Here is yet another interview with a trans youth, this time from New Hampshire! We discuss more about the furry fandom and the intersection between it and trans youth, as well as the political situation in New Hampshire.
So how do you want to be referred to in the article and what are your pronouns?
Anon: I use she/her, and I’d rather just be anonymous.
That’s perfectly fine! How do you identify as? And how old are you?
Anon: I identify as a female, and I’m 15, 16 in about 4 months as of writing this.
Where do you live?
Anon: I live in New Hampshire, USA.
Are you out to your family or anyone?
Anon: Well, it’s very complicated. I was forced to tell my mom when she and I had a fight a while ago, it’s a long story. She’s not transphobic but to put it simple she just didn’t believe me. I’m also out to a couple of friends. Other than that, it’s a complete secret in real life. The furry fandom is the only place I can comfortably present myself as who I wanna be.
I see, I’m kinda in the same place too if I’m being honest, the fandom is a great place to express yourself.
So I take it you haven’t socially or medically transitioned at all? Do you plan to?
Anon: I do. It’s gonna be complicated, I do not know when or how I will do it but it will not be for a very long time, at least socially. Medically, I would like to get top surgery but bottom surgery will likely be a no-go.
I mean, everyone’s situation is unique so that’s always valid. Hrt at all?
Anon: Yes I absolutely do wanna get on HRT. Again, I don't know when that will be possible though.
What about puberty blockers? I gotta check because I’m not sure if New Hampshire has outlawed child transitioning but I know it is a battleground for trans care.
Anon: Unfortunately by the time I’d be able to actually start transitioning even socially, I would be long past puberty.
New Hampshire I honestly don’t know anything about trans related laws. Politically our state is very mixed but it’s definitely more MAGA leaning.
Fair, so you probably want to wait until college at least?
Anon: At the bare minimum, yes. If I do go to college of course, cause I have no friggin clue what I wanna do after high school.
Yeah a lot of people are the same way. Do you enjoy school? Have there been any issues? Of the people who know you are trans, are they supportive?
Anon: The only person who knows I’m trans IRL is my best friend and she’s very supportive. I fucking hate school otherwise. Due to events that happened during the end of 5th grade in 2019, through remote school during Covid in 2020-2021, lots of rumors spread about me and basically my entire grade as well as people in higher grades hate me. Me being gay/trans/a furry are rumors to all of them that I get bullied for basically daily. I’ve been considering homeschooling for my sophomore and junior year due to it.
I’m sorry to hear that, I was bullied as a kid too, it’s not fun. Do they simply hate you for being gay/trans/a furry? Or are they doing stuff like spreading lies? If you want to go into more detail you can, but only if you want to.
Anon: Well, if I wanted to go into complete detail it would be a very very long story. But to put it simply as possible, all those things (luckily) are purely rumors to them. They have spread many lies about me as well, calling me a zoophile and such. Bullied for my looks too. The main few that hate me feel the way they do due to the fact that I don’t take peoples shit, I fuckin clap back and yell at them, so they use those experiences to make me look like a complete asshole.
So they like your reactions and then use that against you?
Anon: Yes, in a sense. It was a group of people I was originally friends with during lockdown who I got into many fights with, as well as one of their parents throwing around the word bully with other parents because their child said I was a bully to them (I wasn’t), and rumors spread that way between parents and once we got back to in person school for my 7th grade year that’s when that original friend group started spreading rumors.
That sucks. So you don’t have many friends at school anymore?
Anon: No. I have one really good friend that I can trust but the rest of them either hate me or they’re just simply people I would never hang out with outside of school. I’ve been backstabbed and fucked over by more people than I could ever count.
Do you have a decent home life at least? How is your family?
Anon: Yes, I have a good home life. My mother is amazing and loving, and my dad is amazing as well but unfortunately is transphobic and a massive MAGA asshole when it comes to politics, but family wise he’s great. I have an older sister as well (28) who I’m very close with and will likely be the first family member I truly come out to.
