Texas ‘FURRIES ACT’ Stalls In Texas House

If you recall that hoax-fueled legislation that was introduced two weeks ago by Rep. Stan Gerdes of Smithville Texas and backed by Texas Governor Gregg Abbott called HB 54, better known as the F.U.R.R.I.E.S ACT is likely dead after failing to clear a House committee ahead of a key deadline this week.

The “Forbidding Unlawful Representation of Roleplaying in Education Act,” which would prohibit anything deemed “non-human behavior” by a student, including wearing animal ears or barking, meowing or hissing, did not advance out of the House education committee by Monday’s deadline. The bill’s author, Republican state Rep. Stan Gerdes, said in an interview on Tuesday that there were other “potential” ways to pass the bill banning “furries” in schools before the session ends in early June, but did not elaborate. “I did everything I could, but we’ll see what happens. The session isn’t over.”

In March, Abbott told a gathering of pastors at a Baptist Church in Austin that the Furries trend was “alive and well” in communities across the state, and that lawmakers needed to take swift action in banning it in public schools. Abbott was already waging a war against public schools with the School Voucher Bill, a new program that uses public dollars to fund private school tuition, which had heavy criticism from Educators and both Democrat and Republican Lawmakers, saying it will drain financial resources from Texas’ more than 5 million public school students and subsidize the private education of wealthy families. It’s no secret that the Governor and Representative Gerdes are using this as a Smear Campaign against the Public School System, which the Governor has been channeling a similar ‘tactic’ that President Donald Trump has been using, which has been mostly just insults and threats toward anyone who oppose his Private School Voucher Bill, which is now signed into law. When Gerdes presented the bill last month, he said he fully expected members of the subculture he was targeting to show up at the Capitol “in full furry vengeance” when the bill was heard. In a press release, the Smithville Republican said “Just to be clear — they won’t be getting any litter boxes in the Texas Capitol,” which came to that faithful day when he was proven wrong, it was four people who showed up to testify against the measure included a public school teacher and a Texan who worried the measure could affect students with disabilities. State Rep. James Talarico, a Round Rock Democrat, grilled the Smithville Republican, calling the bill a “joke” but said it would have serious consequences for educators. Teachers and schools could face fines of $10,000 to $25,000 for allowing behavior prohibited by the bill. Talarico wasn’t comfortable with any bill that was going after a non-existent issue, saying “Governor Abbott has used this litter box rumor to paint our schools in the worst possible light. That’s because if you want to defund neighborhood schools across the state, you have to get Texans to turn against their public schools. So you call librarians groomers, you accuse teachers of indoctrination, and now you say that schools are providing litter boxes to students. That’s how all of this is tied together.” Gerdes denied the accusation. State Rep. Jeff Leach, a Plano Republican, defended Gerdes as a supporter of public schools while casting Talarico’s opposition as having an “obsession” with the Governor.

Available Now: Furry Planet: A World Gone Wild: Includes History, Costumes, and Conventions

The Furry Fandom has been around for years and has been portrayed in the media as perverts and often the butts of jokes due to wearing animal-themed costumes or making artwork or crafts of anthropomorphic creatures, despite the stereotype, the Furry Fandom has done a lot of great work in raising money for charities through the conventions that are held (examples include the Texas Furry Fiesta that is held in Dallas annually, and Pittsburgh holding Anthrocon annually.) The Litterbox Hoax has been pushed around since 2021, when it was first reported in Prince Edward Island, Canada, and the Hoax would move into the United States, where it would be pushed by Various American conservative and right-wing politicians and media personalities, listed below:

Source: Houston Chronicle

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