My Furry Journey: Laze's Experience of the Furry Community

Starting this month off with something different, I wanted to share my personal anecdote for my journey through the marvelous thing that is the furry community. We’ve discussed politics from all over the world, but have only briefly touched upon furry related topics, but let’s change that.

As of writing, I have resided in Mexico for a few months, however I grew up in the northeastern United States in the state of Connecticut, where this story takes place. I identify as therian these days, and I’m confident in my identity thereof, but that wasn’t always the case. Far from it in fact. I regularly tell people I meet that I’m a member of the furry community, happily explain what therian means, invite them to ask questions about the community and do my absolute best to always give the best impression as I’m able to. This is something that developed recently though. Not three months ago, I hid that I was therian. Not ten months ago, I kept my furry-ness a secret between me and close friends. Not a few years before that, only my husband and a very small group of people knew about my furry inclinations. This is not to say that being furry isn’t worth celebrating, but let’s investigate my story.

Long long ago, in the ever immortal 2013, there once was a young Laze, doing his best to navigate the capitalist world as it was exposed to him through his latter years of secondary education. He was lonely, so he sought companionship, and to his delight, he found it. A long distance relationship, as many American high schoolers engaged in during the early 2010’s. Over time, these two lovebirds grew close, and began to divulge their deeper secrets to one another… Enough love story mumbo jumbo I can hear you saying, and fair enough. This partner of mine, while we didn’t work out in the long run, fundamentally changed the trajectory of my life. They, as it turns out, were a member of the furry community, and introduced me to it. What amazing luck, it’s always someone you know. For several years after this, me and this partner continued speaking, off and on dating, eventually meeting up in person, but throughout all of it, they were the only person who knew; I too had come to understand myself as a furry.

To me, it just made sense. I had always felt very animalistic, like I had some affinity for non-human traits, almost as if I was an animal in a previous life, or however people describe that feeling. "Of course I was furry" I thought, they like being an animal, so do I. I even went and bought myself a onesie, and having no further exposure to the community, that to me was equivalent to a fursuit as I understood it at the time (boy was I wrong). Did I have a fursona? No, I didn’t even know those were a thing. Did I have ideas of what animal I was? No, because I didn’t know that was even something that was a choice to me. My understanding of being furry was enjoying anthropomorphic animal art in media, enjoying being in an animal-adjacent onesie, and that was about it. I knew about original characters, but I figured these were solely digital/fictional, in that they didn’t represent actual people, instead like characters in a cartoon. So, naïve as I may be, I chugged along in life with that understanding, happy to have discovered it, but happy to keep it under wraps. I knew about conventions, but I wouldn’t dare go to one. I knew about apps that had furry stickers, but I avoided them. I had no window into the community, and felt ashamed of what I viewed as a deviancy in my character from the norm.

Years go by, I meet and marry my husband, I share my “secret” with a few more people. I'm starting to become more comfortable that being furry is part of who I am, so I want potential good friends or polyamorous partners to know about it, but it’s still under wraps to the broader world. But, outside of being furry, I’ve begun questioning my gender identity (a topic for another day, for sure), but in doing so, I also began to analyze myself with regards to being furry. It dawned on me, and I was eventually exposed in small measures that yes indeed, fursonas existed. At least enough to figure out people chose an animal. So, I did. I figured out I must be bear-adjacent. I wasn’t confident in it, I didn’t have a name, a look, anything really, but I knew that “bear” was in there somewhere.

Fast forward several more years, and I end up with a polyamorous partner who is also a furry, and conveniently for me, also a bear. So, they helped me whittle down my fursona to a tigerbear. My other friends gave me my name, Laze. I still didn’t have personal art though. I viewed that as luxury I simply couldn’t afford. I wasn’t even sure of my fursona’s appearance, so how would I commission an artist.

