countries for hundreds of years. Even before the internet, memes were used for the effective spreading of suspicion and hatred.
Yep, we had the exact same fake news story spread in Canada, and used as cover for anti-trans policies. Can we put some tariffs on disinformation please?
This hoax actually started out in PEI and then spread everywhere.
Huh I didn’t know that! Fine, export taxes on disinfo then
I always love using that example to dismiss some concerns about deepfakes sparking national conspiracies.
Nobody even tried to fake a picture of it. I’ve seen photos on lemmy of people shaving their heads in weird ways or making some horrible bean-themed food just for the karma. Throwing an empty litter box in an empty classroom takes much less effort yet nobody even bothered.
Ok, I’m new here and I HAVE to ask what’s up with beans. If it’s not too uncool to ask
It is uncool to ask. Fortunately that doesn’t matter as none of us are cool.
Beans are a lemmy meme. As are jeans. And German sturgeons though the last one is the least enduring and mostly just was an ich_iel meme that happened to coincide with the last exodus
Beans were just some sort of meme that popped up randomly. I think it was one of those “mods are asleep quick post [x] before they wake up” types of things, and it quickly spiraled until half of everyone’s feed was just beans.
I was around when it happened, and even I don’t understand it.
There’s not much more to understand. It was just a fun thing that happened. Sort of like all the void kitties that expIoded everywhere a few months ago.
Beans are amazing. What else do you need to know?
Go beans
Ugh. So uncool. ~j/k I dunno either~
These are the same sort of dumbfucks that absolutely believed the “LSD stickers/tattoos” bullshit way, way back and would insist on schools passing out flyers based on that stupid urban legend.
I remember being in sixth grade when they had a bout of that going around our school, and I was like, wait, what? And I had a lot of doubts. And that’s when I was in sixth grade. Years later, you could look it up and see what nonsense it was. Anyway, I was at TWO different jobs where someone was trying to “inform parents” with some printouts they had about you guessed it, the bullshit LSD stickers nonsense. The first time, I told them “you know, this is urban legend, right?” I get immediately treated like I’m some kind of criminal that does not want to protect the children.
I suspect the bullshit around litter boxes will have a similar lifetime among those that are hard of thinking.
I did a small dive and found an account of an apparent legit case of a litter box in a school, but it was for an option for extended school shooting drills
https://www.denverpost.com/2018/03/03/school-shooting-preparations/amp/
Yup, camp toilets are a similar concept. It’s just a 5 gallon hardware store bucket with a snap-on toilet seat lid. You line it with what is essentially a trash bag, just to make disposal easier. Then you use a gelling agent (just like what is in disposable diapers to allow them to soak up a bunch of moisture) to reduce sloshing and smell. It’s handy for when you’re going to be away from toilets for a day or two, but don’t want to (or aren’t able to) dig a hole to shit in.
But the same concept applies for when you’re going to be trapped somewhere (like a classroom) for an extended period of time. Like, for instance, during a school shooting. When you have 30 kids in a classroom, there’s a very good chance that at least one of them will need to piss after an hour or two. And nobody wants to deal with human waste in something like an open trashcan during a lockdown.
And as an added bonus, the bucket can be used to store all of active shooter supplies when it’s not in use. So everything is in a single location to quickly grab and prep. Active shooter happens? Great, just grab the big bucket out of the closet, dump all of the supplies out, and you’re ready to go. Now all of your tourniquets, styptic bandages, etc are accessible.
But it quickly got distorted into “they’re making kids use litter boxes to indoctrinate them” instead.
As usual conservatives take something that makes them look like the evil shitbags they are and lie about it for political gain.
Meanwhile a percentage of the underpaid teachers are living in vans and shitting in buckets.
The we give these heroes a raise already!?
That’s how this whole “kids are identifying as cats and using litter boxes at school” shitshow started.
The lesson here is don’t troll these idiots, they’ll fucking believe it and then start passing idiotic laws for non-problems.
Exactly this. Just like flat earthers (and that super bizarre one about time cubes or whatever), the rubes will gobble it up and eventually people will get hurt over it.
Another one is the Birds Aren’t Real meme, which I think is pretty funny, but you just know that an innocent birdwatcher will get shot some day because an extremely mentally unwell person will assume that they’re some government spook checking on the “drones”.
troll them, troll them relentlessly, and this is coming from a furry, this shit is fucking hilarious.
The more they live outside of reality, the harder it becomes for them to exist. The quick the fall, and the harder they fail.
what? absolutely troll these idiots now that you know they are very susceptible.
just do it in a way they pass good laws out of fear instead.
This idiocy must be weaponized
While you’re right about that being fake, it’s just pandering to their base who do take issue with forms of self-expression that are common amongst queer, trans and/or autistic students. Things like wearing a collar, a tail or cat ears are absolutely relatively common and this bill targets those all the same.
My daughters love wearing cat-ear headbands. It’s cute, they like it, end of story. Nobody has thrown a fit about it yet… 🤞🤞
IIRC it did have a hint of truth, like most things do. They then spun a totally different story from it. The hint of truth is it was for school shootings where they couldn’t leave the classroom for an extended period of time.
Instead of addressing the real issue, which is that school shootings have become so common that preparations like this need to be made, they spun it into a story that the schools were pandering towards furries. As always, it’s all smoke and mirrors to keep people distracted and give them an enemy, so they don’t force representatives to actually help them.
i don’t even think it was a litterbox even, it was just litter in a bag, or a bucket. That was it. Someone then probably made the joke, somewhere online, 4chan or something, that it was litterboxes, and furries, because haha funny, look how stupid everything is, and then it exploded.
The lesson here is don’t troll these idiots
Maybe the lesson is to troll harder until they legislate themselves into ruin?
