UW Complicit in the Murder of Juniper Blessing
A memorial for 19-year-old University of Washington student Juniper Blessing is shown on Monday, May 18, 2026, on the University of Washington campus in Seattle.
Image source: https://www.kuow.org/crime/2026-05-20/juniper-blessing-uw-student-fatally-stabbed-remembered-for-her-magnificent-voice
Author’s note: on June 29 Leahy was found unfit to stand trial, and has been placed in Western State Hospital. He returns to court this September.
On May 10th, a horrifying act of gender violence was perpetrated against 19 year old transgender student Juniper Blessing. A 31 year-old man and resident of Bellevue, Christopher Micheal Leahy, stalked Juniper and another student, following Juniper into a laundry room and stabbing her 40 times. Following Leahy's “voluntary surrender” to Bellevue Police and booking into King County jail, he has been charged with premeditated murder by the county's prosecutor’s office.
This appalling crime was committed just three days before Turning Point USA’s scheduled event on UW campus, where de-transitioner poster girl Chloe Cole was scheduled to speak. TPUSA is a registered student organization at the university and falls completely under the authority of the SAO (Student Activities Office). TPUSA is known for asserting “traditional values,” such as promoting the relegation of women to domestic labor, and combatting/attacking queer people as an affront to the social dominance of the male sex.
One would assume that following such a tragedy the SAO would cancel an event like this, and let the community mourn the loss of one of their own. That did not occur. Instead, it was due to pressure from organized students that the event organizers were forced to “postpone.” Chloe Cole took to social media to allege “antifa militias” were the cause for the decision and that the event would return.
On Wednesday, May 16, UW student activists organized a victory rally and memorial for Juniper to celebrate TPUSA’s cancellation. A crowd of one hundred plus community members gathered to listen to multiple speakers, with one transgender student leading the crowd in chants. Members of the crowd covered the ground and the surrounding brick buildings in pro-trans slogans, written in pastel chalk.
The priorities of UW leadership immediately following this event and the tragedy of Juniper's death have been to hire workers to powerwash the area, say nothing about this horrific act of violence, do nothing to ensure safety for transgender students, and continue class schedules uninterrupted. This heartless course of action was spearheaded by UW President Robert J. Jones, prioritizing the university’s image by trying to erase the conflict between the interests of the youth and the university’s subservience to capital.
Those who are responsible for the heinous murder must be punished. And above all, there needs to be state support for those who suffer daily and are marginalized under this exploitative system.
The school of the capitalists and their state will not protect you from the gender violence that bourgeois society perpetuates, but will erase you to protect that very same society. A society of sexual inequality, gender violence, and exploitation cannot continue to exist. To the youth, your future must be fought for and won. Your very lives depend on it.