I'm Sorry, Did Tommy Tuberville Somehow Not Know The Airline Industry Is Full Of Furries?

Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville, a weapons-grade super intelligence who can almost stand on his own two feet successfully, is very scared. No, he's not afraid of rising gas prices, federal government overreach, or for-profit policing, he's afraid of something much scarier: The Transgender Menace, as well as its associated furries. Tuberville doesn't really seem to understand the first thing about either trans people or furries, but that didn't stop him from going on a wildly hateful rant this week in the Senate that, inexplicably, found horror in the number of furries that work in aviation. 

Tuberville's screed covers multiple pages of the official Congressional Record, meandering through classic transphobia and into such novel takes as a desire to "bring back mental institutions," but one section stuck out: "What is more concerning is that this mentally unwell furry community that touts the fact that many—listen to this—that many airline pilots, flight attendants, and air traffic controllers are part of the furry community."

Tuberville expanded on the horror further:

Lord help us. It is terrifying when you think about this. When you walk onto a commercial flight, it is possible that the pilot flying your plane could have a deranged f*tish of dressing up like an animal.

A pilot with a kink! The horror! What's next, a deli cashier who's into feet? A trucker who likes threesomes? Tuberville's obvious intent here is that trans people — remember, he thinks all furries are trans — should be ousted from public life and placed in mental institutions (in fact, institutions are the literal next thing he says after this quote), but he's worked himself into such a fascinating logical place here. Apparently being into dressing up as a dog is some sort of thoughtcrime now. 

Equally fascinating is the fact that Tuberville didn't already know this. I understand I exist in some weird online niches, but I figured the aviation industry being rife with furries was common knowledge — pilots do furry roleplay with each other over flight computers, for god's sake. E621, the preeminent imageboard for furries, has 5,300 posts under the "living aircraft" tag. All of us, anywhere online, are but a few clicks away from seeing a buxom anthropomorphic Airbus A380, a Beechcraft Bonanza drawn by someone with a weight gain kink, or an unidentifiable plane pissing on the viewer. Every plane that crashes is a wife that dies. 

Yes, Tommy, the airline industry is rife with furries. It's rife with people who scare you but because we are all better than you, we still get you from point A to point B reliably. If you hadn't noticed until now, how much could any of this really have any bearing on your life?