Furries and MAGA: How the Republican Party is Using Furries as a Vehicle for Anti-Queer Policy

Throughout the first half of this decade, Furries have become a contentious and non-consenting "belligerent" in what can best be described as the vilification of queer people in the United States. MAGA politicians seeking to vilify LGBTQ+ people have used the stigma against furries as a vehicle to pass anti-queer laws across the country, as many of these “anti-furry” laws serve as launchpads to enact anti-queer laws such as “bathroom bans,” drag show bans, and bans on LGBTQ+ youth education. Today, I will go over three examples — two domestic and one international — to show how conservative politicians are using furries as a scapegoat to slowly eradicate queer people from society. 

In May of 2023, Republican Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida signed into law Bill SB 1438, the “Protection of Children Act,” which sought to restrict children from “adult events”. Because of this, Megaplex, a furry convention held in Orlando, was forced to restrict minors from their event, as the law not only enacts strict punishment for rule breakers (up to a year in jail), the laws vague wording can be used to clamp down on any event that the Governor or Floridas conservative leaning Judges see as an “adult event”. Not only is SB 1438 just another entity in the chimera that is the Florida GOP’s anti LGBTQ+ policies, but the furry community is more than 80% queer, and a group that is in the crosshairs of queerphobic legislation in Florida. 

The Florida government is seeking to do two things here: it's trying to push old lies about furries, saying it's an inherently sexual community, but also using this as a launchpad for even more restrictions on queer events, such as the criminalization of drag shows. Essentially, Governor DeSantis is trying to paint a picture of furries much in the same way queerphobes have painted a picture of queer people — a bunch of “perverts” that cannot be trusted around children. It doesn't matter to Governor DeSantis that furry conventions already implement safety measures so that children do not get into adult spaces; what DeSantis wants is what the Florida GOP will give, and that is the erasure of queer people in the State of Florida. 

It should also be noted that conventions often serve as a lifeline for queer youth in Florida, as they provide a space for people to connect and feel safe. Queer people at conventions do not have to worry about overt homophobia that may be experienced outside of convention walls. Furries and queerness often go hand in hand, and the furry community is a community where people can express themselves without the fear of being shamed for who they are. The Florida Republicans know what they are doing. They know that the furry community is a haven for queer youth and are seeking to bar youth from Megaplex under the threat of jail if the hosts do not comply. They want to make queer youth feel unsafe, and are using an already vilified community to spread that.

Another country is also enacting similar laws against its own LGBTQ+ residents. Like the Republican Party and DeSantis in Florida, the Russian Government is trying not only to tie furries to queer groups, but to justify their crackdown, all in the name of “protecting children”. This has resulted in the Chairman of the Commission of the Protection of Children and known Putinist stooge Andrei Tsuganov claiming that Furries, along with LGBTQ+ and radical feminist groups, as “extremist organizations”. Tsuganov hopes that the “extremist” label will allow the police to prosecute queer groups even further, and by tying furries to queer people, make a group already seen as “deviants” in Russian society even more unappealing. It's shocking to see how the Russian government is using arguments similar to DeSantis, using draconian punishment and roping marginalized groups together in this one big package, so that they can stifle groups that are seen as “perverted.” 

It shows that from the United States to Russia, right-wing extremists are trying to erase queer culture, and furries are being threatened due to their connection and intersectionality with queer culture. Queer culture has unfortunately been destroyed in Russia, as the Putinist government has tightened the reins on those seen as “deviant” to “traditional Russian culture” in recent years. I worry the same thing may happen in America if we do not stop this Republican assault on our own people. MAGA conservatives won't stop until queer culture is erased, exactly like how it is erased in Russia

On March 13th, 2025, Texas state representative Stan Gerdes filed a bill called the “Forbidden Unlawful Representation of Roleplay In Education Act” or FURRIES Act, a law that sought to end the “ridiculous accommodation” of students who thought they were animals, the magnum opus of this bill being the banning of litterboxes in schools. This inflammatory bill caught the attention of Texas Representative James Tallarico, who probed state Rep. Gerdes on the validity of his claims. Representative Gerdes couldn't name a single instance of litterboxes being used as an “accommodation” in Texas public schools, or any schools in the United States for that matter. Texas school districts also chimed in, reporting there wasn't a single instance of litter boxes being installed at any Texas public school bathroom. What Representative Gerdes and the Texas GOP were trying to do is what Tsuganov is trying to do in Russia: use baseless accusations of furries being deviant people to vilify that group of people as being uniquely “anti-American.” More importantly, however, Representative Gerdes is trying to bridge the connection between “litterboxes for furry kids” and bathroom accommodations for trans youth, trying to connect both to one another so that he can “prove” that both furry and trans children are “mentally unwell”. It's the most explicit example of furries being used as a boogeyman for conservatives, all so that they can put down LGBTQ+ people by highlighting that they are “crazy” and do not belong in US society. Similar to DeSantis's law, draconian punishments are present in the FURRIES act, with fines of up to 25 thousand dollars being threatened to those who “violate” the law by accommodating “furry children.” The discretion of who can decide what's “accommodating to furry children” in this act is taken out of the hands of the people and are placed in the hands of a few Texas Judges. Even more disturbingly, the law has provided no legal boundaries on what is “accommodating to furry children”. It's essentially giving the conservative leaning Judges of Texas a blank check to attack anything they see as “unfit,” and I wouldn't be surprised if they continue to attack gender-based bathroom accommodations in Texas public schools using the muddy boundaries set in the FURRIES Act! 

It shouldn't come as a surprise that Texas is a state that is seen to be most hostile to trans people, especially as the Texas legislature continues to pass policies vilifying trans youth and adults. We must recognize as a nation and as a community that furries, which have been frequently vilified, are now going into mainstream politics as a vehicle for anti-queer legislation. We ought to organize as a group to fight against legislatures that seek to reduce queer people's basic rights, all in the name of “protecting children,” as apparently furries are also a connected danger to the “true Americans” of this country. Call your representatives, call your senators, call your governors, call your attorneys general, and get out and get angry, as our nation's queer population is under attack, a group that is also sewn into the fabric of the Furry Community!