Furry Pilots - Tuberville Airline Claims Rebuttal

Wired reporter question about furries and pilots Hi there! My name is Ej Dickson and I am a writer for Wired magazine. I used to work at Rolling Stone, where I did a ton of reporting on furries, including this piece about Midwest Furfest and this one about Gen Z furries. I am not a furry myself but I do a lot of reporting on internet subcultures, and I can honestly say furries are among the most inclusive and welcoming and positive out there in my experience. I wanted to post on this subreddit bc I'm sure you guys have seen Tommy Tuberville's bizarre rant about furries taking over the airline industry. I've heard offhand in reporting on the community that there are indeed a ton of furries who have worked at pilots, so I was so curious as to whether or not there was any truth to this and if so, why you think that may be the case, as well as refuting some of the offensive and inaccurate things Tuberville said on the senate floor. If there are any furries who have worked in the airline industry, I would LOVE to hear from you to get the truth. You can be totally anonymous, of course — we will not publish any names or potentially identifying details whatsoever without your explicit consent. I want to be clear that I am not at all interested in mocking the community — you guys have dealt with that enough, and like I said, I know how warm and supportive the fandom is. I'm genuinely interested in clarifying misinformation/misconceptions about the community and learning more about it. If anyone's down to chat, please feel free to reach out at ej\[email redacted] or message me here. Thanks!