Years more pass, bringing us to the wonderful time of late 2024, I had now formed a small community of furries around me, meeting them through pure happenstance. Though, I was still thoroughly disconnected from the furry community at large. I expressed interest in being furry, owning who I am, to these friends, and one even offered to take me to the Anthro New England (ANE) convention in early 2025. I was extremely nervous, but I agreed. I set up my bear onesie, made sure I had a good outfit with some shorts on so I had pockets, read that con-guidelines book up and down, terrified that in some way shape or form, I would be ridiculed for my onesie. I would be breaking a rule, or I wouldn’t be “rich” enough to be there since I couldn’t afford a real fursuit. The day before the con comes, I step off the train in Boston, I walk to our hotel, anxiously anticipating how the next day would go. Assessing in my head every possible thing that could go wrong. Next morning, it’s time to face my fears. I walk down to the hotel lobby, and then walk the few blocks to the con space, all the while watching other amazing fursuiters around me do the same. I get to the con space, get my registration, and go into the lobby. I was floored. How on earth were there so many furries. It was indescribably exciting to see, but my fears hadn’t yet been fully abated. I watched the fursuit games with my friend, it was harmless fun. We didn’t have another panel to go to, so we ventured into the Dealer’s Den. Remember a short bit ago, I mentioned I had been questioning my gender? Well I had determined I was agender, but I had yet to see any representation in the wider LGBTQ+ community. Not at NYC Pride, not online in pride groups, I was just out there unrepresented. First thing I see walking into the Dealer’s Den? An agender flag. Then another, then another. Not just agender flags but trans flags, ace flags, nonbinary flags, genderfluid flags. Flags abound: stickers, pins, shirts, hats, you name it. I saw people selling onesies (or "kigus"), I saw other people wearing onesies. I saw homemade suits and costumes, I saw professionally made ones that blew me away. I even saw homemade suits that rivaled even the best professionally made suits out there. It was then, right there in the very hot lower level room at a hotel in southern Boston where I realized it; the furry community is absolutely amazing. I met amazing friends shortly after, interacted with some of the coolest strangers I've ever spoken to. My anxieties abated, my world fundamentally changed. I had never, in my entire life growing up and leaving home to attend universities across the country and abroad, felt so welcome, so accepted, and so at home. It was, without exaggeration, the most wholesome environment I had ever been in. I didn’t want to leave, and admittedly, I cried for hours when I had to. Other passengers on the train home must have thought me crazy.

But, I also learned then and there that what "furry" has meant to me, was actually what "therian" was, and that furry was different from how I understood it. It threw me into another loop where I was now having to reconcile, am I therian? Is that something I can be? Is that something that I will be mocked for online? I had seen the videos of other therians online, and I was afraid. I saw their representation at the con, but I wasn’t ready to accept that part of myself. I discovered Barq at ANE, I joined the Telegram group Red Fur Gang shortly after, and thus began the FurInform project, which is bringing my ramblings to you today. Over months of engaging with the community, I learned that it was acceptable and safe to come out as therian definitively. Completing my “furry arc” throughout my life. I am now proudly an agender communist tigerbear spreading the word about furry issues and about worker’s liberation with my fellow comrades.

In no less than 8 months since ANE, I have expanded my friend group tenfold, I have met the most amazing people I’ve ever had the privilege of meeting, I have been given the confidence to come out as therian not just to fellow furs, but to the world at large. To accept who I am inside and out. To fight alongside my furry brethren in defense of what has been built before us, and what will be built after us. My only regret is that I didn’t join sooner. If today’s newsletter finds you when you’re feeling alone, or when you’re feeling trapped in your rigid society around you, I hope I can adequately extend a hand to you and invite you deeper into the furry community. It is unbelievable what has been achieved, and what growth has been seen. The valiant efforts of conventions, in person meet-ups, and online spaces alike to foster safe environments for everyone. Apps like Barq to bridge the distances between us and introduce you to neighbors you never knew you had. Games and media designed specially for us, where we can see ourselves reflected and actively act out our inner animals. Be you therian or furry, you have a hand in furthering this community. In fighting against anti-furry bigotry, in protecting our vulnerable therian comrades, in expanding safe spaces online and in person for everyone regardless of ethnicity, economic standing, mental illness, fursona, age, or any other factor. I was exposed to the furry community long after I had been introduced to the idea of “furry”, and yet, I could never go back. The community has become my home. Through hardships, through celebrations, in times of need, in times of plenty, and all the while, I am more myself than I was ever allowed to be before.

Capitalism has been unsuccessful in fully poisoning our community. Fascism has been unsuccessful in closing our community off to those with fewer privileges. We have shown a solidarity I have yet found elsewhere. A solidarity with the LGBTQ+ movement. A solidarity with those suffering from mental illnesses. A solidarity with those of every age group from young kids whose supportive parents bring them to furry events to greyfurs who have found and been embraced by our community later in life. A solidarity between members of the working class, and an active support of the artist community. It is beyond description the successes of the furry community to date, and we are a force to be reckoned with. I joined later in life than many joining today, but I will fight endlessly to ensure that the next generation of furs are able to join this community and it be in a better spot than even exists now, and I speak for my fellow furs in asserting that they will too. All that’s left to say is…

In Solidarity,
FurInform

Thank you to the furry community for opening my world. You have all been amazing.