LSU’s furry club, LS-Fur-U, filled its meeting room with members excited for the chance to watch “Five Nights at Freddy’s” for the first time.
With snacks and drinks in hand, members eagerly anticipated the movie surrounded by others with the same interest.
That’s what club president Calvin Trinh wanted to create when he started LS-Fur-U—a safe environment for members to get together and share their interest in the furry community.
Trinh, a digital advertising junior, discovered the furry community through the art and animation other community members displayed.
The furry community is made of people who are interested in anthropomorphic animals or animals that display human qualities. The community is built on the creativity of its members and original characters that people create. That is what drew Trinh into becoming a part of it,
“I really like the community and the characters that you can make,” Trinh said. “And that really interested me. My favorite is the animation community.”
Trinh has been a part of the community for about eight years. He started drawing and creating animations but has become more involved by attending local conventions.
His involvement in the local furry scene inspired his idea to bring a safe community to the LSU campus.
“When I started getting into the community a lot more and being more involved with locals, a lot of the locals would jokingly say, ‘Oh, President Calvin,’” Trinh said. “Sometimes I would joke around in that aspect, and then I thought, what if I took it a step further? What if I created a club at LSU?”
Trinh was curious about how many other students carried the same interests.
While Trinh joined the furry community for its positive aspects, he’s no stranger to the misconceptions and stigmas surrounding the community.
Members being attracted to animals is a common misconception of the community, Trinh said.
“We have a huge dislike of [misconceptions],” Trinh said. “They put a horrible stigma in this community, and it makes people think that we like animals, which is not true. The people that do like animals are called zoophiles. While more people are more aware of the word ‘furries,’ many will confuse it with zoophiles. It becomes a misconception.”
He has also dealt with the misconception of furries wanting to be animals. Trinh said that many think furries are trying to be animals, but the creation of their own characters is just like cosplaying and dressing up.
Many also see the furry community as hypersexual in their content.
“People can do what they like,” Trinh said. “But that does not represent the community as a whole. Some just like being themselves and have their own preferences, so that’s what we are open to, but we are not defined by that.”
Seeing the backlash online, Trinh has thought about stepping away from the community.
“When I see stuff online, I say, ‘Wow, this is why the fandom is bad,’” Trinh said. “Anything can happen, and a lot of what is said online is negative, but there’s a lot of positive sides to it, and to me, the positives outweigh the negatives.”
Trinh has enjoyed how open all the members are and how some who come in uncomfortable in their own skin can be themselves without judgment.
Since the club’s creation, it has opened the community for other students and himself.
“The club has come from the ground up, and it’s crazy how open everyone is,” Trinh said. “The creation of the club has made me more open to the idea of furries because I guess I was always really closeted about it. Still today, I don’t usually bring it up, and I should probably be more prideful, but creating this community opened me up more.”
Trinh hopes that more members will join in the future. While many people see the furry community in one light, he wants people to know that the misconceptions are nowhere near what they represent.
“It’s impossible to recover the stigma of the furry community,” Trinh said. “I can’t change people’s opinions, but having this safe space for the community is important.”
