I’m a little unclear on how the furry identity works. Is it like an LGBT+ thing where you just are this thing regardless of your feelings or desires, or does wanting to be a furry make you one? Like, I’ve fought against being trans much of my life, but now I see I pretty much always was. But I don’t know if liking the puppygirl idea makes me a furry, or if that’s something I have to have always been? (this is not a reaction to a recently popular puppygirl, I’ve meant to ask this for a while) I also may be terribly misunderstanding furries; that’s a taboo subject where I live, so I don’t know much.
There’s really no clear line, and in my experience, it’s largely a matter of self-identification. I’ve known a fair number of people who enjoyed a lot of media with anthropomorphic animals, to the point that I wouldn’t bat an eye if they did claim the label, but who were repulsed by the thought because “I can’t be a furry, they’re all gross weirdos who [insert bizarre and lurid thing that only a small portion of self-identified furries actually do].”
Yeah, I had a friend point out the parallels to the Anime scene. There’s a lot of “gross” stuff that occurs in the niche corners of anime, when most people just wanna enjoy the manga/show.