Just a few months ago 6PR’s Breakfast hosts Karl Langdon and Steve Mills put to air the urban myth that school students are identifying as cats, now the radio hosts say there’s a serving female WA police office who believes they are a rabbit.
Langdon and Mills put the claim to air on Monday morning as part of the station’s Rumour File segment where listeners call in with their tips about things they think the public should know.
“In the pursuit of DEI, diversity, equity and inclusion, the WA police have just accepted into its ranks a constable that identifies as a rabbit.” Steve Mills said reading out a hot tip from a listeners dubbed Constable Bugs Bunny.
“Among other things the ‘rascally rabbit’ will only consume their food if served in a bowl. Colleagues of the rabbit said they don’t dare suggest there’s an issue because doing so will land them in hot water.” Mills added.
Former football star Karl Langdon said he believed people were identifying as cats and rabbits and being given special treatment.
“I have told you, and you rubbished me, that there school students who identified as cats.” Langdon said. Mills said he did not believe the stories about kids being cats.
“It is true mate.” Langdon insisted. “They had to put kitty litter.”
“It’s a fallacy” Mills responded, but Langdon continued, “It’s not a fallacy mate, we had callers calling in saying there were these cats running around in parks.”
“You can identify as whatever you like these days. If you want to be a dog you can be a dog. The world’s gone mad.”
Later in the program Langdon said he stood by his belief that there was a Perth school with students identifying as cats.
Across the world there’s been many similar reports but none have ever been verified
Incidents of media personalities and politicians claiming they are young people identifying as cats have occurred regularly around the globe over the last few years, but the urban myth has been traced back over many decades.
The stories are generally designed to voice transphobia drawing a link between recognising transgender people and allowing them to use the bathroom of their choice as being a slippery slope to people identifying an animals.
From Brisbane and Melbourne to Indiana, Ohio, Utah, Idaho, Michigan, Arkansas, Texas and Canada, there have been claims of students identify as cats, and time and time again it’s been thoroughly debunked as an urban myth.
The stories never have any directly verifiable information, they’re always cases of hearsay based on second or third hand accounts.
The story also was follows the same template accepting diversity has gone too far and now delusional people are being given special treatment. Often its students identify as cats demanding to have kitty little trays in the bathroom, or a variation is they’ve asked for lower tables in the cafeteria so they eat from bowls not using their hands.
As Australian school’s don’t have cafeterias when the story began appearing locally it was adapted to students are allowed to cut holes in their uniforms for their tails.
But time and time again politicians believe it, the conservative media report it, and the social media outrage machine kicks off.
Here’s just a few of the incidents that OUTinPerth has document in recent years.
15-05-2021 Journalist Leisa Goddard says students identify as cats
19-03-2022 Courier-Mail claims Brisbane school has cat identifying students
21-03-2022 Sky News shares the ‘students identify as cats’ story
29-03-2022 Media Watch questions Sky News’ ‘students identify as cats’ story
29-03-2022 Tell us if you’ve heard this one before, students are identify as cats
09-04-2022 US radio hosts claims schools are making adjustments for furries
23-05-2022 Why do politicians keep falling for the students identify as cats myth?
24-08-2022 News Corp claims to have found more cat identifying students
25-09-2022 Indiana school officials deny there are cat identifying students
08-10-2022 Schools ask politicians to stop claiming students identify as cats
06-11-2022 As the US heads to mid-term elections, cat-student claims keep coming
23-06-2023 Cats, and dogs and horses and moons and dinosaurs – oh my.
23-09-2023 “Love is love, cat food is cat food” – Scots College apologises
16-09-2023 Sky News is suggest students are identifying as cats again.
24-02-2024 Rita Panahi has found more evidence of ‘cat people’.
In January Justin Humphrey, a right-wing Republican politician in Oklahoma proposed legislation that would allow animal services to remove students who identify as cats from local schools.
The legislator argued that laws were need to protect schools from “purport to be an imaginary animal or animal species, or who engage in anthropomorphic behavior commonly referred to as furries.”
Humphrey has previous described people who are transgender as mentally ill. HIs proposal was described by other MPs as fascial.
Back in 2022 researcher on news and politics from Joan Donovan from Harvard University spoke to NBC News about the urban myth phenomenon.
“What’s most provocative about this hoax is how it turns on two key wedge issues for conservatives: educational accommodations and gender nonconformity,” said Donovan, who research director of the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University and co-author of Meme Wars: The Untold Story of the Online Battles Upending Democracy in America.
Local transgender groups and activist say it’s disappointing the claim is being put to air
Dr Thomas Drake-Brockman, the chair of Transfolk of WA, said it was disappointing that 6PR would dedicate air time to such claims.
“It is disappointing that 6PR aired these comments, promoting an anti-trans narrative, either willingly or carelessly.
“Stories of police officers or school students identifying as animals are clearly false, created to divide us with unfounded fears. The insistence by one presenter that these reports are at all credible is laughable.
“Trans identities are valid. Trans people are resilient and deserve the basic respect and safety from ridicule as do all Australians. The clear majority of Australians recognise that trans people deserve protection from discrimination.” Dr Drake-Brockman said.
Perth based transgender rights activist Andrea Thompson, who has worked in the media for many years, said the segment was “bottom scrapping nonsense”.
‘I’m dismayed by the grubby tactics of people like Karl Langdon and Steve Mills who obviously care nothing for the damage their lies cause to the lives of gender diverse people.
“This is not journalism, it is bottom scraping nonsense that only serves to expose the prejudice of these two radio announcers who behave with all of dignity and class of a pair of school bullies. I can tell them from my own personal experience that my world is far from mollycoddled, it is filled with daily prejudices and injustice that are only stoked by the witless chatter of the likes of Langdon and Mills.”
WA police respond to the claim
OUTinPerth asked the WA police if they were aware of any officers joining the force recently. A spokesperson said all their recruits were psychological evaluated.
“To become a police officer in WA, applicants must pass an integrity check, a physical fitness check and a psychological evaluation, after which they must successfully complete their training at the academy.
“Unless there is a suggestion of unlawful behaviour or misconduct, WA Police does not seek information regarding the private lives of officers.” the spokesperson said.
6PR says the claim came from a listener
OUTinPerth asked if they were confident that the report was true, and if they had any concern that airing reports of this nature increases transphobia in society.
A producer on the show responded saying the claim had come from listeners.
“We received the rumour from a listener, written as stated on air and as such we always follow up with the appropriate source to get comment or follow-up.
“We are awaiting response from WA police who should provide some further information to either confirm or deny the information provided.” a producer on the show said.
