I'm actually transspecies, instead of gender – and being a wolf does affect my gender, too. I'm male in a wolf way, not in a human way. 🐺

[feral here!]

-- Frost

Ever since I was a teenager I've been using fursonas as a method of exploring my identity, even before I knew what a fursona was or that identity was even a thing you could explore. I had my "outer" sona, the cool, powerful, masculine fox who had a cynically detached attitude but still tried to protect others. Then there was the "inner" sona, the secret realer me, who was still male (because I thought he had to be) but ended up being very feminine in appearance and personality. Shy, caring, sensitive, small and cute...

When I joined the fandom, it was my first encounter with actual members of the LGBTQ community and positive depictions of same. Lurking in r/furry showed me that they were just regular people and that most of the stuff I had been taught about them was lies. Also, the femboy foxes were cute. Like, really cute. "I want to be them" cute. Maybe that was what I am?

Then I ended up in a conversation with a trans furry, a bunch of crazy stuff happened IRL, and one day I had a sudden realization: I'm not girly, I'm just girl, and my strangely feminine arctic foxboy (now fox-enby) sona was trying to tell me this all along. I never would have discovered any of this without the furry fandom.

The furry community helped me to make friends and branch out from a very sheltered upbringing. It gave me a place where I knew I could be myself, and really let me section off the parts of me that weren't safe to express at home. It has been a good half a decade since, and I live with much better people and can really be myself.

I had to do a bit of exploring to figure myself out, but I couldn't have done that without having a place to be queer without fear of judgement or rejection.

The fandom really helped me with exploring my fender identity for a long time before I transitioned.

Not trans, but I do feel the fandom is one of the places where people can truly flourish. I feel too much of society wants people to conform, but with the enthusiasm and creativity the fandom harbours it's definitely one of the best places for discovering who you really are and personal experimentation.

The fact that I kept sketching this one dog girl in my sketchbooks in middle school and high school was a sign that something was up. (I didn't realize it at the time.) I wanted to her to be real so that I could talk to her and hang out with her. But then over time I realized I wanted to become her, lol.

Being a furry does not inform my gender identity whatsoever -- I don't "identify" as a furry, rather, it is a hobby and I am a big fan of it. BUT, like many people, the fandom and the sheer diversity of characters makes it the perfect place to explore identity. And I definitely did that.

I always felt so welcome in furry circles, to the point where finding out someone is a furry basically makes them 100% safe to talk about subjects like being trans around them. It seems like with other groups, like video games or art or different hobbies, being in the same circle and getting to know someone doesn't mean they won't turn into an ass if they find out you're LGBTQ+. Furries just seem so much more open and extremely unlikely to be opposed to how someone identifies, you know?

As for myself, I always found myself (FtM btw) using female fursonas until I was pretty sure I might be trans, and made my first male sona. It felt really good. I also just have mostly male characters and sorta always did, so maybe that shoulda been my first hint lmao. Honestly surprised I never had a male sona "just because" before I found myself.

For me, being furry and being trans were two different, separate things at first. As I discovered my inability to tolerate make-up, the ability to wear a fursuit head become really important for my gender presentation.

I tried to do Animegao kigurumi at first, but it was not for me, I did not want to be an anime girl. Although some tricks I learned from it are helping me with body shaping for my furry presentation since I do partials instead of full suits.

So in the end, being furry and being trans are separate for me, but being furry is helping me present better as trans.

I honestly only consider myself 'furry-adjacent' rather than a fullblown furry (as in being a furry isn't a big part of who I am as a person, and it kinda just exists as one thing among my other interests), but I think I can mayhaps comment on this. I do consider myself a catboy (as in nekomimi, the type that's mostly human in appearance but with cat ears and a tail) and that definitely relates heavily to my gender, to the point that I would say "catboy" kinda is a part of my gender. Makes me feel a bit goofy to admit unfortunately tho :x

The first LGBTQ+ person I ever ran into online was a transmasc furry artist. I had already been in the furry fandom for a short while before seeing his content. It wouldn't be for another relatively-short while that I would realize my actual gender. However, had his art not been seen by me, it is possible my story would have been completely different. His art was my first introduction to characters with body types outside the gender binary. Oh, and his art style is amazing. I wish I could remember his handle.

