Furries Australia: Year 8 Melbourne private school girl identifies as a cat

A Melbourne private school is supporting a student’s choice to identify as a cat, a source close the family has reportedly disclosed.

A private school in Melbourne is reportedly supporting a year eight, non-verbal student in identifying as a cat.

The Herald Sun reports the “phenomenally bright” child has been allowed to assume the identity, with the behaviour linked to the ‘furries’ subculture that has been adopted by some teen circles



“No one seems to have a protocol for students identifying as animals, but the approach has been that if it doesn’t disrupt the school, everyone is being supportive,” said a source close the family.

https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/p...ws-story/04f31c482d0701cc1b42e047b5bcfce2?amp

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Move aside, US. Australia is leading the way.

It sounds like the girl has high functioning autism and nonverbal would mean either speaks not at all or very little.

It's hard to know what to make of this.

I guess it does no harm, but I hope that there is an accompanying developmental/learning plan as well as support for her identification.

She will also need to join the adult world in a few years. (At year 8 this would mean she is roughly 13 to 14). Identifying as the opposite sex is one thing but as an animal might not be very well supported outside the school environment.

I also wonder if this is a media beat up. Perhaps she just dresses in cat ears and they let her rather than challenge her.

However, one thing is for sure. Identification is increasingly part of a learned culture. I wonder how far this will go?

 

For reasons completely unknown to me, the teacher who was in my room before I moved in left a box of cat litter, a cat box, and dry cat food in the class storeroom.

I guess I'm saying if that kid transferred into my class I'd be ready for her if she meowed for a bathroom pass.

 

That child, plus all her peers, have now been taught (by authority figures, no less) that this level of self-gratification will always be indulged by the world. This is quintessential 'setting them up to fail'.

The narcissism and entitlement which will arise from this, will make it very difficult for these students to function in the adult world.

Since this is fairly obvious stuff to any adult with half a brain and an ounce of concern, you cannot help but wonder what their motive is in making these kids' lives so much more difficult that they need to be.

 

You'll be her favorite teacher in no time. (Listen for purring)

 

You could be right.

However, the girl might genuinely identify as a cat. More info needed.

 

When people entertained people with the delusion that they were the opposite sex that they actually are, that opened The floodgate for this sort of stupid delusions.

Coddling this sort of thing is enabling.

The rational adult should explain to the child that no you are not a cat.

Where will this stupidity end?

 

Oof. This is treading awfully close to 'bigot!' territory. Give it a year or two and you'll be a straight-up nazi.

Getting serious, I doubt there's any honest developmental plan. That would require telling her at some point that she is not a cat, and that would violate her choice of identity. Employers, landlords and social welfare distributors may(will) enforce such harsh realities, but not schools. Unless she grows out of it herself, she will enter the adult world with no clue that she won't be accepted as a cat.

 

Choice - let her identify as a cat supporting her and guiding her in her life choices

or

confront her, reject her choice and start arguments with ill feeling all the way around and possible deterioration of her psychological condition

 

Sounds like NO Big Deal...

“No one seems to have a protocol for students identifying as animals, but the approach has been that if it doesn’t disrupt the school, everyone is being supportive,” said a source close the family.

In any event...Dedicated to this "Furry Cat Girl"...

 

More like you tell them that they have to deal with reality and the reality is they are not a cat.

If you just make excuses to allow people to ignore reality they'll sink into a world of delusions

 

Did you miss the bit where it says she is non verbal?

 

Children have always played make believe but at some point the adults told the children that there is a difference between make believe and the real world.

When that difference no longer exists the world will truly be a stupid place

 

That hardly matters...then draw her pictures or something.

And besides if she's not verbal she can't meow, ergo.... Not a cat

 

You really have never worked with children who are “differently enabled”. Now a question - why does this upset you so?

 

And some children never leave that space - happens and when it does you deploy empathy and consideration

 

Children have to learn how to face the real world I'm sorry if this upsets you.

I can't believe it's even a conversation why it would make sense to explain to a child that they're not a cat.

It's like the movie Idiocracy is coming true right before our very eyes

 

And they never will if so-called adults sit around and keep entertaining their delusions.

An inability to distinguish fantasy from reality is a crippling disability.

