A precious friend I love and respect recently asked this question and I wanted to share my response,
Hello friend, this actually isn’t true, but don’t feel bad for asking because this particular rumor has been repeated so many times that a lot of people have believed it.
The “schools are putting litter boxes in bathrooms for kids who identify as furries/cats” story is an urban legend that’s been circulating around the country for several years. It’s been investigated and debunked repeatedly, including here in Tennessee. There is no credible evidence that Science Hill has three bathrooms with litter boxes for students.
What bothers me more than the ridiculousness of the story is why this rumor exists and continues to be repeated. It didn’t develop in a vacuum. It has largely been used as a way of mocking conversations about transgender students and bathroom access.
The argument essentially takes, “A transgender student identifies as a gender different from the sex they were assigned at birth and wants to use the corresponding bathroom,” and deliberately stretches it into, “Well, what’s next? If a child identifies as a cat, do we have to give them a litter box?”
Except transgender people aren’t claiming to be another species, and being a furry is a hobby/subculture—not a gender identity. Those things have nothing to do with one another.
That’s why I think it’s important that we don’t just laugh at this as a silly rumor. The absurdity is part of what makes it effective. If someone can convince us that schools are literally letting children use litter boxes, then suddenly reasonable accommodations for actual kids can be made to sound equally absurd.
And unfortunately, real kids end up being the punchline.
So no—Science Hill has not suddenly installed three kitty-litter bathrooms. 😂 Someone has passed along a very old and very thoroughly debunked internet rumor. I’m actually glad you asked instead of just assuming it was true and passing it along.
She responded.
So I did too!
Then maybe it’s a good opportunity to lovingly educate him though I’m terribly afraid that is becoming harder and harder.
You know I work for a crisis hotline and it it absolutely heartbreaking the stories we are hearing of how this kind of ignorance is harming people. Data from The Trevor Project and the CDC show that 40% of transgender and nonbinary youth seriously considered suicide in the past year, 65% experience anxiety symptoms, and 51% report symptoms of depression. From what we see, I would say those numbers are low.
I believe you that he probably wasn’t messing with you. And honestly, that’s the part that worries me more. I think he probably did believe it, because that’s how misinformation becomes so powerful. Most of the people spreading it aren’t sitting around thinking, “I’m going to lie to someone today.” They heard it from somebody they trusted, who heard it from somebody they trusted, and eventually “I heard this somewhere” becomes “this is happening.”
And I think there’s actually something here that Christians should understand particularly well.
Think about how easily misinformation has been used throughout history to persecute Christians and other religious groups. Someone takes something unfamiliar about a group, twists it into something frightening or outrageous, and repeats it until people stop asking whether it’s actually true. Once people believe that group is dangerous, immoral, ridiculous, or threatening their children, treating them badly becomes much easier to justify.
That’s one reason I think Christians especially should be careful about participating in that same pattern when the target is someone else.
The Bible has quite a lot to say about bearing false witness, spreading rumors, and making sure something is true before repeating it. And importantly, I don’t think someone has to know they’re lying to contribute to the harm. Sometimes misinformation is spread very sincerely.
That’s exactly what seems to have happened here. This man may genuinely believe schools are giving litter boxes to kids who identify as animals. But his sincerity doesn’t make the story true, and it doesn’t erase the fact that this particular rumor has been used to ridicule transgender people and make their very real lives and concerns sound absurd.
That’s why I’m genuinely glad your first reaction was, “Wait, is this actually true?” You questioned it instead of immediately accepting it and passing it along as fact.
I wish more of us—Christian, non-Christian, liberal, conservative, everybody—would do exactly that when we’re told something outrageous about another group of human beings: before I repeat this, have I made sure it’s true? And if it isn’t, who might be hurt by me helping spread it?
We would all be a whole lot better off if we did.
There were some people making jokes about identifying as this or that so I addressed that too!
I also want to gently address some of the jokes being made in the comments—things like “Well, I identify as skinny,” “I identify as a raccoon,” or “I identify as whatever.”
I understand that to many people these are just jokes. I don’t think everyone making them intends to hurt anyone. But intent and impact aren’t always the same thing, and this is one of those times when I think we need to understand what we’re actually making fun of.
When someone says, “I identify as a raccoon,” the joke only works if the punchline is that identifying as transgender is equally ridiculous.
That’s also exactly why the litter-box rumor works.
It takes something real—transgender people asking to be recognized and treated with dignity—and exaggerates it into “people can just identify as anything now.” A cat. A raccoon. A skinny person. An attack helicopter. And eventually, children supposedly using litter boxes at school.
But transgender kids are actual kids, not an internet argument.
And they’re growing up hearing adults talk about people like them as though their existence is absurd.
This matters because transgender youth already experience extraordinarily high rates of bullying, harassment, depression, and suicidal behavior. Research consistently finds that young people who experience bullying, discrimination, and rejection because of who they are have substantially higher rates of suicide attempts, while young people who experience acceptance and supportive environments fare better.
So when we say, “It’s just a joke,” I think we need to ask: Who is the joke about?
Imagine being 13 years old, already terrified that something about you will make your family, church, classmates, or community reject you, and then listening to the adults around you laugh about people “identifying as cats.”
You hear the message even if nobody says your name.
People like you are ridiculous.
And when hundreds of jokes, comments, memes, rumors, bullying, rejection, and political arguments all communicate that same message, we shouldn’t be surprised when vulnerable young people begin believing the world doesn’t have a place for them.
That doesn’t mean everyone has to understand everything about gender identity. It doesn’t mean you’re forbidden from having questions, religious beliefs, or even disagreements.
It means another human being’s dignity shouldn’t be the punchline.
And especially for those of us who are Christians, I can’t reconcile laughing at a vulnerable group of people with the person Jesus consistently showed himself to be. He moved toward people society rejected and mocked. He was extraordinarily concerned with how we treated people who had less power than we did.
You don’t have to understand someone to be kind to them.
You don’t have to share someone’s experience to refuse to humiliate them.
And you don’t have to agree on every issue to recognize that a child hearing adults laugh about people like them deserves better from us.
Words aren’t harmless simply because we put “LOL” after them.
Sometimes kindness really is as simple as deciding that another human being’s existence isn’t something we’re going to make into a joke.
If you or someone you know are struggling, here are some resources!