Now, I've found on Discord that MANY LGBTQ+ people I have ran into over the last 6 years of my Discord use have been furries.

As for what gender my original 2018 sona was: In a sense, it reflected that I was completely not hyperbinary but also a trans girl, at least in comparison to who I am now as a nonbinary person not beholden to the gender binary. This sona even used neopronouns, something I myself did not really use for myself at the time. It's a topic that is quite a feffadoo (a neologism I coined from the magic number of my program BWTC32Key) given that even looking at my notes app from back then on my oldest Android device (it was used as an interim device during SD card upgrading of my main phone and my main backup) provided me with more questions than answers. Looking at some writing files around a year prior on my Dropbox also prompted more questions than answers on the same topic. I can't say for certain as to what my degree of binary trans status was back then, but I can say what it wasn't. I wasn't at all hyper-binary. I would say that the furry community was where I ran into a large amount of the binary being escaped from.

In fact: the ey/em in my neopronouns exists because of ey/em being used by one particular fursona out there that totally related to me and is also an ambonec (both and neither binary gender, which is essentially what I am, even now.)

Oh and the entirety of my fursonas are nonbinary.

Now when it comes to gaming on Valve games... That community often wasn't the nicest to non-cishetmono people. I have plenty of stories on that topic, which I will spare you from. Meanwhile, the furry sites and community, even back in those times (2018), had a large amount of LGBTQ+ content and creators, which is a good thing.

As for other things: I did use my sona as a test bed for neopronouns (as detailed earlier). Oh, and the concept of a shy and sensitive inner male sona did apply in very late 2017 or so. In a sense, this sona harked back to one of the more intriguing characters by the furry artist I mentioned earlier who I can't remember the name of.

Also, I grew up in a sheltered upbringing, and the furry fandom let me be myself. To this day, I use technology and the internet as an escape from my real life.

I will ALSO say that I'm an otherkin. Oh, and as for my fursona species: it's a Pokemorph of Mew's Shiny form (Mew is a shy genderless shapeshifter Pokemon).

TL; DR: The furry community was VERY formative to my journey.

I think it helps me feel more safe being who I am. If it honestly wasn't for my female sona, I would never have had the courage to come out. I started to realize I identified with her a lot more than I originally was willing to admit. As I discovered more of my past with my therapist, I found out there were many things in my life that led me to where I am and showed I was trans the whole time, but my sona was a vehicle for coming out as I was able to 'be her' and get more comfortable with who I am.

Now I just consider myself a cute lil' puppy girl :3

Not transgender, but I would've been hella confused about it if it wasn't for this fandom, because I don't really vibe too much with my human body, so it has definitely helped me figure things out!

It seems like most people here are in the "furry first trans later" boat, so I wanted to share the opposite perspective. I'm FTM

My parents knew I was gonna be queer since I was little. I always liked girls and my gender ideology hadn't caught up yet when I pursued my first crush in 5th grade. It was only then when I was faced with being a lesbian that I thought about and was like "hmm no I'm just a guy" and I totally nailed it lmao

I wasn't really exposed to the furry fandom until 2 years later- 7th grade. It was following a massive trauma in my life and really helped ground me. It also opened the door for a lot of grooming through the fandom unfortunately. I definitely think it has a much larger impact on my understanding of my sexuality than my gender, though the freedom of choice that's presented through the fandom's acceptance is worth more than gold

I only ever had guy sonas and they helped me embrace being weird coded for sure. I'm autistic and I don't think I was really able to deal with it emotionally, so I had my character's deal with it instead and lived through that

The most influential figure in my transness is a trans teacher who took me under his wing early on and really saved my life. He's not a furry but was very supportive of all my weird furry art and my first shitty tiger fursuit. We're still friends

I never had any connection like that.