Any compassionate adult would do their best to make sure that never happens to a child.

But it takes a real rational adult rounded in reality to understand the importance of that

 

So, I will ask the same question of you that you have asked of me

This is one child in Australia

Why the interest

 

Lets wait one year and see whether;
(A) Its one child 'taking the piss'
(B) She gets treated for mental health issues
(C) The RSPCA gets her neutered before adopting her out to a nice family in East Melbourne with a large back yard where she spends the rest of of her days coughing up fur balls, sleeping in the sunny spots and occasional chasing birds.

All good outcomes as far as I'm concerned.

 

Like I already opined it is a symptom of the insanity we are allowing to happen in society.

You take an interest in all things American so I don't know where you would find the nerve to even ask me that.

So do you not agree that it's a good and emotionally healthy thing to keep children grounded in reality that when they say things like that to let them know that no you're actually not a cat.

You can make believe you're a cat but just remember here in reality you're not a cat

 

This entire story lays at the feet of white liberals who created this as normalcy.

 

There’s a lot of ways this child’s development can be unnecessarily crippled, and zero ways this is helpful. Pretty much the definition of stupidity.

 

Since the story didn't contain any details, only passed along word of a rumor, "any adult with half a brain" would not believe that there was any "obvious stuff," here. No sensible adult, for example, would feel they could know, from the sparse, given information, that this "child, plus all her peers, have now been taught (by authority figures, no less) that this level of self-gratification will always be indulged by the world."

For something like this to suddenly manifest, though (if that is what happened), it could be taken, at one end of the spectrum (so to speak) as either a stress reaction to something she is having trouble dealing with, or even a cry for help. Compare this to kids who start doing drugs, as a way to "deal," with, or escape from, their reality, and you're telling me that this is worse, because substance addiction is a more normal, so more accepted, part of society? Or compare this to the kid who, instead of pretending to be a cat, cries out by attempting suicide-- again, worse to feign having whiskers? If this is the case, that this is a kind of stress response, it seems to be ideally suited (no pun intended) to that purpose because, unlike self harm (cutting, self strangulation, etc.) or drug abuse, it is:
A) not something likely to cause any serious, immediate, physical harm; and
B) also not something that is likely to go undetected.

But once this sign is seen, the solution is not just to tell her to snap out of it.

If you read what I wrote as not just a response to crank, but as a lead-in to your post, I ask you, if this acting out is in response to something else in her life that is troubling her, do you really believe that telling her she can't use this coping mechanism, is all there is to solving the problem? How exactly would you expect that to play out? Do you believe a similar technique can be successful in curing youths who know themselves to be-- that is, who think that they are-- gay or lesbian?

How do you know that to be the case, in this instance, that this has been an ongoing situation, since she was a young child, and not a sudden manifestation? From the story, I don't know how anyone could know which is the case.

Like allowing children to believe in Santa Claus? I agree with you, on that one, as being a cruel trick of betrayal, by the ones who a child trusts, most implicitly.

Again, how do you know that this is not, in fact, what is going on? When Lady Gaga wore a dress made of meat, do you think she believed herself to be some sort of the butcher Frankenstein's monster, or was it a symbolic gesture and an act of style? By the way, as "delusional," as some of Gaga's actions may seem to you, she has fared better than most, in the real world.

I am not supposing that this is the proper analog for the young Australian lady; my point is that there is not a one size fits all response, when we don't even really know what is going on, in this girl's life. So, trying to close off the one refuge she may feel she has, without first determining the cause of her furry affectation, could very easily make the situation worse.

 

America sneezes Australia gets a cold but I was wondering what the reaction would be and now I know

 

For one thing Lady Gaga is a performer. In the style of Marilyn Manson.... Shock value for attention. I don't find that unusual at all it works.

I'm simply arguing that our children would be better served by learning to face reality.

If this child is allowed to grow up really thinking she's a cat and the people around her entertain that delusion.... What do you think she'll turn out to be like when she say 15? How about when she gets a little older and has to enter the workforce or go to college?

Who on Earth would take someone like that seriously?

If you met a grown adult who seriously believes that they are a cat would you not think that you are meeting a mentally ill person with a delusion?