SiegedSec, a collective of self-proclaimed “gay furry hackers,” has claimed credit for breaching online databases of the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank that spearheaded the rightwing Project 2025 playbook. On Wednesday, as part of string of hacks aimed at organizations that oppose trans rights, SiegedSec released a cache of Heritage Foundation material.
In a post to Telegram announcing the hack, SiegedSec called Project 2025 “an authoritarian Christian nationalist plan to reform the United States government.” The attack was part of the group’s #OpTransRights campaign, which recently targeted rightwing media outlet Real America’s Voice, the Hillsong megachurch, and a Minnesota pastor.
In his foreword to the Project 2025 manifesto, the Heritage Foundation’s president, Kevin Roberts, rails against “the toxic normalization of transgenderism” and “the omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology.” The playbook’s other contributors call on “the next conservative administration” to roll back certain policies, including allowing trans people to serve in the military.
“We’re strongly against Project 2025 and everything the Heritage Foundation stands for,” one of SiegedSec’s leaders, who goes by the handle vio, told The Intercept.
Basically, everyone has a Mii/xbox avatar unique to them, like a physical username, called a persona/fursona. Some people get extremely expensive custom suits of their fursona. It’s semi like anime fans, but not tied to corps, very decentralized. It got started in the 70s and 80s with sci-fi cons where people gathered for disney-esque animal cartoons and comics, and has roots in importing anime to the US.
The furry community is somewhat like a church with various chapters, you can join furry chats in various cities and countries to quickly form a social network wherever you go. In the US, there tend to be city chats, state chats, regional chats, and national/international chats. These cover a broad range of interests from coin collecting to mountain biking and skiing, but the common thread is that everyone is a furry.
Conventions occur and are like a cross between a family reunion, blackout party, and university classes where panels are taught on things like fursuit building, drawing, car meetups, pilot meetups, doctor meetups, etc. It’s like a networking and party event on steroids.They are fun as hell and occur all over the world, ranging from a few hundred people to over 15,500 people. They have been growing dramatically since 2016. Cons usually partner with local animal charities and tend to donate tens of thousands of dollars each con.
It tends to be a very welcoming and open community, drawing a significant portion of the population that is LGBTQ. Last time I checked, this was about 2/3rds of the population.
Solid description. ✅🏆