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This story contains descriptions of fatal violence against a transgender person.
Students at the University of Washington are criticizing the school for continuing to host a Turning Points USA event days after the fatal stabbing of a 19-year-old transgender student.
The event, scheduled for the evening of May 13, is a “Pick Up the Mic” event with Chloe Cole, a right-wing detransitioner who actively opposes access to gender-affirming care. According to an Instagram post from Turning Points USA UW, the event is produced in collaboration with the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, a conservative nonprofit focused on higher education. “Pick Up the Mic” events were popularized by the late TPUSA co-founder Charlie Kirk with a format that invites students on college campuses to debate a featured speaker.
“Considering your group’s hateful rhetoric surrounding transgender individuals may have contributed to a violent death in our community, I would say postponing or cancelling this event is the only appropriate response,” one commenter wrote under the TPUSA event flyer on Instagram.
“A trans student was murdered last night, please cancel this event,” another commenter wrote.
The University of Washington did not immediately respond to requests for comment on student criticism of the TPUSA event.
The victim, whose identity has yet to be released by the University of Washington or Seattle Police Department pending notification of next-of-kin, was found dead on Sunday evening in the laundry room of Nordheim Court, an off-campus student apartment complex that is privately managed but affiliated with the university. Seattle Police Department Detective Eric Muñoz initially said that the victim was “believed to be a 19-year-old transgender female.”
“While investigators have not yet identified a suspect or a motive, I want to recognize that when violence affects a trans person it can be especially worrying to our LGBTQIA+ community members,” UW President Robert J. Jones said in a statement on Monday after the news broke. “Our Division of Student Life is reaching out to students affected and providing support and resources to help them through this very difficult ordeal.”
Following this statement, some students have been pushing back, demanding that the TPUSA event scheduled for Wednesday either be rescheduled or canceled altogether given the group’s embrace of anti-trans rhetoric.
“And yet they keep inviting turning point to campus…?” one student commented under an Instagram post by student newspaper The Daily about Jones’ statement on the homicide.