How has "furry" impacted you IRL?

for me it's never really been anything i was ashamed of but it was also never something i purposefully shared about myself without being asked. i've still never explicitly told my family, for example, but several of them follow my art instagram where i tag my art with furry tags and they actively like my posts. whether they know or care what it means, i don't know, but no one's given me shit so i don't question it. back in high school, i tended to hide it for the most part and only told people i trusted. by the time i got to college, where i was pursuing an art degree, i was very open about it and was explicitly creating furry or furry-adjacent work for my classes whenever possible. many of my professors actually enjoyed my furry work and that reassured me how little it mattered.
meanwhile, during that time i was in my college's furry club, which brought me into a furry specific space irl for the first time, and also during my college tenure was the first time i attended a furry convention, so that period of my life was very meaningful to me in relation to furry things. if anything being a furry proudly has brought me far more good in my life than bad.
today i don't give a shit who knows or what they think. it's a big part of my personality, and i make it known whenever relevant irl. it's done too much good for me and meant too much to me personally for the past fifteen years to care what anyone has to say.

America's had a bullying problem for a long time, just not the one it thinks it does, and especially concentrated in high schools. That's bad enough, but there seems to be an increasing proportion of the population that, while they age out of high school, never really leave it mentally. But that goes well outside of our fandom.

It seems to me the NSFW part is the real crux of the problem. There's a lot of places where "furry" is more like a branch of BDSM than arts and crafts, and the broad tendency of the fandom to be very... open... about that kind of thing does us no favors.

Like you, I was fortunate enough to be furry before that word was sullied or widely known either one. I was bullied in my early school years, and got weird looks all the way through college, but not for reasons that had anything to do with being furry. My parents and all my friends knew, and while none of them ever came into it with me, none of them batted an eye at it, either.

Now, coming back to that NSFW point, I would be absolutely mortified if my parents happened to discover my galleries, and not because of the furry element. Those old friends probably hope I grew out of it eventually (sorry, guys!). It should be acknowledged I'm more a part of the problem than the solution. Until perceptions of the very heavy emphasis on that element of the fandom changes, or society as a whole becomes a lot more comfortable with... uh... "PDA", I don't think the fandom's reputation is going to improve much. But I'm also not sure it really needs to (and that second option doesn't strike me as a good thing if it did happen).

Maybe I'm just lucky, but so far everyone I've personally had the chance to mention it to in passing is fairly ambivalent about it. It's just not their thing, and doesn't need to be. Just like football isn't mine, and doesn't need to be. If we can keep that comfortable ambivalence (which will require not deliberately shoving it in their faces at every turn) the fandom as a whole can keep right on enjoying what we enjoy, and welcoming new members every time a really moving new animated feature involving animals is released. (Really, how many new furries do you think Zootopia created? )

Honestly, I'm not super open about the whole furry thing in irl spaces, though the line between my furry life and "non-furry" life has definitely begun to blur, especially these past two years as I've begun making more irl furry friends. I think being in this fandom has impacted me in many ways, mainly in the social aspect.

I've always been an anxious person in general, but especially socially. I struggled and still struggle with going up to talk to people on my own accord. When I first began to interact in online furry spaces, mainly discord servers, and talking to other people, something in me clicked. I wasn't suddenly a social butterfly, no, but having, at the time, a manokit sona who I characterized as more charismatic and confident helped me be more confident in myself. This ended up extending into my real life as I got into high school. It felt just a bit easier to talk to people as time went on. Now a days, I feel like I can be myself so much easier in front of strangers and my friends. I feel so much more free and it's been wonderful, especially after going to ACFI last month

Along with that, my art has improved so much. Anthro characters are so diverse in color, features, anatomy, etc, and it's always so fun to draw a species I don't typically draw or try out a new style, method, or pose. I feel I've improved so much since I first joined the fandom and it makes me feel so nice ^^

Sure, I've encountered a 'furry hater' here n there, though I've learnt to never really take their remarks so seriously cause they usually have.. rather corny insults, at least from my experience lol

I'd say pretty darn positively. I don't hide being a furry whatsoever, and have made it a rather integral part of my personal brand, so I'm certainly over any fear of being judged for it.

These days I work a pretty enjoyable job in web development, as I have for the last decade, but the main motivation for me to make websites (before being paid for it) was volunteering on stuff in the furry fandom. In many ways I still feel indebted, so I still volunteer to help on furry websites sometimes!

Likewise, a great deal of my social circle and relationships are with other furries, a large part of my socialisation outside of work is in furry spaces, furmeets and conventions, yadda yadda. Back in t'day I'd probably be described as a "lifestyler" and it's not that wrong of a description, really.

Generally in the same boat as most people here - it's not really a thing I bring up in particular, but it's not really a thing I'd hide either. Pretty much all of my IRL friends know and do not care one way or the other - most of my IRL friends are pretty queer and in other fandom spaces online so aren't judgemental of my interests. It's not the kind of thing I bring up much to my family except when I go to meet up with people - for the most part, I think they're just happy for me to have friends to spend time with!

Really it's been nothing but a positive thing for me - having the opportunity to meet people across the world and then being able to spend time with them in person is one of the nicest things to me, and it's brought me a lot of happiness. I've always been a bit scared of travel - but the opportunity to go and see people in a space where I can be myself far outweights that - and I'm hoping to make my way to my first convention soon!

Finding a space I fit in has made me a much more social creature both online and offline, so I'll always be thankful of being in the fandom

I don't really like going into depth with what I do for a semi-living, so when people ask me about my work I have to use a ton of vague descriptions. It's not even NSFW, and I expect most people wouldn't think it's that weird or whatever. Being in this space has granted me some really meaningful friendships though.