This was published 3 months ago
Opinion
No, you can’t wear a tail to work and expect to keep your job
Paul O'Halloran
Employment LawyerBeing an employment lawyer for the past 15 years has given me a unique insight into emerging social issues in workplaces. But I was not expecting the next battleground to be over the right for workers and school students to identify as animals.
Yet here we are, and it’s clear that battle for self-expression at school or work means employers are being increasingly challenged over the right for people to identify as furries.
The number of furries attending Australia’s annual convention has soared over the past decade.Credit: Getty Images
Furries are, according to Furscience – the public face of the International Anthropomorphic Research Project – a diverse community that creates for themselves an animal character with whom they identify. Some of them wear elaborate costumes, others might simply put on ears or tails, or represent themselves as animals in online communities.
This is not a joke, it’s a genuine trend, as ballooning attendances at Australia’s national convention attests. Fewer than two dozen furries attended in 2010, whereas this year’s event attracted close to 1000. Before last year, I’d never advised on these issues, but the questions are now pouring in from puzzled employers and educators: Should we let a student eat lunch out of a dog bowl? Can they wear a tail if it’s concealed under their uniform? Will we breach our duty of care if we prohibit the wearing of cat ears and they develop anxiety?
Has the world gone barking mad or is this just a sign of modern individualism?
Furscience suggests more than 75 per cent of furries are under the age of 25. It is therefore not surprising that a key place of tension with the phenomenon is in schools. At one Victorian school that I’ve had dealings with, a student wished to wear a tail under her uniform. Under threat of a discrimination claim, the school agreed to the demands of the child’s parents.
Are some employers and schools right to believe that if a student or employee raises issues of self-identification with an animal, it cannot be questioned legally because it’s considered part of their gender identity? For me, the answer, is no.
Being a furry is, of course, not a crime. Furries are a fandom, similar to Trekkies or Swifties; they are not a demographic group like members of the LGBTQ+ community. Nor is anthropomorphism a protected attribute under Australian anti-discrimination legislation.
Two American states, Oklahoma and North Dakota, are considering legislation aimed at prohibiting schools from catering to a student’s identification as an animal. The draft Oklahoma House Bill 3084, introduced in January, would ban “students who purport to be an imaginary animal or animal species” and require parents to collect students behaving like furries. If the parents don’t, the bill says, “animal control services shall be contacted to remove the student”.
We have not got to the point of legislating these issues in Australia.
Victorian schools have been required to uphold and respect the “diverse needs” of students “in policy and practice” since October 2023 under the revised Child Safe Standards. Victoria’s Equal Opportunity Act protects “the personal sense of the body … and other expressions of gender” including dress, and personal references, but accommodating a student identifying as non-human is something else entirely. Victorian laws also recognise schools may set and enforce reasonable standards of dress, appearance and behaviour for students which could prohibit the wearing of tails, animal ears and the like.
When it comes to workplaces, I was recently asked by an employer in the tech industry whether anthropomorphism was an illegal fetish-based activity after a job candidate listed it as a hobby on their CV. It is not, and evidently, for the most part, sexual kinks are not part of the furry lifestyle.
As with schools, there is no legal protection requiring employers to accommodate furries or furry behaviour in the workplace, either under the Sex Discrimination Act or the Fair Work Act . Research nonetheless indicates the prevalence of furries in some industries, including science, engineering and tech.
There are not yet any cases in the Fair Work Commission in which a furry has challenged a dismissal based on their self-identification status. However, I can readily imagine a situation where an adult is fired for wearing a tail under their suit and alleges unfair dismissal.
Would it not be harsh to fire someone for something that does not relate to their performance or conduct and cannot be seen? It would be like firing someone for an unconventional tattoo. But, employers have a legitimate right to protect the corporate reputation from damage, so dismissal might be considered fair if animal-related dress exposed the employer to public ridicule or reputational embarrassment.
In any case, if you show up at most job interviews dressed as a cat or wolf, plenty of employers will quickly toss your CV into the bin. For now, being a furry is relegated to fandoms and dress-up. It is not a protected attribute in schools or workplaces. But, who knows what the future of work might bring.
Paul O’Halloran is an employment law partner at law firm Dentons Australia.
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