Jessica Owens is 32 years old, lives in Milton and works as a secretary. On a rainy night last week, she agreed to meet at Wicked Wings in Essex Junction. She showed up in a black sweatshirt, but on a different day, might have been dressed in her custom-made corgi suit.
Owens is part of a subculture of people called “furries” who are passionate about anthropomorphized cartoon animals. Conventions across the country attract thousands; many come wearing bespoke hirsute costumes.
Joined at the restaurant by two fellow furries — her husband, Jonathan, and a friend, Rob — Owens explained the particulars of furry culture with the rehearsed manner of someone used to dispelling misconceptions.
No, they don’t actually believe they are animals. Yes, they do cultivate “fursonas.” Owens explained that she chose a race-car-driving corgi named Rally as hers partly because she shares the breed’s outgoing and assertive personality.
“I’m her codriver,” her husband chimed in. The 36-year-old, who delivers appliances for a living, identifies as Ahzlon, a black panther with blue hair.
The trio belongs to the Vermont Furs club, which has been around since the early 2000s and has a membership that fluctuates between 20 and 40 people. The local furries get together at bowling alleys and pool halls — sometimes in suits, other times not — and look for opportunities to entertain at events such as charity walks and Christmas-tree lightings.
“We’re just here to put smiles on people’s faces,” Owens said.
Not everyone has been so charmed. In fact, some city authorities seem a little freaked out.
Two months ago, Owens and 11 other furries joined the crowds at Burlington’s annual Mardi Gras celebration. Decked out in green, gold and purple beads like the rest of the partygoers, the seven of them in costume high-fived little kids and posed with people in a photo booth on Church Street.
After about an hour and a half, a Church Street Marketplace rep confronted the group outside the mall and requested that they remove their animal heads, because they didn’t have permission to perform on Church Street.
Why were they being singled out, the furries wanted to know, when the streets were teeming with other strangely dressed revelers?
“It’s just different,” was the response, Owens said.
Offended, the group walked into an alley, where they removed their masks, or “broke the magic” as they describe it. Later, the Vermont Furs filed a formal complaint with the city, calling the incident an act of “blatant discrimination.”
The Church Street Marketplace, which regulates the street, issues permits to people who want to busk on the brick promenade. To make the cut, street performers must audition in front of marketplace staff and pass a background check. Vermont Furs had a permit, but it expired at the end of last year. When Owens tried to renew it in January, she was told she couldn’t yet because the permit system was getting revamped.
As bidden, the Vermont Furs had stayed off Church Street. They showed up at Mardi Gras because they didn’t think they’d be breaking any rules.
Ron Redmond is the executive director of the marketplace. Asked about the incident, his response was simple: Google “Elmo” and “Times Square.”
The first result was a New York Post story headlined “Elmo in Handcuffs After Times Square Bust.” A woman wearing an Elmo suit had been arrested for aggressive panhandling. Elmo wasn’t the only character to act out. In June, two different Spider-Man look-alikes were taken into custody on charges of groping and assaulting women. A Cookie Monster allegedly shoved a child and … you get the idea.
Redmond’s point: Fear of the big, fluffy creatures isn’t totally irrational. He stressed that marketplace staff have a responsibility to the public to keep the pedestrian mall safe, which requires vetting all performers. “It’s become a national issue where, in some cities, people dress up in these outfits and aren’t necessarily doing it to connect with children,” he explained.
The Vermont Furs club is a different breed than the panhandling denizens of Times Square. The former belong to a tradition that dates back at least to the 1980s and grew out of science-fiction and anime fandoms. When out in public, they abide by certain rules. They’re always accompanied by a non-costumed “handler,” and they bend down rather than tower over small children so as not to intimidate them. Owens emphatically pointed out that they never accept cash.
“We’re just like other fandoms except we’re cuter, furrier and we do it for free,” she said.
It hasn’t helped the cause that several stories have linked furries to plushophilia — an attraction to stuffed animals — and other sexual fetishes. “It’s a stigma we’ve dealt with for a very, very long time,” Owens said. “As with any fandom, regardless if you’re ‘Star Trek’ fans, My Little Pony fans, those romantic themes are out there.” For Vermont Furs, and for the majority of furries, Owens continued, sex has nothing to do with it.
“We know they are really, genuinely good people,” Redmond said of the Vermont Furs. Pointing out that the marketplace sometimes hires high school students to dress up as Frosty the Snowman or other characters, he stressed that they’ve got nothing against costumed creatures per se. Regarding the Mardi Gras situation, he admitted, “I’m not sure if that was the right move.”
In Redmond’s opinion, furries don’t really fit the street-performer category, which puts them in a regulatory gray area. “It’s an interesting and complex issue,” he noted.
