Hey! You! Yes, you!
I finally managed to find a url with a version of "zoophile" that wasn't taken - so now you're going to have to listen to me explain things.
I know, I know, your instant gut reaction to zoophiles is "oh my god disgusting animal abusers!". Mine used to be the same.
Let's get this out of the way: Abusing or otherwise harming animals is disgusting and wrong. Pretty much everyone in the world can agree on that. Regardless of if they're zoophiles or not, animal abusers are horrible people.
However, someone who is a zoophile doesn't automatically abuse animals. I know that you're probably clicking off right now and deciding that I'm not worth listening too, but I beg you to keep reading so you can focus on calling out actually bad people who abuse animals and not people who are doing nothing wrong.
To a lot of people, zoophile = animal abuser. I used to think the exact same thing. When everyone around you has the exact same stance on one thing, you're going to end up believing the same thing.
But what if I told you that zoophilia is actually just "the attraction to animals"? You'd probably still think "okay, that's still disgusting and wrong".
Zoophilia, just like every other type of attraction, cannot be cured. "Just kill them, then" is the stance a lot of people have, however, that's really not a good solution either.
Zoophilia is often a disorder, and that disorder often comes from trauma. Zoophilic Disorder is when a zoophile is distressed and upset by their attraction to the point where it impacts your day-to-day life, and sometimes you're a risk to yourself.
Zoophiles are, most of the time, already upset and distressed by their attraction. As much as you hate them, they hate themselves ten times more. They don't WANT to be attracted to animals, but (whether it's from trauma or not) they are and they can't change that. Pushing them to go to therapy to cure or fix them won't work any more than you could force a gay person to go to therapy to make them straight.
There is also ZOCD, a subtype of OCD, which means you have intrusive thoughts about hurting/being attracted to animals. Their OCD is made a million times worse by people constantly hating zoophiles. For example, if you had intrusive thoughts about not actually being trans, would you rather people constantly say "detransitioners are disgusting horrible traitors, if you're detrans kys" or would you rather them say "if you're detrans that's okay you aren't a bad person"? Because saying "you aren't one of those people!" doesn't help at all and actually makes your intrusive thoughts way worse (coming from someone with OCD myself).
You're probably thinking "well, even if they aren't hurting anyone right now, they will eventually". That's a really common misconception, and it's not true at all.
You've probably had crushes on people before. If you're queer, you've probably had a crush on a straight person. Did you force that person to date or kiss or have sex with you, or did you just not act on it and move on? I'm guessing that it's probably the latter. It's no different if you're attracted to an animal - you're not going to act on that attraction because the animal can't consent to that, just like how you aren't going to force someone to date you because they didn't consent to that.
"But every zoophile I've seen has abused animals!" This is because most zoos are silent about it. They know they'll get hate, and they know they'll be at risk for doxxing and harassment and death threats and gore if they say anything. So they don't say anything and keep it a secret.
The reason you see so many zoos who abuse animals is because that's pretty much the only way people find out. Most zoos never hurt any animals. You only see the people who DO hurt animals because those are the only people who get found out.
I've only met one zoo who's even supported hurting animals at any point (and he doesn't at all anymore), and I know 20+ zoos. Zoos are almost always vocally against animal abuse because if you love something you're going to want to protect it. If you're in love with someone, even if they don't like you back and you aren't going to date them, you still want to protect them and keep them from harm.
Probably at least one person in your friend group is a zoo. Maybe even more than one. They haven't done anything wrong and most likely never will, and they're always quiet about it so they don't lose everything.
It honestly doesn't matter if you support zoos or not - if you're actively and vocally hating them for just existing, you're taking that hate away from people who actually abuse animals and pushing it onto people with OCD or trauma-based disorders who are already suffering.
Many people who abuse animals hide behind "I hate zoophiles they're disgusting!" and push people's attention towards random people existing as a tactic to escape consequences. And it works. Using pedophiles as an example, there are MANY homophobes who claim they're anti-gay because they're "protecting the children" and then as it turns out they're abusing and and grooming children behind people's backs. This isn't a rare thing at all.
Focus your hate on animal abusers and people who are actively hurting animals instead of hating on people who aren't doing anything wrong.
Please be an ally to non-offending zoos. They aren't hurting anyone or anything and hate animal abusers just as much as you do.