Fact check: Photos from 2016 show adult who identified as a cat, not public school student
The claim: Photos show non-verbal student whose cat identity is accommodated at public school
Some social media users are sharing a photo they claim shows a student who identifies as a cat.
The photos show a young woman wearing costume cat ears. In one of the images, she appears to be crawling on her hands and knees.
"This is a young lady who is exceptional (sic) bright, her family petitioned the school board for right to 'identify as a cat," reads part of a Sept. 23 Facebook post featuring the images. "She is non verbal and she crawls around making cat like noises and the school is perfectly fine with this behavior? I understand WHY my daughter home schooled our grandchildren."
The post garnered more than 1,000 interactions in less than two weeks.
But this post tells a story that simply didn't happen. The photos are from 2016 and show a Norweigan adult who is capable of speaking, not a non-verbal, school-aged child.
USA TODAY reached out to the Facebook user who shared the post for comment.
Follow us on Facebook! Like our page to get updates throughout the day on our latest debunks
Photo shows Norwegian adult
The post from Peggy Hubbard, who lost a recent Illinois Republican U.S. Senate primary, implies a connection to a U.S. school district, but the pictures don't show an American public school student – or anything recent.
The photos show a Norweigan woman who was the subject of multiple media reports in 2016 when she claimed to be a cat trapped in a human's body. The woman's name is Nano and she was 20 at the time the images were captured, according to the reports.
Despite Hubbard's claim that the person pictured is non-verbal, the woman can be heard speaking in a 2016 Norweigan media interview about her identity.
The claim was also debunked by Reuters.
USA TODAY has previously debunked other false claims that school districts accommodated children who behave like animals by providing litterboxes or allowing them to lick their "paws" in class.
Fact check: False claim about Boston Children's Hospital's transgender care program
Our rating: False
Based on our research, we rate FALSE the claim that photos show a non-verbal student whose cat identity is accommodated at public school. The photos show a Norweigan adult who claimed to be a cat in 2016.
Our fact-check sources:
Reuters, Sept. 8, Fact Check-Photographs do not show a U.S. student who wanted to ‘identify as a cat
USA TODAY, Jan. 30, Fact check: No, a Michigan public school did not provide litter boxes for students identifying as cats
USA TODAY, April 8, Fact check: Wisconsin school district debunks claim that it has a 'furry protocol'
YouTube, Jan 28, 2016, 20-Year-Old Woman Claims She Is A Cat Born In The Wrong Body
Internet Archive, Jan. 26, 2016, Born in the wrong species // Født i feil art
Daily Mail, Jan. 27, 2016, 'I was born in the wrong species': Woman who says she's a CAT trapped in a human body hisses at dogs, hates water and claims she can even see better at night
Stuff, Jan 29, 2016, Meet Nano, the woman who thinks she is a cat. Really.
Mirror, Jan. 28, 2016, Woman who thinks she's a cat trapped in a human body 'hisses at dogs' and has tried to catch mice
Thank you for supporting our journalism. You can subscribe to our print edition, ad-free app or electronic newspaper replica here.
Our fact-check work is supported in part by a grant from Facebook.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fact check: Photos show adult who identified as a cat, not student