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Cocks Not Glocks: University Reacts to Students Protesting Guns With Dildos

A University of Texas–Austin alum plans to protest the state's new campus carry law—which will allow students to carry concealed weapons on campus—by encouraging students to carry dildos instead.
Photo by Vera Lair via Stocksy

At the University of Texas–Austin, students are reimagining the art of the protest. While most demonstrations utilize DIY signage and megaphones, UT alum Jessica Jin has upped the stakes with politically charged sex toys.

Jin plans to lead a protest against Texas's newly enacted campus carry statute, signed into law by the state's republican governor Greg Abbott. On the Facebook page for the rally, Jin writes, "The State of Texas has decided that it is not at all obnoxious to allow deadly concealed weapons in classrooms, however it DOES have strict rules about free sexual expression, to protect your innocence."

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Texas, indeed, is strict on both sexual expression and health. Abortion clinics in the state are disappearing by the day, and women are waiting up to 20 days to receive an abortion. And on campus, Jin continues on the event's Facebook page, "You would receive a citation for taking a DILDO to class before you would get in trouble for taking a gun to class." So she's doing just that—getting as many students as she can to proudly carry faux phalluses—"to offer people a visual representation of what it would be like if we all carried guns."

Read More: Women Waiting 20 Days for an Abortion in Texas Thanks to This Law

As of today, more than 5,800 people have agreed to participate in the event, and many more have been actively proliferating the hashtag #CocksNotGlocks. "It should look ridiculous to you. That is the point," she told the Houston Chronicle.

The university's director of communications Gary Susswein had of course heard about the viral protest, which is planned to take place at the start of the next school year. While Jin warns students to participate in the demonstration at their own risk (displays of obscenity are considered a punishable misdemeanor in Texas), the university's administration says they have no plans to stop anyone from carrying dildos on campus en masse.

"We would classify it as a political protest. Students have a right to free speech, like all Texas citizens," says Susswein. "We've been working with both students and professors to figure out the best way to implement the new campus carry law. It's not an issue of agreeing or disagreeing with it as a state university, but we're in the process of figuring out how to enact the law on campus and keep all students safe," he says. The law gives public universities some discretion to regulate campus carry.

When asked about the protest and the campus carry law in general, Governor Abbott did not respond.