Vandal targets furries, spray-painting car, slashing tires
Christopher Stratton runs a popular TikTok where he posts videos of himself “fur-suiting” and dancing or otherwise having fun. Last week, a vandal defaced his partner’s car with a “sickening” word.
Christopher Stratton had an exhausting Tuesday.
He had some early morning family obligations, a full shift as a University of Wyoming custodian and a late-night gig setting up AV equipment to make sure the Laramie City Council meeting two days later went off without a hitch.
When all was said and done, Stratton got home and got to bed around 1 a.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 20.
Shortly after sunrise, a neighbor was banging on his door with upsetting news. It appeared, under cover of darkness, someone had vandalized the Subaru Crosstrek belonging to his partner, Barbra Hill. Hill had been using the Crosstrek to drop Stratton at work and to get herself to campus for class. It was the only car between them.
Coming out front to inspect the damage, Stratton and Hill found the vandal had attacked the driver side, slashing both front and back tires, and defacing the doors with graffiti that spelled out a grim four-letter accusation: “PEDO.”
No other car in the neighborhood was slashed or tagged.
Stratton said seeing what someone had done to the car was scary and left him feeling uncertain about his own and his partner’s safety. He also finds the extreme accusation abhorrent.
“I love working with kids; I absolutely despise anybody who would harm them,” he said. “And to have that posted so blatantly on our car just sickened me.”
The “groomer” panic comes for furries
What could motivate such directed vandalism? And why would Stratton or Hill be the targets of it?
The pair believe they were likely targeted because of their political or personal affiliations — either one affiliation in particular or the combination of them.
For one, both are members of the LGBTQ+ community. Baseless accusations of “grooming” and “pedophilia” have long been used by enemies of the queer community to paint a picture in the national imagination that gay or transgender people are “coming for your children,” looking to convert them to a life of sin.
This moral panic has seen a resurgence in recent years among those opposed to gay and transgender rights.
Stratton and Hill are also Democrats and their home was already targeted once this year by someone who threw eggs at their property within hours of Democratic campaign signs being placed in the lawn.
But Stratton believes the more recent vandalism might have stemmed from hatred of the local furry community — of which he and Hill are members and for which Stratton is a highly visible member, helping to organize local meetups and running a TikTok channel with more than 2,000 followers where he posts videos of himself posing or dancing in his fursuit.
Furries are a diverse bunch, but they’re united by a love for anthropomorphic animals. That passion can center around artwork or media that features such characters, or it can involve donning a fursuit or adopting a “fursona” — a play on the word “persona.”
Furries do not believe they are the animals they identify with. (There are however, other, smaller subcultures that do believe this, and these other communities are often confused or conflated with furries because of some overlap.)
Importantly, being a furry has nothing to do with pedophilia.
Stratton said being part of the fandom is really about cutting loose in a safe environment, such as at a convention, or in a welcoming online community.
“I get to have fun and be my little character on TikTok — and, you know, that’s what it’s about,” Stratton said. “The furry community is over 45% LGBTQ. A lot of us are neurodiverse, and fur-suiting can be a way where you can just zone out — you can be not you.”
But both locally and nationally, furries have been the subject of ridicule and harassment.
The furry fandom, as it’s sometimes called, is not a subset of the LGBTQ+ community, but its members have been swept up in the same anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric that’s been used to outlaw transgender medicine, shut down drag events, remove books from school libraries and limit the privacy of transgender youth.
Specifically — and including in Wyoming — anti-LGBTQ+ activists and politicians have pointed to people believing they’re animals (a myth about furries) as reason to disbelieve transgender youth, equating beliefs about one’s humanness to beliefs about one’s gender.
Others have falsely claimed schools are required to keep litter boxes in classrooms for students who believe they’re animals, repeating the same misconception about furries while pointing to debunked anecdotes.
“Really, we’re just people who like to dress up and have fun,” Stratton said. “It’s something that we enjoy doing, and shouldn’t hurt anybody. But it seems to definitely be something that they’re able to grab a hold of and turn into a way to show hate.”
