DENTON, Texas (LifeSiteNews) — A conservative college student and a father at the heart of an ongoing battle over “transgender” children were evacuated by police from the University of North Texas (UNT) campus Wednesday evening to protect them from screaming leftist protesters storrming the halls.
For years, Jeffrey Younger has been locked in a legal battle with ex-wife Anne Georgulas over the latter’s efforts to “transition” their prepubescent son James into a “girl” named “Luna.” Georgulas has accused Younger of child abuse for refusing to treat his son as such, even as she has discussed subjecting James to “hormone suppression” between ages eight and nine, despite Younger’s insistence that his son prefers to remain a boy. Younger is currently running for a seat in the Texas House of Representatives.
The Daily Wire reported that on Wednesday evening Younger was attending a Young Conservatives of Texas event at UNT on transitioning children when the event was crashed by “at least” 70 protesters dressed in black, shouting epithets, and brandishing signs with messages about “hate speech.” Police entered the room to evacuate Younger and student Kelly Neidert, a Young Conservatives member who promoted the event. At one point, Neidert and an officer actually hid in a janitor’s closet to evade protesters.
Here's video footage from @kelly_neidert, a current member of the University of North Texas chapter of Young Conservatives of Texas who formerly served as the chapter's president, showing police escorting her from the building as protestors scream outside. pic.twitter.com/gjtiXeU7DZ
— Mary Margaret Olohan (@MaryMargOlohan) March 3, 2022
Here’s the moment Kelly finally got into a police car. Watch how the protestors react when they realize she’s getting away pic.twitter.com/nm3rZDnQvB
— Mary Margaret Olohan (@MaryMargOlohan) March 3, 2022
“Initially when we were first led out of the building to evacuate, I felt like everything was gonna be under control, but after I was chased into the building with a police officer, when we were in this janitor’s closet, I honestly was very scared,” Neidert told DW. “This stuff hasn’t ever really seemed scary to me. I guess I don’t really care about the backlash I received, but when I was literally hiding in a janitor’s closet with a police officer and the lights off with these people running in the hallway, screaming, I mean, at that point I was pretty scared for my life.”
Tensions continued outside of the building, when apparent confusion among officers on the scene initially prevented her from entering a police car with Younger. After an officer realized she wasn’t one of the protesters, “that officer starts chasing after the car and they were having some difficulty leaving because there were about, I’d say 150 people that were at the back of the building at that point, and so of course, all these people are swarming and not wanting the police car to leave,” she recounted.
“So we tried to get the car to let us in, but if they had opened the door for me, these protesters would’ve been able to get in,” Neidert continued. “So they were unable to open the door and that car just left. And so then I had these police officers running with me to these other police cars, but for some reason, nobody had the keys to the cars. It was pretty frantic. So we didn’t really have time to wait and figure out who had keys to which car. And so at that point, people have realized that it’s me out there. They started screaming my name and were chasing after us. And so we run into a nearby building and the police officer locks the door behind us.”
Police “had a whole plan to evacuate us and got us out of there,” Younger told DW. “I’m not sure I was afraid for my life, but I really thought we were going to get into it.”
It’s suspected that the intimidation display may have been the work of leftists following the Antifa group Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club, which tweeted that UNT protesters should be “proud of what you accomplished and wary of the media hype circulating your faces” before making its Twitter account
The incident follows left-wing outrage over a recent order by Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott directing the state to investigate surgical and chemical “gender transition” procedures performed on minors as child abuse. Since the order was issued, mainstream media headlines have teemed with misleading headlines accusing Abbott of criminalizing “gender-affirming medical care,” “bullying children,” insinuating that the state would start investigating any parent whose child “identifies” with the opposite sex, and even having a “death wish for trans kids.”
Before the incident, leftists began a petition to have Neidert expelled for “harassment towards the trans community,” stemming from a viral video of her being verbally attacked for printing out flyers for the event at the campus library. That petition has gained over 17,000 signatures; the altercation also elicited death threats against her.
A student at my university (University of North Texas) saw me and a friend printing flyers for our conservative club- he had a meltdown and stormed out of the library screaming at us. pic.twitter.com/O17BT0M28q
— Kelly (@kelly_neidert) February 17, 2022
Amid this inflammatory left-wing rhetoric, UNT president Neal Smatresk issued a statement giving lip service to “diversity of thought” and “honor[ing] our First Amendment rights, even when we don’t agree with others’ opinions,” while signaling that he shared left-wing activists’ disapproval and characterization of “those with intolerant views,” whom he endorsed “disempowering” by exercising the “freedom to express yourself and the freedom to walk away.”
“I know the last several days may have felt particularly difficult for the transgender members of our community, due to the intolerant views of a handful of campus members,” Smatresk said. “We have a variety of resources through our Division of Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Access to support you during your time at UNT, and we hope to offer you a safe place to heal and grow your support system.”
On March 3, Smatresk issued another statement declaring that “last night’s behavior by some individuals is not reflective of the UNT I know and love,” while echoing those individuals’ misrepresentation of the cause they were protesting as “criminalizing healthcare for transgender children.”