Female Graduate Who Saw Harrison Butker's Bigoted Speech Explains What Went Down

Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker's recent commencement speech definitely didn't go over well online, but the crowd at Benedictine College was another story.

Days after the viral speech caused uproar on social media, Benedictine graduate Susannah Leisegang took to TikTok to talk about what it was like to hear the speech live at her commencement.

She said she and some other students "did boo" at the speech, but it was no match for the standing ovation he got for the misogynistic, sexist and homophobic speech.

*NSFW language*

In the speech, Butker spoke at length about how, despite their education, the greatest achievement the women gathered could reach would be to become wives and mothers instead of having careers.

He also railed against abortion rights and mocked the LGBTQ+ community, likening the yearly tradition LGBTQ+ Pride Month to one of the seven deadly sins.

Butker's comments are hardly surprising, however. As he said in his speech, he is an outspoken part of the Traditional Latin Mass movement, a conservative Catholic faction that opposes the Pope for supposedly being too liberal.

The movement has been subject to scrutiny by the FBI because some members have been found to be tied to far-right white nationalist and antisemitic groups.

That doesn't make Butker's rhetoric any less shocking, of course, and Leisegang said that having to sit at what is supposed to be a joyous occasion and listen to him was deeply upsetting.

She said:

“Yeah, it was f---ing horrible. Some of us did boo. Me and my roommate definitely did.”

Butker was certainly not without his fans and supporters, however, and it sounds like they were in the majority by a wide margin.

As Leisegang put it:

"There was a standing ovation from everyone in the room except from me, my roommate and about 10-15 other women.”

Leisegang acknowledged that Benedictine is a "conservative" Catholic college located in Kansas, so support for Butker's comments wasn't exactly surprising.

Still, she said the response, particularly from male students, was "horrible."

“A lot of the men were like, 'f--- yeah.' They were excited but it was horrible. Most of the women were looking back and forth like what the f--- is going on?”

She, like many online, also found it strange and ridiculous that Butker used a commencement speech, of all things, to grandstand about his political beliefs.

“Like did he just come here to speak about politics and his views on women? That’s all you got for graduation commencement speech? You kidding?”

On social media, Leisegang's video reignited much of the criticism against Butker's comments.

For her part, Leisegang said she is not taking Butker's comments to heart. "I’m excited for what my career brings me," she said in her video, "and, no, I’m not a f---ing homemaker."