Not a furry, but I do have a TF fetish. Using furry websites exposed me to the good and bad sides of furries and ultimately has, I believe, led me to more critically think about the nature of online rhetoric when it comes to repressed identities and over-expressed identities.

I’m given to believe that a big draw of fursuiting, for example, is that they can be whoever they want in public. They can bear the whips and arrows of scorn because they’re in a silly badger costume and don’t give a single fuck about anyone else’s opinion about what they do with their time and money and bodies legally in public.

I wouldn’t be surprised if there isn’t some kernel of resentment against the ability to be who you want to be without fear of societal pressure that can cause a kind of overcorrection on other end that just pushes people into blind rage.

“Ha’ak! How can you even look at it! You let her,” and Vimes had seldom heard a word sprayed with so much venom, “her flaunt herself, here! And it’s happening everywhere because people have not been firm, not obeyed, have let the old ways slide! Everywhere there are reports. They’re eating away at everything dwarfish with their… their soft clothes and paint and beastly ways. How can you be King and allow this? Everywhere they are doing it and you do nothing! Why should they be allowed to do this?” Now [they were] sobbing. “I can’t!”

Terry Pratchett, slightly modified to prevent spoilers, The Fifth Elephant.