Cal Poly Professor Warns Students Not to Attend ‘Dangerous’ TPUSA Event with Chloe Cole, ‘Billboard Chris’
An assistant professor at Cal Poly, a university in Southern California, sent an email warning students not to attend an event hosted by the Turning Point USA (TPUSA) chapter at the school featuring detransitioner Chloe Cole and “Billboard Chris” an activist for children’s rights.
Maya Hislop, has a keen interest in African American Literature, 20th & 21st-century gender studies, sexual violence and misogynoir, carceral studies, prison abolition, media studies, race, gender, and class, according to her profile on Cal Poly’s website, where she also clearly state her preferred pronouns. She has taught courses such as Harlem & Beyond: African American Literature, Reading Rape and White Supremacy, the Introduction to African American Literature, and Black Women Write Abolition.
In an email sent to her students, Hislop discouraged them from attending an event hosted by the TPUSA chapter at the college, calling it an “ultra-conservative campus group.” The event, titled “A Dad & a Detransitioner’s Take on the Transgender Movement” is scheduled to take place on Tuesday, December 5, on the college campus. Hislop claimed that the event would potentially spread “lies” regarding transgenderism — despite one of the speakers, Cole, being a former transgender-identifying teenager herself.
“This event seems like it will be spreading lies about the trans community rather than engaging with their need for protection, justice, and liberation,” the assistant professor said in her email. “This is especially dangerous when Black trans women are murdered and/or violated more often than any other group. More on that here on that if you’d like more information. And right now trans people are under attack legislatively, see here and here.”
After making these claims, Hislop then told students about the Cal Poly Pride Centers planned “counter-events” for anyone “feeling unsafe.” The flyer attached to the email advertised a counter-protest that would be taking place outside the venue for TPUSA’s chapter event.
In response to the email which was later posted on X, Billboard Chris posted, “Maya, I understand you won’t allow yourself to think rationally, but I’m trying to ‘liberate’ children from the ghoulish doctors and child abusers like yourself who teach them that they are born wrong.”
“See you December 5th! Come learn something,” he added.
In a previous interview with TPUSA, Cole explained that when she began speaking publicly about the “regret and pain” of what she had experienced throughout her transition and eventual detransition, people told her that she had “nobody but [herself] to blame” for that suffering. She explained that the transgender “community” has had a “really militant response” to events she has attended and projects she has undertaken to raise awareness about the medical transition process.
TPUSA contacted Cal Poly requesting clarity on the professor’s statements and will update this article accordingly as information is provided.
Researched and edited by Marisa Crate.
