Protesters stand outside of the classroom in the Communications Facility where Hawkins was speaking on Thursday, May 9. Jacob Carver // AS Review
By MacKenzie Dexter
Correction issued 6/4: The student that Hawkins misgendered is nonbinary, not male-identifying.
Western students and community members gathered in support and protest of Kristan Hawkins and her Lies Feminists Tell presentation and Q&A.
On Thursday, May 9, Hawkins, president of Student’s for Life of America, shared her views on abortion, birth control and sex education. The WWU Students for Life hosted the free event in the Communications Facility. The Associated Students Queer Resource Center and Disability Outreach Center provided resources for conversation and support before and after the presentation.
Hawkins tours college campuses to share and discuss her pro-life platform. Individuals in opposition and support of Hawkin’s presentation shared their views through signs and conversations inside and outside of the presentation.
“I’m here because I’m hoping to have a productive and honest discussion about this important issue,” Erik Fussell, Western student, said.
Students and community members were able to interact with Hawkins during a Q&A. While some students felt they got their questions answered, some students felt their questions were overlooked.
“There’s a lot of frustration,” Sanne De Boer, Western student, said. “I think especially with the way that the question section was handled and how a lot of student’s voices were kind of shut down, students were misgendered, their opinions were slaughtered basically by her. She didn’t have any regard for being respectful and we all tried to show her as much respect as we could and it just didn’t seem like it was really reciprocated in a professional manner.”
According to Sage Pollack, a Western student who asked Hawkins a question regarding contraceptives, she felt that her question and the answer she received was not what she expected and not delivered in a calm way.
“I remained calm and just tried to follow up with a question and she basically told me I shouldn’t be living the lifestyle that I’m living,” Pollack said. “It’s frustrating when you’re trying to engage in a conversation and the person doesn’t want to engage back.”
Other students chimed in on Hawkins’s response to Pollack’s question along with other answers audience members received.
“It was overwhelming and handled horrifically because obviously they knew that a lot of other students were going to come and I think that they should have accommodated for that instead of just accommodated for the side of the speaker,” Gloria Guizar, Western student, said.
However, there were students who were more satisfied with the presentation and Q & A afterwards.
“I think overall it went a lot better than I expected it to,” Jordi Parsons, Western student, said. “There were some things she said that I agreed with and some things she said that I didn’t agree with. I do think it could have been more of a discussion versus people talking over each other. It gave a good insight to how Western feels.”
Students who attended the presentation discussed how important it was for them to have a speaker talk at the university who aligned with their views.
“It was really cool we could have that happen and it not get shut down,” Peter Condyles, Western student, said. “We gave her a platform to speak and people listened and that was really great. We’re on a university campus where we should be able to listen to all sides of the conversations even if you don’t agree.”
Western student, Jacob Thornton, considers himself pro-choice and came to the presentation to hear others arguments. He thought for the most part she expressed her opinions well.
“It didn’t feel like she was talking about the issue that she was here to talk about. It felt a little more boastful, bragful, look at all I’ve done,” Thornton said. “That was a little bit disappointing because I was hoping to hear more about pro-life arguments, see what those arguments were, to understand more of where she is coming from.”
Thornton said he felt that Hawkins became very hostile during the Q&A and thought she could have composed herself better when responding.
Levi Eckman, AS VP for academic affairs, briefly attended the presentation before being asked to leave due to the needed space for students with questions, he was told.
“I was asked to leave the room where questioning was occurring, shortly after speaking to Ms. Hawkins about my disapproval of her presence on our campus,” Eckman said. “However, I was told it was because they were ‘attempting to keep the landing area clear for more students to enter and ask questions’ which initially sounded understandable, but when I exited the room, I saw no more students coming in, and in fact the event ended about ten minutes after I left.”
While Eckman said that even if him being asked to leave wasn’t intentional, he was unimpressed with the manner it was done in.
“I imagine if it was intentional, it was because I made a strong statement and wanted her to digest the information I was giving her after hearing what she had to say, I as a student, was not welcoming of her presence on our campus,” Eckman said.
Eckman said he was not pleased with the platform given to Hawkins or her responses to students.
“I would like to see a space where we can discuss the questions asked by these students, in a very real manner,” Eckman said. “I would like to see our campus community engage in a real dialogue about Planned Parenthood, but there must be limits. Ms. Hawkins committed egregious acts such as deliberately misgendering students, and then following up on these instances on her public Twitter account this morning. This is unacceptable, and not someone our campus should condone, or even complacent to.”
During the presentation, Hawkins misgendered a nonbinary student who asked a question about rights of individuals who do not identify as women but have a womb.
“There are only two genders. Women have wombs. You are a woman. Next question,” Hawkins said.
Hawkins wrote a tweet the following day reiterating the comment.
“Let me say it again for those at Western Washington University who attended my #liesfeministstell speech and seemed to never hear it before…only women can get pregnant. Only women can be mothers,” Hawkins said in a tweet.
“I think the most valuable piece of the event was the Q&A Section of the evening, where some of our most amazing campus students asked Ms. Hawkins important questions,” Eckman said. The questions asked by our WWU Students took remarkable courage, and it’s disappointing Ms. Hawkins chose not to speak to any topic that didn’t overtly further her extremely regressive agenda that she seemingly parades as though they are facts, which they certainly are not.”