Even before the furry quandary, the marketplace had decided to revisit its street-performer system in response to complaints from “our more successful street performers,” Redmond said. Under the current arrangement, he estimates that roughly 95 percent of people pass their auditions. As a result, an abundance of performers crowd the street, sometimes creating sonic overload. The likely solution: more rigorous auditions.
Church Street is the commercial lifeblood of Burlington, and its custodians are understandably concerned about preserving its charm. But some residents have criticized several recent policies — a smoking ban and a no-trespass ordinance allowing police officers to ban unruly people from the promenade — as overzealous attempts to sanitize the place. For some, raising the bar for street performers could carry the same whiff of elitism. How will those in charge address the concern? “It’s a great question. I don’t know the answer, but we’ve got to find the answer,” Redmond said.
If there’s a stricter audition process, will the furries — whose repertoire consists of high-fives rather than fancy tricks — make the cut?
Redmond said the marketplace is committed to carving out space for them; they just need some time to figure it out. One solution, he suggested, would be to give registered furries a badge or a pin with Church Street insignia showing that they’ve cleared the same background checks street performers undergo.
In the meantime, the Vermont Furs members are frustrated. Places like Essex Junction have welcomed them with open arms, but “at this point, the entire city of Burlington is off-limits to us.”
The problem is not just on Church Street. For years, furries did their thing in Burlington, undisturbed, amusing people at events such as the weekly farmers market in City Hall Park. But last summer, a police officer notified one of them that the city of Burlington’s mask ordinance forbade that kind of attire. Perplexed, Owens went in person to the police department.
She found out Queen City regulations favor the underdressed over the overdressed. It’s perfectly legal to parade around in the buff, but Burlington prohibits anyone over 21 from wearing a mask in public. The ban dates back to the days of the Ku Klux Klan, according to the Vermont Historical Society. In 1924, the hate group burned crosses on Lake Champlain’s breakwater, and city officials passed the ordinance to prevent anything similar. The police department continues to enforce the ban, largely because people often wear masks when committing crimes.
“I’m, like, OK, well how does the didgeridoo guy with the cat mask get away with it?” Owens remembers asking a police officer, referring to a man she’d seen on Church Street.
The officer explained the street-performer permit system, and Owens later got one for the group.
Deputy police chief Bruce Bovat said he wasn’t familiar with the incident — or the furries. He noted that officers only apply the ordinance within reason. But Bovat declined to weigh in on whether the ordinance should apply to furries — “I’m wary to put something out there that’s so black-and-white.”
For the Owenses, being furry is a social thing. The couple has traveled to conventions, and they love being a part of the community.
Their friend, Rob, has never been to one. The 35-year-old auto parts salesman and backyard mechanic was quieter than his two companions. He’s been a furry since age 15, but he didn’t want to be identified because he’s never told his family and doubts it would go over well.
Rob doesn’t have a suit, but he’s refurbished an old Ford Escort to resemble his fursona — a zebra with white stripes on black named Zytx. “I am terribly shy. Just coming down here tonight I got the shakes,” he admitted, raising his hands to demonstrate. His fursona and his friends in Vermont Furs force him out of his shell.
The Owens talked about hosting a convention that even Rob would attend — one right here in Burlington. They already have a name: Green Mountain Fur Con.
But given the current situation, they know that for now, it’s just a fantasy.
This article appears in Apr 1-7, 2015.
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Burlington is 297 miles from Times Square. To excuse prejudice, all executive director Ron Redmond can point to is a trashy news headline from hundreds of miles away. “Think of the children” is such BS.
There’s a real problem, but if Ron Redmond actually cared, he could point out that it happens inside homes from people you know, and even figures with caregiver or director titles.
The least likely source is strangers on the street, including a handful who wear unwieldy costumes to be creative. “I just covered my body in 50 lb’s of carpet, time to harass some kids,” said nobody ever. It doesn’t matter if it’s just a hobby, prejudice still stinks.
I would love to spend a lot of money traveling to do my hobby in Vermont. I’ll take it to Pittsburgh, where the mayor declared a day to honor the furry convention.
Ron Redmond must know where the bodies are buried because I can’t think of a single other reason why this uninspired bureaucrat has managed to keep his job all these years.
Can we stop being jerks to Furries already? We don’t ban single adults from parks because of pedophiles. Unless a specific person has given specific reasons to be banned, I don’t see why we should treat Furries any differently.
As someone who counts himself as a member of the furry community, although he doesn’t suit nor does he anticipate suiting anytime in the immediate future, I’d just like to thank Ms. Freese for a very well-written, informative and even-handed article.
My parents have been fairly open-minded about the whole thing, though not as much as I’d like. Mostly they have questions. My mother described this article as “very interesting and quite well-written”, which is high praise indeed coming from her.
It’s regrettable that the Church Street and/or Burlington bureaucracy can’t bring themselves to embrace the same spirit of open-mindedness and transparency with regard to their decisions.
