Texas GOP wants to ban kids from playing dress-up: Yes, really

[marmar]

Texas GOP wants to ban kids from playing dress-up: Yes, really
Lone Star Republicans propose ban on "non-human behavior" in school — it's another stealth attack on LGBTQ rights

By Amanda Marcotte
Senior Writer
Published May 12, 2025 6:00AM (EDT)


(Salon) "This whole thing is just weird and, honestly, a little creepy." That comes from a debate in the Texas state legislature that was supposedly about "furries," a subculture of people who dress up as anthropomorphic animal characters. But it wasn't the furries that state Rep. James Talarico, a Democrat, was calling creepy.

That would be Republican state Rep. Stan Gerdes, author of the FURRIES Act, an embarrassing acronym that unpacks into the "Forbidding Unlawful Representation of Roleplaying in Education Act." Gerdes claims to believe that children in elementary schools are "identifying" as animals, and that the schools are indulging this supposedly dangerous delusion by letting kids eat out of dog bowls or use litter boxes instead of regular bathrooms. Absolutely no part of that true, and it is indeed "a little creepy" for Republicans to obsess over an entirely imaginary problem.

....(snip)....

Careful readers may already notice that wearing costumes, which is what Gerdes is trying to describe with this overwrought pseudo-legal language, is not "non-human behavior." Indeed, it is exclusively human behavior. Sure, some folks put little outfits on their pet cats and dogs, but that's not the animal's doing. At least on this planet, only members of homo sapiens are freaky enough to be entertained by a cat dressed as an avocado. I'll note that most cats look annoyed, rather than joyful, when forced to don human-made lewks.

Everything about this bill is based on false claims and absolute nonsense. Young children are not "identifying" as animals in school. The superintendent of the school that was accused of letting kids use litter boxes told the Houston Chronicle that no such thing was happening, and that she'd made an "extra effort" to investigate classrooms herself. "Furries" are real people, mind you, but they're adults — and they don't "identify" as animals, either. They are hobbyists who enjoy dressing up as cartoon characters and stuffed animals, create elaborate artworks involving anthropomorphic animals and sometimes attend conventions while wearing homemade animal costumes. .................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2025/05/12/texas-wants-to-ban-kids-from-playing-dress-up-yes-really/