It was the early 2010s, and the photo of an Oregon congressman was leaked to my talk show producer. The congressman was in a full, fluffy, bright orange and white tiger suit costume. His hands were up to show off his paws to best effect. One might have suspected that it was a Halloween prank. His staff didn't think so. They disseminated the photo to show that the congressman was becoming untethered from reality and, as they say of three-year-olds, "acting out."
This political scandal developing in real time live on the radio was my introduction to the furry community. Now, of course, they seem to be everywhere — and I'm not just talking about Comic-Con, where furries rival superheroes for face time — but any public gathering. I'm reminded of the trio of cat musicians busking at Pike Place Market I saw a couple years ago.
Back then, my producer tried to explain that being a furry was undercover sexual fetishist behavior. I was skeptical. But emails and phone calls from detectives, normies, and mental health professionals soon neutralized my skepticism about the real-world problems of people who think they're big cats. And dogs. And imaginary, brightly colored cartoon characters. Think Portland Antifa outside the ICE headquarters.
David Wu admitted to a mental breakdown, sought "professional help," and eventually left office.
Now we're told by a U.S. senator that "many people" flying America's planes and directing us to the exits in case of emergencies are part of the secret world of furries.
"Lord help us," Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ark.) begged from the well of the Senate this week. He was in the midst of a diatribe about furries piloting our planes, bringing us drinks, and duct-taping passengers on an as-needed basis.
Tuberville is taking incoming from all the right people. The Daily Beast and Rolling Stone have mocked him over this assertion, but it turns out the former coach running for Alabama governor read the left's own playbook.
"It’s terrifying when you think about this.” He said a pilot who suffers from this mental illness “could have a deranged fetish of dressing up like an animal.”
In a 20-minute-long speech, Tuberville took aim at the gender confused who commit acts of violence and wondered about the mental capacity of people who think they're cats. Especially ones who pilot airplanes.
"Airline pilots, flight attendants, and air traffic controllers are part of the furry community," he proclaimed to anyone listening in the Senate. Indeed, it's unclear who had been asking, but Tuberville offered some answers.
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Using Facebook's pregnant man emoji as an exemplar on a poster, Tuberville intoned after a heavy sigh that "when you walk onto a commercial flight, it's possible that a pilot flying your plane could have a deranged fetish of dressing up like an animal." Shaking his head, he said, "You can't make this up."
He said, "It is clear that this gender confusion is a mental illness plaguing our society, and there is significant overlap between people who are gender-confused and the furry community. Research shows that 25% of furries are gender-confused, and it’s more evidence of our society going to heck in a hand basket when we have stuff like this going on."
Actually, the furry community itself has an organization called "Air Line Furries Association International," otherwise known as ALFA. The group claims to have organized in 2022. It has a website purporting to give advice to furries in flight. It's unclear how big this group is, but it seems to have gotten Tuberville's attention.
The website claims it aims to "advance furry aviation, safety, security, and wellness."
Wellness?
ALFA claims no affiliation with any airlines or groups. Indeed, the website is unfinished, so it's unclear how serious it is. Nevertheless, the site states that:
We are a group of people who are part of the furry community, many of which live and work in the lovely aviation industry. Our love of aviation materialized from various Telegram and Discord groups where we would chat, hang out, and support each other; to a website and Twitter page in the parodied style of a particular large aviation union of which we have no affiliation.
ALFA's X account hasn't been updated since 2022.
Tuberville's larger point was that sweeping these dysfunctions under the rug is not helpful.
Citing the man accused of assassinating Charlie Kirk as an example of a furry, he said that a "2022 study found that youth who identify as gender confused are at higher risk of becoming violently radicalized." Case in point: "Tyler Robinson … was living with a man, his lover, who is a gender-confused [individual] and ... Tyler himself was involved in transgender, furry culture — a bizarre subset of transgenderism where people are sexually attracted and frequently dress up as animals."
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Tuberville also confirmed that Thomas Crooks, who shot candidate Donald Trump in the ear in Butler, Penn., in 2024, "was also [involved] in online transgender furry culture and apparently used ‘they/them’ pronouns. While there are still a lot of questions surrounding what happened that day in Butler, we do know that this young man seemed to be at least somewhat involved in the gender-confused cult."
He called for a return to mental institutions as a way to treat this behavior for what it is: mental illness.
The left mocks Tuberville, but Galatians reminds us that God doesn't.