According to a Friday article by NBC News, at least 20 Republican candidates and elected officials have claimed in 2022 that public school districts in the US are being forced to place litter boxes, normally used by indoor cats or other pets, to instead be used by students who identify as cats in lieu of regular bathroom facilities.
The claim, which has variously appeared as an authoritative statement of fact or as a salacious rumor, is typically invoked during speeches denouncing the right of transgender people to use gendered public bathrooms belonging to the gender they identify as.
In one example, Heidi Ganahl, the Republican candidate for governor of Colorado, has repeatedly made the claim about Colorado schools.
“Not many people know that we have furries in Colorado schools … kids identifying as cats,” Ganahl said on a local radio show in late September. “It sounds absolutely ridiculous, but it’s happening all over Colorado and schools are tolerating it. It’s insane.”
She later specified that it was happening in Jefferson County. However, when NBC contacted the school district, they found that not only are there no litter boxes in schools, but costumes are banned in schools, including furry outfits, which resemble mascot suits.
In fact, NBC fact-checked every single instance they could find of a politician making the claim: none of them turned out to be true. Not even a claim Joe Rogan made on his radio show earlier this week, saying his friend’s wife was a teacher who’d been forced to “install a litter box in the girls’ room.”
Rogan’s guest, former US Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, then compared the alleged litter box incident to pedophilia, saying that "when you don't believe in truth … there are no boundaries anymore."
Gabbard, once a champion of LGBTQ rights who introduced the Equality Act into Congress, has since pivoted sharply, denouncing transgender rights as a threat to women’s rights. She announced earlier this week she was leaving the Democratic Party, saying it was “under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly ‘wokeness.’"
PolitiFact swatted down the litter box rumors as early as April, saying “We did not find any credible news reports that support the claim.”
PolitiFact’s rebuttal was motivated by a series of viral social media posts spreading the claim, and NBC noted in its investigation that social media has continued to serve as the primary vector for the rumors to spread - aside from the claims being repeated by dozens of politicians during public appearances.
In fact, the news agency contacted representatives from furry groups to ask if even in the most tolerant social spheres, members of the community use litter boxes for going to the bathroom. None had ever heard of such a thing. Furries are a subculture based around anthropomorphized animals and have nothing to do with sexuality or gender identity.
“I don’t go out wearing tail, gloves, ears, or fursuit heads on any normal day,” Olivia, 16, from California, told NBC, adding that when she has worn part of her costume to school, “I don’t act like an animal, or think that I am one.”
American lawmakers have introduced more than 200 bills in 2022 aimed at eliminating the rights of LGBTQ people to participate equally in US society, including limiting access to healthcare, public facilities, playing on sports teams, and the ability to change their name and gender on identification documents. A United Nations expert has denounced the situation as “deeply discriminatory measures seeking to rebuild stigma," saying the attacks "seek to leverage their lives [of LGBTQ people] as props for political profit."