Funny thing - Therians have made more than just a bit of media. They've also made the radar of the Canadian government. No joke. A fellow that goes by the name of Dr Nuka has been making a study of the furry community, at the funding of the Canadian government among others, and part of that has been one of his now retired coworkers looking into therianthropy.
Take a look -
https://youtu.be/_EvOTJJJ-DA
He gets into the therian side around 45m in, but i do suggest watching the entire vid if youve time. Ive attended three of his speeches, most recent last year and there's been a bit of change since this specific vid; and ive spoken directly to Dr Nuka a few times, sharp fellow. The TL DR version is, The Canadian and other governments were concerned about the furry community; wanting to know if they were a legit risk. Because currently therians make up a substantial portion of the furry community, we got looked at as well. What they found, in a nutshell, is that the furry community is one of the most friendly, welcoming, and helpful communities out there, and that science 'suspects' there's something more to the claim of therian than 'simple belief'.
Anywho, to the point of the original vid. This was a maaaasssiiivvvveeee argument, both in the therian communities and in the vamp communities way the hells back in the day, im talkin early to mid 2000s ish. On the vamp side, there was a relatively small but vocal group that wanted to be 'out n proud', while the majority of folks - gonna include myself in this one - said hell no we want no part of that. Same argument, to a lesser extent, on the therian side - this is where i saw a massive divide erupt between the furry community - being largely comprised of boisterous flamboyant gays, if im brutally honest - that were eager to be out n proud and the therians not wanting to risk it. Well, fast forward a decade and change, and the short answer is, with the mass plethora of furry events, meetups, conventions and the like, yeeeaaa the furries won *that* argument. Ill side note here, with the vamp community, those that did go public to advertise really did an atrociously *bad* job portraying vamps; usually in a laughably bad manner. (I took special delight dissecting it and embarrassing the hell out of some of the clowns that went on TV. Also in part why i dont call myself vamp anymore. )
Im sidetracking again. I agree - when it comes to mass media, getting fair and accurate representation is hopeless, which I might point out is exactly why Dr Nuka and his team went out of their way to look into and research the entire topic. Now, i will say, actively trying to have a spokesperson is iffy at best, IMHO, as it may seem like a drive for attention. That said, I was seriously considering doing my own therian panel at one of the furry conventions i frequent, more as a 'here's a basic intro if you are interested' thing; but of course all that got kyboshed this year. In fact I would say right now, we arent gonna be on anyone's radar for the foreseeable future. That said, though I think Im an outlier here, my therian side has no bearing on my professional life as it is simply 'a faith'.
If you campers ever wanna chat with someone that's been around the block a few times, feel free to fire me a ding.