The lesson here is to actually troll these idiots, but with stuff that lead to idiotic laws so inconvenient that even their voter base will hate them for it.
Give them enough rope, and they’ll hang themselves with it.
Or they’ll lynch us.
Man they keep coming back to the litterbox thing, it really freaks them tf out. Even though its been debunked dozens of time, my conservative friends all swear they know a guy that knows a guy that swears he saw one for real!
The litterbox thing is so outrageous that it gives their tyrannical proposals the vineer of addressing a real problem.
But the litterbox story was fabricated, and the only grain of truth of it is that some classrooms did keep kitty litter as a mitigation against being trapped by an active shooter - another conservative-created problem.
They will continue to glom onto outrageous stories, to justify their outrageously oppressive proposals.
I was always confused by this active shooter argument. Don’t classrooms have fire doors to the outside isn’t that a requirement that all rooms have at least two exits.
The school I was in had both fire doors to the outside and bathrooms between the classrooms right up until upper education. Even then they still had fire doors to the outside so everyone could just leave.
Oh, the litter boxes are real…
It’s just that their purpose is to be used during a school shooting lockdown.
Oh, that’s fine then. School shootings are an American tradition so Republicans won’t prevent that
I would not be able to stop myself from laughing if i saw that happening for real but these people think of it as a threat to their existence, as a crime.
What a witless world we live in.
This started out as a far-far-fetched construction to attack trans rights. In fact, whoever designed this hoax is Goebbels-level diabolical. If you break it down, it subconsciously re-arranges the notions of self-identification and toilet use, in a way that presents “reckless liberalism” as an immediate threat to normalcy.
The people who eat this shit up may be stupid, but the people who design it are not. This goes beyond straw-man attack and slippery slope fallacy. It rather combines both into a powerful manipulation technique that bears resemblance to mass hypnosis. They have someone really malevolent on the propaganda payroll, folks.
This is no more outlandish or unscientific than the WHOLE anti-trans thing:
Men pretending to be trans to access woman spaces does not happen any more frequently than furry students shitting in litterboxes.
The right is consistently and historically mobilized by fantastic beasts their cult leaders brainwash them about.
The kitty litter is not for pooping in. It is for covering up the blood. (The bucket is for pooping though)
Ironic really, given how right here the cuntservatives are just chasing their own tail.
Besides them being stupid as hell to conduct this ridiculous culture war, I take issue with another thing, the name:
Forbidding Unlawful Representation of Roleplaying in Education
It’s not unlawful until you forbid it. So the title makes no sense. You’re not forbidding the unlawful. You’re forbidding the previously lawful, making it unlawful.
Stupid assholes.
Plus the acronym rules are inconsistent. It should be FURRE or FURRORIE
Repugniklan Anger Withering our Rights
Forbidding Unlawful Representation of Roleplaying in Education
In Texas parties only lawful alignment is allowed. We don’t care if your Good or Evil, as long as your not chaotic or neutral.
Maybe the constitution of the United States of America says something about this? Maybe like the first thing in the bill of rights? Nah I must be mistaken.
Schools have to maintain a certain level of order and conformity to function as intended. Courts have already ruled as much. You can’t engage in behavior which would prevent the system from working as intended e.g. walk around topless, yell profanities, play loud music, etc - things which you can obviously do in other public spaces. Wearing full body animal costumes or barking randomly, claiming its your identity, is just as ridiculous and just as disorderly.
With that said, schools probably already had the tools they needed to stop this, so I’m not sure why a law was needed. Unless there was actually some furry zealot fighting against a school board.
I just had a read through the bill and, as written, it would prohibit elementary school children from playing pretend as animals on the school playground during recess. Obviously, if a student were using that as pretext to, like, bite someone, you’d want a supervisor stepping in, but to straight-up ban harmless elements of play-pretend like this is frankly asinine.
As long as it does not infringe on the rights of school shooters I don’t think there’s any limits on how much students can be oppressed in school.
yeah ok but like schools can make policy. If someone is doing something thats an issue there’s a dean for a reason.
Also, I don’t think a headband with ears is really the biggest issue of our times right now. This is entirely useless and just for control. Same with banning books, there’s already systems in place. Globally banning things -that AREN’T an issue- does not help anybody at all.
This is ONLY for erasure of demographics and control over the people. Starts with furries, then men in skirts, then anything queer at all.
You can’t engage in behavior which would prevent the system from working as intended
So, enforcing uniformity?
To the degree necessary for education, absolutely.
Courts, are an illegitimate instrument of power their decisions irrelevant, their ruling moot. This contentible organization will be dismantled along with the rest of the establishment.
Sir, this is a Wendy’s.
2008 called and they would like their meme back
That doesn’t matter anymore
Surgical means‽
Also why are they legislating about this. Texas schools have real problems like gun violence and illiteracy. Furries and animal role play are just things some people have always done that don’t really harm anyone and given how they persist across so many cultures and times could actually be considered a natural behavior of homo sapiens like parrots’ mimicry
and if parents are whining about THE FURRY MENACE and don’t want their kids to learn how computers work, then they won’t be making a fuss about the difficult or expensive problems, like keeping their children from being murdered or giving them an education.
It’s going to be real hard for them to maintain their dictatorship if no one knows how to operate any of the devices of authority.
Presumably at some point they’re going to want to implement some kind of American firewall. Presumably that will require people who know how the command line works at the very least. Although I suspect that it’s already too late to keep these people on side.
the devices of authority
oh they’re doing this with the figurative machinery of authority too. just completely dismantling it.
but of course these dipshits don’t know bash. they won’t talk to the linux greybeards, they hate trans women, and they hate furries. everything will run windows.
Rent free.
Sooooo much freeedommmm… By limiting self expression.
