Bias Watch

Conservatives are freaking out over rumors of furries overtaking school & biting students

Chaya Raichik posted video of a girl walking on all-fours as "proof" that furries are running amok in the school.
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Chaya Raichik
Chaya Raichik Photo: Screenshot

Conservatives shared a video of students staging a walkout protest in Utah this week, with online commentators claiming that the students were protesting “the furries that bite them, bark at them, and pounce on them,” according to Chaya Raichik, who goes by “Libs of TikTok” online. Another conservative said that the students were particularly angry that “when a student retaliates, they are the one who gets suspended.”

But there’s no evidence of any of that happening.

Related:

Schools are accommodating “furbies” with litter boxes in bathrooms, rightwing pundit claims

They have “heard stories” about furbies in schools using litter boxes, and they want it to stop.

The conspiracy theory has its origin, according to the Salt Lake Tribune, with a misinterpretation of a message sent by the administration of Nebo School District. The message was sent after a bullying incident at a district middle school where one group of students said things “that were overheard by others that the administration felt were inappropriate and shouldn’t be said,” according to district spokesperson Seth Sorenson.

One of those groups of students wore headbands “that may have ears on them,” but Sorenson said that the students don’t identify as furries.

“These are pretty young kids,” he said. “You’ll have students that show up with headbands and giant bows; you’ll have students that show up dressed as their favorite basketball player, or baseball player. That’s just what kids this age do.”

A local news network obtained the message, which said that certain clothing items that “draw undue attention, distract, disrupt, or otherwise interfere with the learning atmosphere at school or at school activities and events, or that create a health, safety, or welfare issue are prohibited.” It said that some students were throwing food at the students who wore the headbands and told them that that behavior is also not permitted.

“As that message went out, somehow, parts of that message were, we believe, misunderstood,” Sorenson told KSL. “Individuals took to social media to share their interpretations of the message, and it kind of turned into something wild and crazy.”

Some parents in the district apparently misinterpreted the message and started a Change.org petition with the title “Students for Humans at School, not animals aka furries,” demanding the school ban furry costumes, even though the message didn’t have anything to do with furries or furry costumes and the district said that students weren’t wearing furry costumes to school.

The petition still got 600 signatures, and some parents pulled their children from school. Others encouraged their kids to protest, which led to the walkout.

Local far-right Utah State Board of Education candidate Cari Bartholomew’s husband, Adam Bartholomew – who hosts a conservative radio show – went to the protest and recorded students and parents talking about how other students wore animal and dinosaur masks to school. In the video, even though the students were talking about “masks,” Bartholomew asked questions about furry costumes and “dressing up like a furry.”

Bartholomew asked them if their parents knew they had walked out, and they all shouted, “Yes.”

“And I heard that they were putting litter boxes in the girls’ bathroom,” one student shouted in the video. The idea that schools are installing litterboxes in restrooms for student-furries has been a part of the rightwing mythos for years. Schools across the U.S. and Canada have had to respond to parents and local residents outraged about the litterboxes, despite there not being any evidence that any school has done this.

One parent in the video blamed YouTube and social media for turning kids into furries.

Other conservatives added to the narrative, including Raichik, who wrote: “Students walked out of Nebo School District in Utah to protest the school for allowing ‘furries’ to t*rrorize other students.

“Students claim that the furries bite them, bark at them, and pounce on them without repercussion. However, if they defend themselves in any way, they get in trouble.”

Sorenson said that there is “no evidence” that any students are biting or barking at other students.

“There’s been a lot of things pushed out on social media that are inaccurate and a lot of information that is not factual and is based on hearsay and rumors,” he said.

Then, other conservatives condemned the school for allowing itself to be overrun by furries. Anti-transgender activist Riley Gaines, who tied for fifth place at a college swim meet with a transgender woman and made it her whole career, applauded the students who walked out.

Conservative radio host Megyn Kelly said it was “Another thing we were told is not happening.”

Even Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) piled on the school district, apparently without even calling them to find out what happened.

Others expanded on the rumors, like user @RealUtahMan who claimed that the school “has cordoned off areas that only furries are allowed into.”

The same user blamed the fact that the school is overrun with furries on the fact that the “principal is a woman.”

Local media picked up on the story and reported that there was “no evidence of furries” in the school district. Raichik, who is not a part of the community in Utah, then posted a video of a girl walking on all fours and claimed that this was proof that the district is overrun by student-furries.

The urban legend of schools capitulating to furries and letting them defecate in litter boxes is an outgrowth of right-wing antipathy towards transgender students and often gets brought up in that context. The idea is to make respecting a transgender student’s identity appear ridiculous by claiming that it will lead to litterboxes in restrooms for students who identify as cats.

The student-furries myth was a theme in the 2022 midterm elections, with several Republican politicians and candidates claiming that schools were allowing kids to use litterboxes. The myth was a favorite among the anti-trans right, who wanted to denigrate the idea that children could know their gender by comparing it to identifying as a non-human animal and defecating in front of others.

Republican politicians and right-wing commentators have repeated the urban legend to gin up moral panic around trans and nonbinary kids and also to push efforts to ban students from using school bathrooms that match their gender identity. Schools in the U.S. and Canada were forced to send letters to parents explaining that kids aren’t allowed to use litter boxes in school, while others – including a few in Colorado that were specifically accused by the Republican gubernatorial candidate – had to defend themselves in the media to the accusation.

But in October 2022, NBC News reported that none of the school districts that had been accused by Republicans that year of installing litter boxes had actually done so. What’s more, one Renison University College professor who studies furry culture noted that she has never once come across any evidence of actual furries using litter boxes.

That hasn’t stopped the myth from spreading. Rightwing podcaster Joe Rogan shared a similar story to Johnson’s in 2022 when he claimed his “friend, his wife is a school teacher, and she works at a school that had to install a litter box in the girls’ room because there’s a girl who’s a furry, who identifies as an animal and her mother badgered the school until they agreed to put a litter box in one of the stalls.” He made the statements while talking to anti-trans former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii as they complained that some people are transgender. He later admitted that the story was fake.

And earlier this year, a Republican lawmaker in Oklahoma introduced a bill to allow animal control to remove student-furries from school.

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