On March 18, 2025, Turning Point USA at Oakland — an OU-based student-run chapter of the conservative activist group Turning Point USA — brought detransaitioner guest speaker, Chloe Cole, to the Oakland Center. Cole is famous for her story of being a detransitioner (a.k.a. a person who was formerly transgender.)
According to their website, Turning Point USA is a non-profit organization that aims to empower college and high school students to “restore traditional American values like patriotism, respect for life, liberty, family, and fiscal responsibility.” The organization’s founder, Charlie Kirk, is a known conservative activist who, as recently as last year, called for gender-affirming care to be banned for the entire country.
The event, titled “Exposing the Trans Agenda,” brought around 50 attendants to Ballroom A on the second floor of the Oakland Center, but it also drew about the same number of protesters. The event was promoted by student representatives of TPUSA at Oakland, like Malachai Cattanach, who is the president of the student organization.
“We were kind of just browsing through speakers and thought it might be a fun message to bring to campus,” Cattanach said.
Cattanach echoes Cole’s sentiment on gender affirming care, rather than Kirk’s. Both believe that no one under the age of 18 should receive any treatment that includes HRT (hormone replacement therapy,) surgeries or puberty blockers. According to Cole, she received gender affirming care to transition female-to-male when she was a teenager and had undergone a double-mastectomy procedure at the age of 14.
Cole also believes that gender-affirming care should be less streamlined and more gatekept.
“It should be more of a drawn out, years long process of vetting — rather than letting everybody through the system,” Cole said in a Q&A after her talk.
For adults, the practice Cole is referring to is primarily labeled as informed consent — where patients who are 18 and older are told the benefits and risks of HRT and gender-affirming care.
While some widely recognized scientific institutions like the American Psychological Association (APA) have supported access to gender-affirming care for children and adults for years, more federally funded programs like the National Institutes of Health (NIH) could be at risk due to the current Trump administration’s stance on transgender issues.
Cole’s speech lasted for around thirty minutes and she stayed an additional hour after her talk was over to lead a Q&A portion of the event, fielding supporting and dissenting opinions. Most in the event appreciated her honesty when it comes to this topic, which is often seen as divisive.
“[Cole] is very well-versed in this and it is great hearing her input first-hand and it’s definitely a conversation that needs to be shared a bit more,” Jordan Simms, an OU student who attended the talk, said.
Others were there to see if there was any drama about to unfold.
“My initial reason for coming here is that I thought there were going to be a lot of protesters in the [ballroom] exactly,” Domenic Mullins, another OU student, said. “I wanted to see chaos but I gained something rather insightful and something more valuable…”
Cole additionally commented on the protestors that were outside, chanting and playing music during the event on the other side of the ballroom partition.
“I think a lot of these people have many misconceptions about me and the biggest one being that I hate transgender people,” Cole said. “I think ultimately what we are concerned about is the same thing: we’re all concerned about the safety, the livelihoods and the support of young people who are struggling. We may not agree on what that looks like, but I think it’s incredibly important that we have these open discussions coming from both sides in order to meet on common ground.”
Another popular conservative speaker, Riley Gaines, is being hosted by Oakland University’s chapter of NEW (Network of Enlightened Women) in the Oakland Center Ballroom C on April 15.
