Furry Airline Pilots Are Just Minding Their Own Business

毛茸茸的航空飞行员只是在做自己的事

The greatest threat to humanity’s survival isn’t climate change, nor is it AI. It’s airline pilots who like dressing up as hot cartoon foxes. That seemed to be the takeaway from a bizarre speech made last week by Alabama Republican Tommy Tuberville on the Senate floor last week. During a lengthy anti-trans rant about “gender confusion,” Tuberville started pontificating on the furry fandom, a subculture consisting of people who enjoy drawing and dressing as anthropomorphized animals. “Many airline pilots, flight attendants, and air traffic controllers are part of the furry community,” Tuberville alleged. “Lord help us. It’s terrifying when you think about this.”

人类生存的最大威胁既不是气候变化，也不是人工智能，而是那些喜欢打扮成性感卡通狐狸的航空公司飞行员。这似乎是阿拉巴马州共和党参议员汤米·塔伯维尔（Tommy Tuberville）上周在参议院发表的一场离奇演讲所传达出的核心观点。在一场关于“性别困惑”的长篇反跨性别演说中，塔伯维尔开始对“兽迷”（furry fandom）群体大放厥词，这是一个由喜欢绘制和装扮成拟人化动物的人组成的亚文化群体。“许多航空公司飞行员、空乘人员和空中交通管制员都是兽迷社区的一员，”塔伯维尔声称，“上帝保佑我们。想到这一点真是太可怕了。”

To bolster his point, he later posted a viral audio clip of airline pilots at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport meowing and barking at each other over the radio, though there is no evidence that the pilots in question were furries; the video was possibly a reference to a joke in the 2001 movie Super Troopers. “When you walk onto a commercial flight, it’s possible that the pilot flying your plane could have a deranged fetish of dressing up like an animal,” Tuberville said. (Interest in the furry fandom is not necessarily sexual, nor do all furries dress up as animals.)

为了支持他的观点，他后来发布了一段在网上疯传的音频片段，内容是罗纳德·里根华盛顿国家机场的飞行员在无线电中互相喵喵叫和吠叫。然而，并没有证据表明这些飞行员是兽迷；这段视频很可能只是在引用2001年电影《超级骑警》（Super Troopers）中的一个笑话。“当你走上一架商业航班时，驾驶飞机的飞行员可能有一种打扮成动物的疯狂癖好，”塔伯维尔说。（对兽迷文化的兴趣并不一定与性有关，也不是所有的兽迷都会打扮成动物。）

Tuberville’s tirade went viral, with everyone from Jimmy Kimmel to The Daily Show weighing in on the absurdity of his remarks. But there was one detail largely omitted from the coverage: on at least one point, Tuberville was (kind of) correct.

塔伯维尔的这番长篇大论在网上疯传，从吉米·坎摩尔（Jimmy Kimmel）到《每日秀》（The Daily Show），各方人士都对他的言论之荒谬进行了评判。但报道中忽略了一个细节：在至少一点上，塔伯维尔（某种程度上）说对了。

“It’s definitely something we’ve talked about before, why there are so many furries in the aviation community,” says Toby, a professional flying instructor who has been running a flight school for the past eight years; he is also a prominent member of the fandom whose fursona (the fandom’s term for an animal-inspired alter ego) is a wolf.

“我们确实讨论过为什么航空界有这么多兽迷，”托比（Toby）说。他是一位专业的飞行教练，经营飞行学校已有八年，同时也是兽迷圈中的知名成员，他的“兽设”（fursona，兽迷圈对动物化身自我的称呼）是一只狼。

Vulan, who works as a pilot for a major American airline, agreed. (Due to the stigma associated with the community, all of the furries I spoke with requested they be referred to by their fursonas rather than their real names.) Vulan, who uses they/them pronouns and whose fursona is of a fox, runs a group chat for furries in aviation—one of nearly a dozen that they know of. “It’s kind of a big deal in the furry fandom because it’s such an odd, out-of-left-field thing,” they say of the overrepresentation of furries within the aviation industry.

在一家美国大型航空公司担任飞行员的乌兰（Vulan）对此表示赞同。（由于该群体所承受的污名，所有我采访的兽迷都要求以他们的“兽设”而非真实姓名来称呼。）乌兰使用中性代词（they/them），其兽设是一只狐狸。他们运营着一个航空业兽迷群聊，据他们所知，类似的群聊还有近十个。“这在兽迷圈里算是一件大事，因为它太奇怪、太出人意料了，”他们在谈到兽迷在航空业中的高比例时说道。

Given its taboo nature, as well as the general dearth of data surrounding the fandom, there aren’t really many reliable numbers regarding furry employment. But the aviation industry does appear to be fairly strongly represented within the fandom. Toby hosts aviation panels at furry conventions, and he says that they are among the most popular events, with recent ones attracting upwards of 400 attendees. All fursonas, he says, are represented, though airline pilots “do tend to favor birds.”

