understanding reality is tough for some people

I've (thankfully) never encountered a reference to helicopter genders IRL, however I can't seem to escape the fucking "they're putting litter boxes in classrooms!!" myth. It's such an utterly absurd, inane, asinine idea yet I've seen real people, who are seemingly functional adults, actually believe this.

Even if you buy into the conspiracy theories and think that the education system is some globalist socialist catgirl plot, do you think teenagers equipped with cell phones and social media wouldn't meme the shit out of the classroom litterbox? And yet, we still haven't seen a single picture proving this has ever happened anywhere. That doesn't stop people from believing it though, and somehow using it as an excuse to delegitimize and attack trans people.

It's a lie spun out from a truth.
There have been issued cat litter to schools. The reason is in case of a lock down due to a school shooting the kids can urinate and defacate somewhere.
It's incredibly sad. The gun nuts believe it's their right to shoot up a school, but they won't allow cat litter to be issued to the class rooms.
- Holy shit, that’s depressing. Finding out there’s a kernel of truth beneath it and that it’s this just wrecked me.
- Anything but sane gun laws, eh? Once again America, what the fuck is going on over there?
- On the contrary, there's overwhelming evidence of this being just the case, It's just not in the mainstream media just like how they covered up the cloning of famous wrapper Eminem per-se. I recommend you get some more reliable news sources to further your educational development.
They believe it in part because transphobia is itself inherently irrational. They already carry around the hatred for no reason, so it’s not like they’re suddenly going to have standards before they believe whatever story they hear that caters to their outrage
- Because they've been taught Jesus will hate them if they're gay, and if they see an attractive person that turns out to be trans, then that means they're gay, and they're going to hell.
  ...er, not that it's rational, but that's my best attempt at figuring out most of these people.
and think that the education system is some globalist socialist catgirl plot
I want to believe
I completely diffused someone who believed in the litterbox thing by laughing as hard at it as it should be laughed at and pointing out how hard republicans are getting trolled
School officials in a county near me had to put out an official denial about the litterboxes.
https://www.courierpress.com/story/news/local/2022/09/20/evsc-addresses-rumors-of-furries-and-litter-boxes-in-local-schools/69506009007/

I don't think I've ever met or heard of anyone literally claiming that kids are identifying as helicopters. The "I identify as an attack helicopter" thing was originally used as an absurdist critique of gender identity, not as a serious claim, if I remember correctly.

Edit: Also, there was a pretty good sci-fi short story that took the idea seriously.

Well, they are claiming it. There is no end to the credulity of journalists who want to publish "both sides" stories about trans rights.
- Harrison says he’s seen photos online that purport to show children who have undergone these procedures. “When I saw them circulating on social media—and honestly, it’s hard to avoid them at this point—of these young, beautiful children post-surgery:
  What the fuck??? He openly admitted to this? Hard to avoid? What??? So... is anyone investigating Texas state representative Brian Harrison for CSA? Because it appears they should be....
- In times of Oppression neutrality only helps the oppressor
- A person named Jamie Reed is saying that children are using words like "mushroom", "rock", and "helicopter" as pronouns. That's not the same as claiming that children are identifying as those things.
And arguably May from Questionable Content.
- I haven't read QC in a long time. What happened with May?

If someone were to go about wearing a helicopter costume, hanging out with other helicopters, in short if their lived experience were such that they could reasonably say they identified as a helicopter, then I'd have no problem with it.

The world needs more weird people and less authoritarian followers.

Unfortunately most people claiming to identify as attack helicopters are actually self identifying as cunts.

I feel like the attack helicopter crowd as you're describing would be fucking lit. Have you seen how complicated fursuits can get?
- Be honest, you see a fly-past of a crowd of human helicopters it would make most people's day.
I identify as a missile jet and ill attack any helicopters I see.

My friend tried to convince me that a coworker of his pulled a kid out of school because a classmate identified as a cat and all the kids were asked to communciate with the child in meows. I dropped everything and stared at him for a while. Eventually asked, “do you believe that story” and he back tracked a bit.

I mentioned the way that “kids are identifying as cat gendered” can be the cry of the antitrans movement but friend changed the subject shortly after.

Any chance to question, inquire, redefine these kinds of stories, try to take ‘em on. Especially with the people you care about that could use help seeing the other side.

But seriously.. they are using catboxes in the classroom!!!!
- IIRC that was true in one school, but it wasn't to accommodate furries or anything like that -- it was to have an emergency bathroom in the event of a school shooting.

Had somebody tell me about schools keeping litterboxes for furries, and I just looked at them and asked "Does that really sound like something that's actually happening, or does it sound like something someone said as a joke?"

They insisted that it actually happened, and I was like, "I don't believe that. I'm surprised you believed it."

It wasn't the most thorough debunking I could have come up with, but I was proud of myself that I actually called them out on it, instead of giving them a high eyebrow smile-and-nod.

Technically schools are keeping litterboxes in classrooms, but the reason is very different. It's because in the event of a school shooting, kids don't have to leave to go to the bathroom. But if people were talking about that they might start thinking about the real problems, and they can't have that.
I like asking them to name the school. Same thing with their claims that kids are being exposed to gay porn.
We had the litter box rumor at a local military shipyard...
Ask yourself if it's something that nearly everyone would be against.
If the answer is yes, then it's probably not true and you should do actual research to see if it is real.
These days, if you say you're English, you get arrested and thrown in jail.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkCBhKs4faI
- Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
  https://www.piped.video/watch?v=XkCBhKs4faI
  Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
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This is probably the best way to deal with someone in these situations. No insults, no arguments, just "I thought you were smarter than that". It might actually make them think about it rather than dismiss you out of hand.

I hear that they have been telling people that school bathrooms now have litter boxes for the kids that identify as cats, something that is completely absurd, and yet for some reason people believe that

I mean I've met someone who actually identified as a fox... I'm like 95% sure they were just doing a bit, but they were pretty adamant and actually never let on that they were joking, and there was a lot of detail to it... so I actually don't know
But I mean that has nothing to do with being trans but instead the furry subculture, so irrelevant anyway here
- Actually they may have been a Therianthrope or an Otherkin, but this kind of person wouldn't use a god damn litterbox and the claim there is usually spiritual and not neurological as it is with gender dysphoria.

The venn diagram of people who claim kids are identifying as attack helicopters or believing that schools have litter boxes for kids to use the restroom in, and people who fall for Nigerian Prince scams is just a circle.

well one school did have litter for students to use, just not for the thing the GOP/the right would ever want to have in the news so they created a nice moral panic around it bending the truth like they are the fucking last air bender bending air.
the litter was there so that in case of a school shooting kids being locked in their classes have somewhere to go so that piss doesn't go all over the place

The veracity of the claim is not the point. It's like the groomers claim or if we go old enough, blood libel and the The Protocols of the Elders of Zion

It's a justification for outrage and violence and requires a willingness to believe without healthy skepticism.

Deceptions like this work only because its intended audience wants to believe it, especially when alternative, fact-based explainations are complex and uncomfortable.

TBH I'm more concerned with helicopter parents than I am about helicopter kids.

I saw a group of kids dressed as cats in the mall a couple months back. Tails and all.

in the 1850s young ladies wore 18-foot-wide dresses and played party games where they'd put candies in a giant bowl of brandy and set it on fire and you had to get the candy out without burning yourself
kids have always done things for the lulz