Fear and uncertainty
The Laramie Police Department is investigating the vandalism, but Lt. Ryan Thompson said finding and arresting the culprit is unlikely given the lack of clear video evidence or other clues.
“We don’t really have a whole lot to go on,” he said. “So we’re kind of at a loss for suspects right now.”
For their own safety going forward, Stratton and Hill are taking extra precautions.
Their one preexisting camera didn’t have a good view of the car’s driver side and nothing it caught Wednesday morning was helpful to the victims or the police. So Stratton and Hill are purchasing and installing more cameras.
But they’re also worried about more than just their property.
Stratton said he’s “not an avid person for gun use” but he did buy one in the last few years, as hate crimes against the LGBTQ+ community have reached “epidemic” levels.
“I don’t know if it’s just going to be graffiti and slashing our tires, or if we’re going to have people trying to get in and hurt us,” Stratton said.
He’s not alone. While the stereotype of a gun owner in America might look like a straight, white, conservative man, many racial minorities, women and LGBTQ+ folks have purchased their first gun in the last few years.
Whether gun ownership actually makes one safer — and there is evidence that access to guns increases the risk of suicide and the risk of death related to intimate partner violence — the surge betrays a real fear about the current climate and a desire to feel safer.
It also reflects a divided America where the temperature of political animosity continues to rise.
Localizing a national pattern
Stratton said their home is close to off-campus housing for WyoTech students and that both he and other furries have had issues with some of those students.
He recalled an incident from September when some local furries wore their fursuits to Burger King.
“The Techers pulled up with their big, heavy lift truck and were crawling in the parking lot and barking at them,” Stratton said.
That kind of harassment is unremarkable. For years, furries have served as an internet punching bag — their interests, community and gatherings mocked frequently in YouTube videos and other online content.
They have also been the victims of targeted violence.
In 2014, a chlorine gas attack at the Midwest FurFest convention in Rosemont, Illinois, hospitalized more than a dozen people. Much of the news coverage that followed was delivered by giggling broadcasters, who struggled to contain themselves on air while describing what amounted to a terrorist attack.
The vandalism in Laramie last week could represent an escalation of the local anti-furry harassment described by Stratton. He believes the same WyoTech students who were bothering fursuiters at Burger King — and who have caused problems for the LGBTQ+ community and fur-suiters alike during Pride Month — could be responsible for the vandalism.
He is also convinced that the current political climate has emboldened these troublemakers. Hate incidents and crimes spiked the last time Trump was elected president, and Stratton thinks the country will see that same spike again.
It makes him sad to think what might become of his hometown.
“I’m born and raised in Laramie — had moved to Casper and a few other places for a little bit, and then came back here,” he said. “And just within the last five to six years, Laramie has become a different place, and it’s kind of getting into the scary, dark end of a different place. It truthfully does worry me how much more down that rabbit hole we’re going to be going in the next four years.”
But being involved with the furry fandom means more than just being the victim of violence, vandalism and other harassments.
Stratton joins the rest of the community for hangouts and conventions — including Furever West, which was hosted in Laramie less than two months ago.
What goes on at a furry con?
“They have all sorts of things,” Stratton said. “They have dance comps. There’s all sorts of panels — like at Furever West, I did a TikTok panel … and we talked about how to promote ourselves online. They [also] have sewing panels to teach you how to make fursuits.”
Stratton said some cons feature car shows because a lot of furries “are way into cars.”
“We’re a community that likes to wear fursuits, but we have other passions too, and we bring that into the cons,” he said. “The cons are just a good weekend getaway for us who like to wear fursuits to have a good time [and] learn new things. It’s kind of like a mini-vacation.”
Hill’s Subaru has been towed to a body shop, where repairs will begin after Thanksgiving. Hill and Stratton are getting around, for the time being, in a rental car.
It's usually self projection with the vandals. Look for the 20 something hanging around the high school or junior high.
I am so sorry this happened. I support furries and whoever the hell else wants to do harmless stuff. Stand down hillbillies!