Well, isn't that awkward. I hope nobody around me watches that. Enough people throwing rocks at me as it is.

I'm not sure where the furry "lifestyle" came from (It's called being obsessed. If it interferes with your life, you need help.) Some people don't have much of a choice about being furry. It's like being a musician; it affects the way you see the world and the way you value yourself. However compelling, it's a choice to participate in the fandom.

On the matter of publicity, I'd rather that guy lied. As of now, the furry community has enough of a bad reputation that someone who has the public eye needs to make it clear that furry is not related to sex. We just have a problem where we need to manufacture our own pornography

While I do agree with your view on it, I don't really understand how you can say the furry fandom isn't related to sex when you're using an art site where you can submit drawings under a particular fetish.
"Furry" in the sense of dressing like an animal to feel closer to nature is not only as old as the game of poker, but ridiculous. We're human beings, and no matter how much someone thinks they're a wolf trapped in a human body, there's quite literally nothing we can do about it.
While sometimes I'm utterly disgusted in the human species, I know that I am one and I know that I'll never be able to turn into my favorite animal under any circumstance, be it cosmetic or otherwise.

The fandom started out in controversy. Back in ancient times, people who dressed like animals were warriors, shamans and hunters who participated in rituals and sometimes even human/animal sacrifice. That in itself brought hell to the people who did it.
I'm not saying furries are sociopaths and killers, of course, but when you're involved with a fandom that's not only immensely sexual and considered a fetish, but has always been haunted by controversy and discrimination, you need to learn to expect bad publicity.
There are furries who fuck dogs, of course, and then there are those that are harmless and just dress up in costumes to have fun and be silly, and it seems like the dog fuckers and dress-uppers are taking this whole thing way overboard by saying ChewFox brought shame to the entire fandom and made it harder to furries as a "people" to be accepted. These people need to define "furry" for themselves and not by what everyone else deems them as.

I still don't think the fandom itself is sexual because I can see no logical way that being non-human relates to sex. I'm guessing that it happened like this:

Way way way back, anthro artists were treated the same as any other fantasy artists, mostly decent studio works, occasionally porn. Anyone who's ever taught a high-school art class knows that the kids like to draw penises and mushrooms, possibly just to spite you.

The furry men of the time couldn't find any jack-off material. Obviously, conventional porn only has humans. If you want to be a dog-person, you probably want to fap to dog-porn. The closest thing to dog porn is produced by furry artists. (Way back in the day, playboy centerfolds were clothed.) Artists found that they sold more if they made more pornographic works.

Consumerism caused the cycle to repeat, and now we have this site with a bunch of mediocre artists producing fetish pictures to gain popularity. I admit to doing it. Different character of different body-type for different fetishes to attract a wider audience. I try to keep the non-porn characters out of it though.

Just because fanfiction.net is overrun with porn doesn't mean that writing fanfiction is sexual.

Sadly, the majority of dog-fuckers are actually experimental adolescent boys who live on farms far away from humans who are not in their immediate family. Other victims include sheep and goats.

I do agree that consumerism aided in the fandom being depicted as a porn industry.
On that note, I've got to say that if someone can't get off to human porn, there's something wrong with them mentally. While I do understand that being an adolescent is difficult what with hormones and suchlike, it doesn't give any person, male or female, the right to actually fuck an animal.

For some people, having sex in costumes is an exotic and fun experience, and they, coupled with dog-fucking people, have made a bad name for the fanom.
I, for one, enjoy drawing a little smut here and there, but I don't define my art by it at all and the only time it's ever seen, or going to be seen, in my gallery is through scraps. Even then, it isn't hardcore, simply because I don't want to be known for my ability to draw porn over my ability to draw other things like people and animals in a completely non-sexual manner.
The point of this, really, is just that my view on the fandom as a whole is gray. It can be a good thing; Fun, accepting community, people who understand the issues that others go through and can offer help. It can be a bad thing; People condoning pedophilia through "cub art" and "babyfur art", dog-fuckers getting off on beastiality they see on here and suchlike.
The people who seem the most upset about this whole Tyra thing are the ones who're more or less in that black area. They want an excuse to get away with what they do and by ChewFox making the fandom's dark side public, she's thereby made it harder for them to do what they want.

Like I said, people need to define the furry fandom for themselves, not by what others have done. It's just like with any other fandom or fad, if you don't define it for yourself, you're just copying everyone else.