Texas House Bill number 4814—better known as the Forbidding Unlawful Representation of Roleplaying in Education (or F.U.R.R.I.E.S.)¹ Act—was proposed by Stan Gerdes, and would attempt to suppress the expression of furries in schools. It does this by editing the Texas education code to:

"prohibit any non-human behavior by a student, including presenting himself or herself, on days other than exempt days, as anything other than a human being"

It defines exempt days as things as any days within a week of halloween, and no more than 5 other (school designated) days per year.² Something else it does is expand the definition of abuse to inculde "in an education setting, allowing or encouraging the child to develop a dependence on or a belief that non-human behaviors are societally acceptable". 

Some specific examples of furry expression it prohibits include:

• Making

Somewhere in the northwoods darkness a creature walks upright
And the best advice you may ever get is don't go out at night!
--Steve Cook, "The Legend" (1987).

"Every small town has something like this happen."
--graveyard worker, Halloween (1978).

I was going to recap Free Comic Book Day, but then I realized that I was mostly repeating what I wrote last year on the subject. I have been filming the local event for thirteen years, missing only

I was at war with myself for a long time,

Hated myself from head to toe,

A stranger in my own skin,

A voice in my head whispering, "No."

I counted my flaws like tally marks,


Each scar, each silence, a battlefield lost.

Tore at my own reflection,

As if the cracks in the glass were my own fault.

I spoke in apologies I never owed,

Wore my guilt like second skin.


Screamed without sound, fought without fists—

The