I doubt it.

I'm an animal rights activist too, and the stereotypes are extremely heavy. If you say you like cute widdle doggies, that's fine, but I grew up loving all animals and wanting respect for all of them. If someone asked me what animals I liked, I'd name off a long, long list of exotic things no one had ever heard of.

I became a complete outcast from school because of my love of animals. It made me an oddball, especially because if someone made a joke about abuse I'd tell them to stop it. It doesn't make you a lot of friends if you're serious about it, because so many people aren't and so that's what's expected. When you say you love animals you're supposed to mean passively, as in you still wear fur and leather and defend doing so, you still eat meat, use animal products and even hunt. There were at least three people in my high school class alone that hunted only for trophies with their families and still considered themselves 'animal lovers'.

So yeah, while it's possible OP was exaggerating, I think it's very possible they were not, sad as it is. D: