Fake news about children “identifying” as animals is the latest stunt being pushed by so-called parental rights advocates – By Nitish Pahwa (Slate) / May 6, 2022
What’s on the minds of heartland voters in the year 2022? Well, if you were to survey some school officials, radio hosts, and even politicians across the U.S., you might find quite a few flapping their hands about a new alleged threat to schoolchildren: litter boxes and animal sounds.
An incomplete survey of examples:
• In January, a Michigan public school district had to issue a denial to a parent’s claim that it was providing litter boxes in unisex bathrooms to children who “identified” as animals, after a Michigan Republican Party co-chair amplified the rumor. The same falsehood also circulated in an Iowa district, and a congressional candidate in Texas tweeted that school cafeteria tables were being “lowered” to accommodate students identifying as furries.
• In March, a seventh grader was suspended from a different Michigan school district for allegedly “barking” at a classmate, and the superintendent specified that there was “a group of children who identify as furry kids.” Around that time, a Wisconsin radio show host said a local school district was implementing “protocols” for students in animal costumes. Education administrators firmly denied it, but a school board candidate in the state nevertheless invoked the specter of schools befouled by “bodily excretion nonsense that would cause your jaw to drop.”
CONTINUE > https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/05/furries-republicans-lgbtq-midterms-schools.html