That’s a sticky situation, it’s always hard to tell with people like your dad if they’ll be supportive and drop their bigotry or double down. Be a bit careful. How’ve they reacted to your troubles in school?
Anon: My dad definitely wouldn’t be supportive sadly.
My mom is the main parental figure in the household though, as my dad works in another state he stays at his parents house during the week otherwise he’d be driving over an hour to work and back every single day. So my mom has been very supportive and helpful with getting through my troubles, however there have been times where she was selfish about it because she was annoyed that it was happening and had to constantly hear it and made me feel like shit. Generally though she’s been great helping me through it.
That’s good at least. Did you go to any therapy or anything?
Anon: No. I don’t want to. I’m okay enough. I don’t trust therapists really.
That’s fair, it can be a bit of a mixed bag. It helped me but I’ve heard horror stories. Still if you feel like you’re being supported that’s very good.
How’d you get into furry stuff?
Anon: Back in like 2021 I saw some art of cute furry gals online and was like “oh that’s cute” and moved on with life. But then I met a friend who was a furry and she indirectly converted me in December of that year. I’ve been a furry since.
How’s your interactions with the online furry community been since then?
Anon: Been iffy. I love being a furry don’t get me wrong but I feel extremely shut out from the fandom due to being a woman, a minor and not having a fursuit. I’ve met my fair share of misogynistic protogens as well, and just plain assholes. Also met some creepos but I know how to be safe online.
I’ve heard similar complaints. Due to the older nature of some furries there’s people doing nsfw stuff that really don’t like interacting with minors for obvious reasons, which is reasonable to protect kids but also means a lot of younger furs feel left out of even sfw stuff. The creepos of course are bad but good on you for practicing internet safety. Do you have a lot of online furry friends? How do you mainly interact with the community?
Anon: I have quite a lot of furry friends online, yes. I mainly interact with the community through discord and here on twitter but at the same time I don’t because I have nothing special about me. No one really interacts with me unfortunately.
And also, when I mention being left out due to being a minor I emphasize that I definitely am not asking to be in adult spaces - it’s just that minors are often treated like shit plain and simple. I won’t mention names but a popular furry car content creator who I loved, basically said a massive fuck you to any and all minors in her community. She turned all her profiles suddenly 18+, and made her discord “18+ recommended” and shut minors out to like 5 channels away from the rest of the server, despite there previously being an adults only chat for those who didn’t wanna interact with minors. She created NSFW content on an OF but she kept it separate from everywhere else so I never understood why she just suddenly hated us all.
My other example is related to women in the fandom, another non NSFW community - I won’t mention any names again but there was a community specifically made for women in the fandom that I was beyond excited to find and join (as I do not like befriending men in this fandom) only to find out that it was 18+ only. It was really my last shot at being able to put myself around people I wanted to be around in this fandom but nope!
Oh I didn’t assume you were trying to get into spaces, just that a lot of furries have knee jerk reactions almost in self-defense because they know pretty much every ghoul out there is going to accuse them of heinous things and will go out of their way to find evidence. It’s almost as if we’re over policing our communities at this point, when being a furry should be for everyone.
Anon: Yeah absolutely. There are a lot of minors that sadly act insanely immature and gross and ruin our reputation as well which makes people hate minors even more.
Oh yeah, I’ve seen that first hand.
I think there might be a few furry discord servers that are welcoming to minors, but they are few and far between.
Do you want to get a fursuit eventually? Do you have a fursona?
Anon: Fuck yes I would die for a fursuit. It would help me with dysphoria so much. And yes, I do have a fursona!
What’s her species/ name?
Anon: I don’t have a name for her unfortunately she was an adopt and I won’t be able to get a new ref sheet for her until 18 as my parents don’t know I’m a furry and all my purchases have to go through them still. (and I’m not telling them) but she’s a wolf girly!
