Recently I got into a bit of a scuffle with Patch o Furr at Dog Patch press over what I perceived was an attempt to coopt furry fandom into Bay Area LGBT culture by declaring SF as the furry Mecca . Usually Patch does a good job bring up stories, but he has at times have San Francisco queer culture myopic view which come across as declaring a generalization of furry fandom, in my opinion. . I am sorry Patch, words means things. When we look a the use of idiom of Mecca it can be a palace of importance that attracts a lot of people or a center of importance people look to i.e. Silicon Valley as a Mecca of the tech world. I confess I may be reading too much to Patch’s ranting of SF being the fury mecca . Still I objected to it and here was his reply in another column.
“This story is dedicated to furry friend Acton, a “conservative activist” and Hello Kitty collector who gets very upset to see these events welcomed by the community. He insists that he is “100% heterosexual”, and wants you to stop making him think about a diesel driving daddy bear cuddling up to read Hello Kitty bedtime stories with him. Express yourself, hun! This dedication is brought to you by the color pink, and the word Apophasis.”
A real fine piece of Apophasis. First of all, there many male heterosexuals and LGBT who are Hello Kitty fans, but sexual orientation does not matter. Oh yes I know , according to Christine R. Yano in her book, Pink Globalization: Hello Kitty’s Trek across the Pacific, Hello Kitty is the unofficial mascot of gay community. Still many male fan are Heterosexual and Homosexual. But loving Hello Kitty does not make one Gay.
I am 100% Heterosexual and not a new manifestation of Crusader Cat or a meber of Westboro “Baptist” (I dare not call them a church) . I have not been involved in conservative causes since 2012 when I left both conservatism and the Republican party over how conservatives abandoned limited government. These day I consider myself a libertarian.
Being around LGBT in the furry fandom made me realized there is no monolithic idea of LGBT culture as some activist tries to make it. A Gay man in the East Cost or Midwest may object the idea of the Bay Area the Mecca of gay culture. In the same way many furs would not consider the bay Area queer culture as a monolithic mecca of Furry Fandom. Another issue is how some will think by participating. From another post I made (1.):
In a comments on Opinion: Misconceptions about the origins of furry fandom Calbel summed up the problem :
“> Are you implying that someone pulling a stunt like this is somehow my fault?
I’m not implying anything; I’m stating the obvious. Putting ads for the convention in a gay lifestyle magazine will have a natural tendency to attract people who think the convention is about being gay. “
The same could be said about Gay Pride if furry is not put in context we are a fandom the contains LGBT elements but not an LGBT fandom.
Another problem is unnecessary burden many of us who are Christian Furries and growing number of pre-adolescent to young teen furs who like the fandom for fursuits and cute art but not interested in the sexuality. Some have suffered undue hardship by ill-informed parents when the parents discover their child furry interest and then want to whisk their kid into conversion therapy or want to exercise the gay demon form their kids because the ill-inform parents linking furry fandom to the gay culture.
Yes the furry have LGBT element in it because we are an open fandom, but not a license to coopt furry as part of LGBT / queer culture.
- http://www.furry.asinglelion.com/?p=1041
Similar problem I had
http://adjectivespecies.com/2013/10/14/furry-as-a-queer-identity/