I've been in the fandom for like two decades now and yeah, those early internet days were rough, but it was always an extremely queer space. Had all kinds of dumb stuff happen over the years. Some dorks from 4ch*n showed up at a con to protest. Local radio shock jocks always trying to get into the buildings and try to find salacious things. In an odd way, it kind of brought the fandom together.

Nowadays, the fandom is so much bigger and so much more public that it suffers from microcosms of everything else going on in the culture. There are loads of chud furries out there now and there's no real way to self-police at scale. It's a real shame, but you have to take it for what it is.

A couple months ago at work this person was randomly (like really randomly out of nowhere) telling me about all the animal-themed costumes their partner (who was present and apparently happy to have all this shared) has done over the years for hallowe'en and other occasions (not all of which were situations where a childless adult would be expected to be in costume). Both around age 50. I was thinking "I guess this is how you gently come out as a furry?" but I didn't acknowledge it in case I was wrong and also I sort of don't want to get into a conversation about furries at work in any circumstances. but it was very cute, they were both very cute kinda giggling and blushing.

was it? anti-queer sentiment was just in the open 20 years ago and i figured furries were ostracized for being weird the same way medieval larpers or video game enthusiasts or people who liked school or any other "weird" group was ostracized.

I dunno, casual LGBT hatred was still pretty prevalent back then (“ghey” was thrown around all the time as a general insult). I’d say it was more tangential than stand-in.

tbh I know quite a few fash furries (and plenty of cishetallo Roman Catholic ones)

No furry ever called me a "beta male cuckold"

Not for free at least

I've been called a beta cuck by a furry before.

Do I count as a furry if I'm not into costumes but I think anthro art is cool?

And then people wonder why I openly promote killing fascists.

no furry ever called me a beta male cuckold

Would that I could say the same

https://leftypol.org/hobby/src/1608525478344-0.pdf

An interesting read. The FPAL has disbanded at this point unfortunately.

I was just dumb and didn't understand it.

The worst part is when actual anti-LGBT people accuse furries of "trivializing" LGBT struggles whenever the subject is brought up.

As someone who falls under both umbrellas: I have about as much choice in one as the other, and in my experience the "furry" part brings about way more open disgust if not outright murderous rhetoric.