That’s cool! And yeah, it’s a bit hard to explain purchasing furry art to your parents. Might be as bad as coming out as trans.
Anon: That’s another thing about my age that I hate is that I just cannot really get art. I have two pieces that were gifts but I won’t be able to actually commission anything for a very long time and it makes me incredibly upset since I can’t express myself how I want to.
Have you tried drawing or anything? Or convincing your parents to let you get a job to earn some extra spending money?
Anon: Even if I did have a job (won’t be able to get one until I have a car) I have no debit card, no form of digital payment. And if I did, they’d be able to see my purchases.
And I’ve tried to get into drawing, I fucking WISH I had the ability to but i have have absolutely 0 artistic ability. I can not draw anything for the life of me. So that’s out of the picture sadly.
Ever tried any other form of artistic expression? Like, 3d modeling, painting, writing, etc? Could help you express yourself more.
Anon: Eh, wouldn’t really help me, 3D stuff is very difficult to get into as well.
What are your other hobbies besides furry stuff?
Anon: I’m a huge car nerd, I love video games and tech stuff as well!
Ooooo have you ever worked on cars or tried working on cars? What kind of video games abd tech?
Anon: Sadly don’t often get the chance to work on cars but I’ve loved them since I was like, in the womb. I could name nearly any car I saw on the road by age 5.
And I play a range of games, i love RPGs like Cyberpunk 2077, racing games, and shooters. I’ve been getting into the Tom Clancy franchise recently, super great stuff.
Tech wise I like a lot of phones, I’m an apple sheep lol. I like plain ol’ computers and laptops as well. It’s just fun.
Awesome! You want to become a mechanic sometime? Also there’s a bunch of car furries, so when you’re a bit older you might wanna check them out then. There’s a car meet at practically every con
Anon: Yes absolutely there are. I don’t really wanna become a mechanic though. Not my field.
More into IT I guess? Do you have any plans or aspirations of what you wanna do after high school?
Anon: Nope. Not at all. I honestly have zero clue what I’d like to do. That’s a problem for later I guess!
Hey, that’s perfectly ok when you’re 15.
What’s your opinion on the political climate around you and in the United States as a whole right now? Any conversations that you think people aren’t having about trans youth that you wish were happening?
Anon: I think that the United States is fucked. Literally. We are completely utterly fucked. We have people that are older than sliced bread running congress and no president younger than like, 75 in the last 8 years. One of them being a literal fucking convicted felon who is STILL able to run! If trump wind and Project 2025 goes into effect, I will be doing my best to get the fuck out of the United States as not just trans youth, but trans people in general… or even LGBTQ+ people in general, are already fucked and project 2025 will fuck it even more.
the Republican Party has completely fucking ruined this country, mainly Trump. Trump is the reason why my mom and I don’t have the best relationship with my dad at times because the MAGA morons are all in a literal fucking cult. It is a cult. As well as religion, especially Christianity has ruined this country as well with these people believing in their disgusting fairytales in the Bible of rape, incest, zoophilia, murder, murder of babies, the list goes fucking on and on. As well as using their religion as an excuse to say fuck you to LGBTQ+ people.
American politics is a topic that gets me so angry and I could go on and on and on about. We literally. Are. FUCKED.
I think a lot of people share your sentiments,you’re especially at risk because republicans are targeting trans youth first in order to get a foot in the door. What kind of myths about trans kids do you want to dispute?
Anon: I’m gonna be honest I don’t really know about the myths they spread around. Since I’m out online, trans stuff in real life isn’t something I’ve really paid any attention to other than laws wanting them to not exist. There’s stuff I probably would want to dispute. I just don’t know any of the myths they spread.
Honestly you’re not really missing much, it’s a lot of bs that really is only meant to delegitimize trans people.
Anything else you wish to talk about or let people know about?
Anon: No, there isn’t! :)