鉴于其禁忌性质以及围绕该群体数据的普遍匮乏，目前并没有关于兽迷就业情况的可靠统计数字。但航空业在兽迷群体中确实有着相当高的代表性。托比在兽迷大会上主持航空主题座谈会，他说这些活动是最受欢迎的环节之一，最近的活动吸引了超过400名参与者。他说，各种兽设都有代表，不过航空公司飞行员“确实倾向于选择鸟类”。

One furry who worked for four years at an airport kiosk says he knew of a number of other furry employees during his time there, including a baggage handler who had a tattoo of his fursona. “Some people are more vocal about it than others, but in my experience most don’t talk about it,” he told me.

一位曾在机场售货亭工作过四年的兽迷告诉我，他在职期间认识不少其他兽迷员工，其中包括一名纹有自己兽设纹身的行李搬运工。“有些人比较直言不讳，但根据我的经验，大多数人并不谈论这件事，”他告诉我。

Vulan says that at their airline alone, they know of “at least 40” other self-identified furries, from pilots to baggage handlers to air traffic controllers. It’s not, however, something they discuss openly in the workplace. “I don’t feel the need to be represented at work, and I don’t know anyone who feels that way,” they say. “I think everybody understands this is something we enjoy at home, and we’re not asking to bring it into work, just like we’re not asking anybody else to bring their home life into work if they don’t want to.”

乌兰说，仅在他们所在的航空公司，他们就知道“至少有40名”其他自认为是兽迷的员工，从飞行员到行李搬运工再到空中交通管制员。然而，这并不是他们在工作场所公开讨论的话题。“我觉得没必要在工作中展示这一面，我也不认识有这种想法的人，”他们说，“我认为大家都明白，这是我们在家享受的爱好，我们并不要求把它带到工作中，就像我们也不要求别人把他们的家庭生活带到工作中一样。”

Still, the question remains: Why does there appear to be so much crossover between the furry community and those who work in the friendly skies? Generally speaking, there is an “overlap between furries and transit nerds,” says Patch O’Furr, the editor-in-chief of the furry fandom publication Dogpatch Press. “It’s a meta fandom full of roleplay so imaginative that it goes beyond species, so you get lots of people with intense special interests.”

尽管如此，问题依然存在：为什么兽迷社区和航空从业者之间似乎有如此多的重叠？兽迷刊物《Dogpatch Press》的主编帕奇·奥弗尔（Patch O’Furr）表示，总的来说，“兽迷和交通迷之间存在重叠”。“这是一个充满角色扮演的元文化群体，其想象力超越了物种界限，因此你会发现很多人都有极其强烈的特殊兴趣。”

Some furries I spoke to cited the popularity of famous anthropomorphic pilots, such as the titular character—a half-man half-pig—in the 1992 Miyazaki film Porco Rosso (Italian for red pig), or the bear Baloo from the 1990s Disney cartoon TaleSpin, as having sparked a childhood interest in aviation. Others pointed to the preponderance of neurodivergent furries within the fandom, many of whom may consider aviation among their specific obsessions—though it’s worth noting the medical requirements for becoming an FAA-licensed pilot are extremely stringent, and neurodevelopmental disorder diagnoses like autism or ADHD can present barriers.

我采访的一些兽迷提到，一些著名的拟人化飞行员角色激发了他们童年对航空的兴趣，例如1992年宫崎骏电影《红猪》（Porco Rosso，意大利语意为红色的猪）中的主角（半人半猪），或是90年代迪士尼动画《航空小英雄》（TaleSpin）中的熊巴鲁（Baloo）。另一些人则指出，兽迷群体中神经多样性（neurodivergent）人士比例较高，其中许多人可能将航空视为他们的特定痴迷对象——尽管值得注意的是，获得美国联邦航空局（FAA）飞行员执照的医疗要求极其严格，自闭症或多动症等神经发育障碍的诊断可能会构成障碍。

The correlation between furries and the aviation industry may also partially stem from the fact that both involve heavy travel—many furries spend months ping-ponging across the country, going from con to con—and an intense level of interest. “For most of us in aviation, it’s not just a job, it’s a passion,” says Toby. “It’s not as plug-and-play as many other kinds of jobs, it’s a way of life. And I think the kind of mind that is attracted to aviation is the same kind of person that would be attracted to the furry fandom.”

兽迷与航空业之间的关联也可能部分源于两者都涉及频繁的旅行——许多兽迷花几个月时间在全国各地奔波，从一个大会赶往另一个大会——以及极高的兴趣投入。“对于我们大多数航空从业者来说，这不仅仅是一份工作，更是一种热情，”托比说，“它不像许多其他工作那样可以即插即用，这是一种生活方式。我认为，会被航空业吸引的人，和会被兽迷文化吸引的人，往往是同一类人。”