I find it curious that the fact that the Vermont Furs were -asked- by Essex to participate in the Christmas Tree lighting had so little impact on the Burlington folks’ decision to give the group a hard time. One might hope that that might serve as a reasonable indicator that the club can be trusted to behave in a responsible manner.
The way the group was treated at Mardi Gras, when they weren’t there as entertainers and were among many people obscuring their faces at the event was deplorable, and to me appears discriminatory on the face of it. Current policy aside I feel the group would be owed an apology for how they were treated in that instance.
It is long past time for Ron Redmond to retire. Following several ill considered policies on Church Street, it is becoming clear he is increasingly out of touch with the downtown community.
Let’s use a little common sense here. Burlington does not want flocks of people dressed up like critters running around Church Street. They are not performers and frankly, they don’t add to the vibe the city is trying to create with such initiatives as no smoking and no loitering. Yes, critters are not as detrimental as vagrants and smokers but there is a bit of a creeper element to them (for some people) and most people want to stroll Church Street without being bothered by smokers, vagrants begging for change, and zany people in costumes.
The city is not discriminating against these folks. They are free to spend as much time as they want on Church Street sans costume. The city is just trying to make Church Street as safe and as welcoming for the maximum amount of people that it can. There are plenty of places furry people can be furry, just not on Church Street.
I think Mr. Lade forgets that the focus of the article is the fact the group was at a public event where masks and costumes were highly encouraged to be worn when that church st rep stopped the group. Burlington has a mask law so the group can not wear their costumes any where in Burlington. I’m sure if the law was adjusted we would see the group off of Church st and at events on the water front, and various parks.
I applaud the group for their artist expression. Burlingtons Church St has always to me resembeled a midevil market place with its eateries, shops, people watching and entertainers. Its what draws ppl there. The furries with their brand fits the bill because its different. They are not the commericalized characters of Time Square with their cheap knock off costumes. It is obvious that each character is a creation of the person wearing it and I’m wiling to bed those costumes their sporting are not cheap. It boils down to Vermont artists doing their art.
Let’s leave art out of this because whether or not wearing a costume constitutes art is debatable.
The group was stopped on Church Street and told they did not have permission to perform. I’m guessing the rep that stopped them had watched their bit for long enough to decide that the group was not simply dressed up like everyone else enjoying Mardi Gras and felt their interaction with the other pedestrians constituted an act. I can’t say if this is truly fair or not. Maybe the rep overstepped the bounds for this particular event or maybe the act was annoying enough people that the rep felt it needed to be stopped. I’d say it is reasonable to suggest when the group “high-fived little kids and posed with people in a photo booth on Church Street,” they became more of an act than not.
As the article states, the furry act is really not allowed anywhere in Burlington because of the masks. I’m all for the furries obtaining the proper permission from whomever so that they can perform. If they were a sanctioned act, they’d have their place to perform and people would be free to avoid them as they wished. I can certainly understand Burlington not wanting rogue groups of entertainers performing at events and I don’t think it is discrimination to prevent this.
Why would it not be considered art? The show How its Made featured how costumes like theirs are made, you have to have some form of art to refer in order to create those things. Its an original idea put into a different medium. Art, under the first ammendement is a freedom of expression and is therefore protected. One could argue the mask law in simply in violation of that.
Performing or not, the article did specify they were wearing gold, purple and green – mardi gras colors and beads. Who is church st to say “thats not mardi gras enough for us?” thats totally an person interpretation which by singling out the group is discrimination. Go through Magic Hat’s facebook Mardi Gras album. There are plenty of people with masks, even a Frankenstein, a frog, and peacock people. Seems to me they fit right in.
Considering the furs do not, did not, and never have asked for money, while it may be arguable as to whether high-fiving kids and going into a photo booth constitutes an “act”, the idea that they’re somehow “different” from all the other masked individuals running around on Church Street during Mardi Gras certainly sounds discriminatory to me, especially without a more substantive reason being provided.
I’m sharing this at my furry news blog, dogpatchpress.wordpress.com. I notice the Vermont Furs have posted a followup. http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6635987/
I know this is an old article and that my post is well past prime time, but as a member of the furry community I have to point out one of the comments that was made about Furries “not being performers” and that they do not “add to the VIBE of the city” is just totally a bunch of crap. First off I would like that person to put one of these suits on and try it out, then tell me it is not a performance. Secondly, I dare that person to contact the City of Pittsburgh, PA and ask them about the furries and their impact on the city! Ask the city of Pittsburgh if they are pleased with the nearly $7 million that Anthrocon pulls into the cities local economy each year. Ask the city if its citizens enjoy the fursuit parade that has now been opened to public that has the potential to draw even more dollars into the economy each year. Pittsburgh has itself a gold mine with Anthrocon and would be foolish to give it up (although I don’t think that would ever happen now).