Wednesday night, hundreds of students joined together to protest speaker Milo Yiannopoulos and his presentation, “Pray the Gay Away,” which was held in the Thomas Building. This demonstration follows a Change.org petition that received more than 12,000 signatures and demanded Penn State prevent the well-documented provocateur from speaking on campus.

Hundreds of people joined the protest to show their support for the LGBTQIA+ community, and some of our photographers were there to capture the demonstration.

“Penn State students give them hell. It is right to rebel!” one protester chanted.

Students lined the streets with homemade signs and flags to show their opinions.

A small group of others tried to voice their support for Yiannopoulos, but they were drowned out by the larger group of students.

Across campus, Penn State’s Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity hosted an opposing event, “Love Is Louder,” to “inspire love and community within the Penn State student body.” By 8 p.m., lines to get in were so long that they stretched across the HUB twice.

Since the event was originally announced, dozens of student organizations, the borough of State College, and even Penn State itself spoke out against Yiannopoulos’s troubled past and controversial comments. Some took issue with the event being funded by about $18,000 in student fees.