⚠️⚠️Xenia suggests you use Firefox for better safety and comfort.
Thanks to Immy for this awesome video.
Xenia, the fox girl mascot of Linux, was first designed in 1996 by Alan Mackey.
She was meant to be an alternative to Tux, the official mascot. Something that would resurface in an article years later.
But far from being the end of the story, when twitter user Cathodegaytube found about this from her girlfriend in 2019, she decided to redraw her and posted about it.
Months later, in 2020, she revealed how Alan Mackey reacted to her redesign.
It was a surprise to her that Alan had first intended to make his fox a boy.
As it happens, Xenia (a name chosen by Cathodegaytube's girlfriend, AmyWrightDev), became a girl off-screen and came out during pride month.
A series of coincidences brought about trans representation to this historically cishet male centric sector of software.
Special thanks to this recap on Mastodon (cybre.space) without which this page wouldn't be possible.
These news gave new life to Xenia and as artists became interested in her we saw some more art of her.
Additionally, here's a version of Cathodegaytube's original slightly edited to fit as a splash screen for linux.
