Hey heya! My apologies for the incredibly late reply to this, but honestly, I don’t think I could provide a good bit of advice to this.

I’ve actually never been able to understand the true -feelings-, hesitation, or worry to telling people that you’re a [ *insert term that describes yourself as being a part of this fandom here* ], since I never went through it.

I consider myself a furry, sure, but I actually wasn’t aware there was some kind of ‘term’ for my high admiration of anthropomorphic characters (that happen to be animals/animalistic) until… heh, actually four years ago. But I’ve had a huge love for cartoons/animals much longer than that, so when I mentioned it to my mom about this sort of fandom, she simply smiled about it.

I suppose it depends on your background, really. And more so a person, as everyone is different with their opinions on things.

People may say what they will about the furry fandom or the people that may actively be a part of it, but in a nutshell, furries all have admiration for anthropomorphic animal characters. That’s pretty much cartoon characters many people know in love today, like in Looney Tunes (Bugs, Daffy, etc.) or in Disney (Mickey, Donald, etc.)

Big given what some select people think about -all- furries (regardless of it being true of not), you sometimes can’t change their opinions. Perhaps if you subtly hint at your interests for animal-related characters, it could adjust him a bit to it, and he wouldn’t mind you identifying yourself as a furry. But sometimes, if that’s not the case, you may have to stay quiet about it around him.

Ah, apologies I’m no help! Again, I’ve never had this feeling of paranoia mentioning it to my mother, so I couldn’t understand. Let alone give helpful reply. But, hey, anyone else in your family is fine with it, I’d say that’s good enough. : )

(And I hope you don’t mind me publicly answering this ask! I believe I actually have gotten a question like this once or twice before, and thought I’d post my thoughts here.)