Negotiating identities in the furry fandom through costuming

Abstract

Abstract This article examines how identities are negotiated and performed through costuming within the furry fandom community. Using ethnographic research methods, including participant observation augmented by demographic surveys and in-depth interviews at two fur conventions, we explore how individuals’ gender, sexual and anthropomorphic identities are produced through costuming at fur conventions. The findings reveal a vast spectrum of identities within the fandom; costuming and ‘dressing-up’ enable individuals, particularly men, opportunities to explore and express aspects of identities through animal performance. The body, as Judith Butler has argued, is a ‘variable boundary’ with a permeable surface – making it a site where gender is repeatedly performed. Costuming and manipulating the body is a material interpretation of gender – that is, a repeated action of the body within clothes. The effect of gender is produced through the ‘stylization of the body’ and percolates through material and embodied gesture and habitus. While gender non-conformists in North America may experience limitations with regard to their visible expression in everyday society (both perceived and in ‘policing’ behaviours), the furry fandom community is an accepting and tolerant space for negotiation and experimentation with gender through costuming and body modification. Furries perform gender and negotiate ambivalences about these identities through the costume.