UK student turns viral interview with ‘gun girl’ into fundraising push
A video of University of Kentucky students answering questions about bathroom use by transgender people by a conservative activist has now gone viral.
Kaitlin Bennett, who is frequently known as the Kent State “gun girl” after she posed with an AR-10 in her graduation pictures from the Ohio university, interviewed several UK students about the transgender bathroom issue last fall. But a tweet with a clip of those interviews resurfaced Sunday. Bennett is listed as a digital content producer for conservative web site Liberty Hangout.
In one of those interviews, UK student Michael Hawse is asked by Bennett what he thinks about urinals in women’s bathrooms. Hawse’s response was blunt: “I think people make too big a f-ing deal about it,” Hawse said. “I don’t really care.”
When Bennett pressed Hawse on whether tampons should be provided in men’s bathrooms, Hawse continues to say it is not his business.
“If a dude wants a tampon for some reason, he can have a tampon. That’s not my business,” Hawse said.
In an interview Monday, Hawse said he wanted to clarify that he didn’t think the issue Bennett was asking about was an unimportant one. He said that in situations like the interview, some try to make people mad at one another rather than focusing on issues that could bring people together.
When Hawse was approached by Bennett, he knew who she was and what she was known for, Hawse said. A few friends texted sometime after the interview to let Hawse know it had been posted in November, but until a few days ago it hadn’t gotten much attention.
“I was at the UK game and my phone was going crazy,” Hawse said. “I looked at half time and all my friends were texting me that this had gone viral. It was something that had happened so long ago I assumed it had kind of done what it would do.”
But the clip of Hawse’s interview, along with interviews of others on UK’s campus, hit Twitter with renewed vigor on Friday. One thread of tweets was sent by the Twitter handle @LilithLovett. By Monday afternoon, the tweet with Hawse’s comments had more than 587,000 likes and more 130,000 retweets.
The video of Hawse’s comments had been viewed more than 19.6 million times on Twitter as of Monday afternoon.
Hawse responded to his new fame via Twitter on Monday.
“I don’t make a habit of paying attention to what others are doing in the bathroom.”
He later tweeted a Venmo account to raise money for DanceBlue Golden Matrix Fund, which raises money for pediatric cancer research.
As of Monday afternoon, Hawse had raised about $500, he said.
Hawse is a sophomore at UK studying political science. He plans to go to law school with the goal of eventually helping disenfranchised people.
While Hawse doesn’t “begrudge” what Bennett does, he said that there is a need for serious journalism rather than people who press on hot button issues. There should instead be a focus on difficult issues affecting UK’s campus, like student debt and hunger, he said.
“People making a living off stoking the flames of anger ... they don’t advance the goals of UK or the country,” Hawse said.
This story was originally published January 13, 2020 at 12:44 PM.
