Turning Point USA postpones University of Washington event following death of transgender woman

Caitlyn Freeman, The Seattle Times on May 13, 2026

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SEATTLE — Turning Point USA postponed an event at the University of Washington featuring a speaker opposing gender-affirming care for minors after community outcry following the killing of a transgender student in student housing.

A 19-year-old female student was found in the laundry room of her off-campus apartment around 10:10 p.m. by university police, according to a Seattle Police blotter post. She lived in the Nordheim Court apartments in the 5000 block of 25th Avenue Northeast. While the King County medical examiner’s office has yet to identify the woman, it’s been widely reported that she was transgender.

Some students and community members began criticizing the university’s Turning Point chapter, as it was slated to host Chloe Cole, an activist who vocally opposes gender-affirming care for minors, on Wednesday. A protest against the chapter and Cole was scheduled for Wednesday in response.

Victor Balta, a spokesperson for the university, said the national Turning Point organization postponed the event, not the local chapter.

“The national TPUSA organization made the decision to cancel the event that was scheduled for today,” Balta wrote in an email. “UW Student Activities Office leadership was in contact with the UW chapter of TPUSA about the appropriateness of the timing of such an event given the recent killing of a member of our LGBTQIA+ community.”

Cole posted Tuesday evening on Instagram that she would not be speaking at the university. Cole, according to The New York Times, was living as a transgender boy for years before de-transitioning. She went on to sue Kaiser Permanente for allowing her to receive gender-affirming procedures as a minor.

“Antifa has assembled a local militia in their own words to shut down this event, their actions, their explicit threats on my life have raised this event to national attention, a level of attention our security team and the local PD are frankly unprepared for,” Cole said in her video. “Before Charlie Kirk’s assassination, I think I would have been less careful, but the times have changed, and speaking on a university campus in 2026 can come with consequences. We are postponing this event because of this reality.”

The chapter took to Instagram on Wednesday to confirm the postponement.

“In light of this tragedy and by an overwhelming surge of violent threats directed at our chapter, threats that appear deliberately designed to falsely associate our peaceful event with the murder, we have made the difficult decision to postpone our upcoming event with Chloe Cole,” the post read.

Seattle Police Department deferred questions regarding any reported threats to university police. Balta has not yet responded to questions about the threats. The Seattle Times has also reached out to Cole and Turning Point USA’s national and local representatives for specifics on what threats were made.

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