Queer protestors shut down on-campus speech by anti-LGBTQ+ educational leader

Ryan Walters, the right-wing superintendent of the Oklahoma State Department of Education (OSDE), only spoke for about 12 minutes before ending his talk at Oklahoma State University (OSU) yesterday. During his on-campus appearance, pro-LGBTQ+ protestors angrily shouted him down, calling him a “fascist” and saying that the blood of a recently deceased nonbinary student was on his hands.

Walters had been invited to speak by a campus chapter of Turning Point USA. The organization’s founder, Charlie Kirk, has attacked transgender people and described opposition to religious exemptions as “fascism.” About 100 people attended Walters’ talk in the campus engineering building. Walters spoke without a mic and barely got a word out before protestors began shouting.

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“Drag queens are a provocation. It’s been an escalating provocation.”

“You’re a power-hungry fascist,” one protestor in particular yelled, adding, “Nex’s blood is on your hands!”

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The protestor’s latter comment referred to Nex Benedict, a 16-year-old transgender Native American student who died on February 8 after an alleged assault by three bullies in his high school bathroom. Community members blame Walters’s anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric and policies for contributing to an atmosphere of hostility toward queer students and harming the mental health of queer youth.

Other protestors yelled, “Where is your budget? Where is your staff?” These comments referenced the fact that all of OSDE’s lawyers, Walters’ Chief of Staff Jenna Thomas, Executive Director of Accreditation Ryan Pieper, and Program Manager of Grant Development and Compliance Pamela Smith-Gordon are just some of over 130 staff members who have left OSDE since Walters took office, KFOR reported.

Walters has also neglected, as promised, to send an annual budget to state legislators by last January. Democratic state legislators have said that Walters’ new OSDE rules, including one against “pornographic” LGBTQ+ materials in schools, have been made without legislative oversight and are, thus, unenforceable.

Nevertheless, at his brief on-campus talk, Walters said, “Never back down to a woke mob…. They think they can yell, they think they can scream, they can throw a hissy fit.” Then, 12 minutes into his talk — most of which was drowned out by yelling protestors — Walters backed down.

After unsuccessfully fielding a few questions from members of Turning Point USA, an event organizer went up to Walters, spoke in his ear, and after, Walters waved to the crowd, mouthed “Thank you,” and was ushered out the back door by the group’s members, KFOR reported.

Walters, who wants to ban LGBTQ+ books but teach the Bible in public school history classes, has previously pushed the transphobic lie about schools providing litterboxes to students who identify as cats. He also referred to teachers’ unions as “terrorist organizations” and illegally tried to make rules banning LGBTQ+ books and transgender bathroom access in schools. He has appeared at events hosted by Moms for Liberty, a right-wing anti-LGBTQ+ “parent’s rights” group that has been called an extremist hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Walters also appointed Chaya Raichik, an anti-LGBTQ+ activist who goes by Libs of Tik Tok online, as a Library Media Advisor for the state (even though she has no educational experience, doesn’t reside in Oklahoma, and has made posts that have led to bomb threats against students).