Hazel Woodrow
Canadian Anti-Hate Network
Warning: This article contains graphic depictions of sexual assault and gendered violence. Click here for a nationwide list of resources dealing with sexual violence.
Kevin Ian Gallagher, a private piano teacher based out of Oakville and recent graduate of the University of Toronto Faculty of Music, has been identified as a rape-promoting white supremacist known as “dirt kevin.”
Between November 2017 and August 2018, Gallagher posted over 8,000 messages in Discord servers for fans of white nationalists Nick Fuentes and James Allsup. Over the ten months we are aware of, Gallagher made countless posts about raping and brutalizing women, torturing and killing people of colour, and incessantly praised mass murderers.
In one instance, posting from his phone on the train home, Gallagher claimed in graphic detail that he had just raped a young woman when he was drunk.
On May 7, 2018, Gallagher posted, “I held her down and took off her bra and shit...She actually didn't want me to and I just held her down and did it...She wanted it...I raped her...Raping her turned me on.”
In a gross display of violent misogyny, some of Gallagher’s fellow posters took the opportunity to instead turn the narrative around and make fun of the situation, claiming Gallagher himself was assaulted.
“She raped you,” a user by the name of ChillS said. “She took advantage of you while you were in a poor state of mind. It's okay you're having trouble coming to grips with the fact that you were raped.”
“I literally overpowered and lifted up her dress and saw everything while she was fighting,” Gallagher replied.
“I hit women on the head with a brick and drag ‘em into a dark alley to do sexual acts on their unconscious body - consensually,” he wrote in May 2018, adding a month later, “you can't refuse anal if you’re not alive”
Some posts make mention of hitting a woman in the head with a cinder block, while others talk about his desire to “beat my wife so hard” she dies, and even going to the morgue to engage in necrophilia.
“Take a shit down her rat gullet,” reads another of his comments, in response to an image he posted of a young woman. “Is it consent if you ask but don't wait for an answer?”
Praise For Mass Murder and Serial Killers
In addition to being virulently misogynistic, Gallagher’s fantasies and beliefs were also frequently violently racist, including posting about whipping a Black person as if he was an enslaver. He then inferred that slavery never occurred, writing, “libt***s think slavery actually happened.”
Gallagher repeatedly praised and appeared to idolize Dylann Roof, the white supremacist who murdered nine Black people in their church. “Dylann Roof was dumb but I sympathize with his plight,” he wrote in June 2018.
He also posted repeatedly that Roof is “cool” and “woke,” and defended his actions, saying “he didn’t murder children...most of them were middle aged… youngest was a 20 something nog thug.”
Gallagher posted numerous images praising Roof in Fuentes’ #fashion channel.
In addition to Roof, Gallagher also praised the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooter, writing “Adam Lanza was pretty smart and woke.” He repeated the compliment multiple times.
About serial killer Ted Bundy, Gallagher said “I like Ted Bundy,” and posted an image of him in prison.
“My two heroes are Mr. Bross (himself) and [Las Vegas] mass murderer Steven [sic] Paddock,” Gallagher wrote. “Mr. Bross” refers to Fuentes.
A user posting under the name Charlie Cigar replied, “I thought Kevin would’ve liked the serial rapists over Paddock tbh.”
“Charles Manson was Jesus and we killed him again,” Gallagher wrote on August 6, 2018.
“Just A Joke”
From posts about sex with corpses to calling for a “good old fashion women killing spree,” many of the most outrageously gruesome posts appear to reflect the irony-poisoned discourse that Gallagher’s hero -- and the server’s namesake -- Nicholas Fuentes, is well known for.
A viewer of Fuentes’ livestream once asked how to “punish” his wife for “getting out of line.”
“Why don't you give her a vicious and forceful backhanded slap with your knuckles right across her face — disrespectfully — and make it hurt?” the streamer responded.
Seconds later, Fuentes added “No, I'm kidding, of course. Just kidding. Just a joke.”
After Gallagher and a handful of others had been spamming the server with violent fantasies of sexual assault (often referred to as “rapeposting” in the chats) the server for months, Fuentes wrote, “Stop rape posting. Some literal prostitute from my college and some other scorned woman are trying to fabricate a hit piece about me because mods haven’t been strict enough about enforcing the rules on this server. So please stop.”
Gallagher and the others were subsequently banned, but he was readmitted six weeks later, in June 2017.
The temporary ban took no wind out of Gallagher’s sails, and he was back to sharing extremely violent posts in a week.
It was after his temporary ban that Gallagher said, “Fuck small dogs...I’d torture them if I had some,” and joked about preying on children.
Controversially for an allegedly Catholic server, Gallagher endorsed “legalized killing [of] blacks through abortion” because the “n*gger babies” were “not of his tribe.”
“Kevin Will Be Arrested For Rape Sooner Or Later”
While the servers were predictably full of white supremacists, Gallagher’s ultraviolent misogynistic and racist posts earned him a degree of notoriety within the community.
Among dozens of comments interchangeably praising and lambasting him, two in particular stand out.
On July 18, 2018, a user named Marcus Antonius wrote, “Kevin will be arrested for rape sooner or later.”
“Women are in extreme danger any time they are within five miles of Kevin,” a poster by the name of Shid Vic said on September 6, 2018.
Gallagher was previously listed on Piano Teachers Connect as available to teach to students aged five and up. One profile suggests he offers in-person lessons from his home in Oakville, while another is for Skype.
His profile indicates that he “has experience [teaching students] with special needs.”
On August 8, 2018, Gallagher wrote, “The disabled deserve to be disparaged...they’re pathetic.” Earlier, in May, he posted, “speech impediment f*gs get the bullet.”
When reached for comment, Piano Teachers Connect said it is disabling Gallagher's profile while investigating the matter.
"Kevin has a preliminary listing on our site, but has not been approved to take on students with us yet. He has not signed a contract to teach with us, and has not been placed with any students as of this date," Director Jonah Cristall-Clarke said in a statement.
"He was listed on our website as a preliminary step in our application process, but he is neither an employee or a contractor."
When reached for comment by email, Gallagher responded, “I stopped believing in all that stuff three years ago and left it behind. Can't you let me live and work a fulfilling job without doing this? I'm completely on your side on the whole hate issue so you're not exposing someone who currently is hateful idk. I don't want this email published by the way. I'm just asking you to give me a chance to start over.”
CAHN had not agreed to an off-the-record conversation.
Gallagher did not respond in time for publication to follow up questions regarding how he has changed and made amends and his claim to have committed sexual assault.
The University of Toronto’s music faculty was recently the subject of an open letter penned by students who cite a history of misogyny, sexual harassment and assault. The open letter includes many signed and anonymous testimonials from students who report an environment of regular and constant sexual harassment during their enrollment, by both faculty and peers.
Additionally, a recent call to action from BIPOC women faculty members of the university’s Jazz program was posted to Instagram, detailing harassment and exclusion.
This article has been updated to indicate that Kevin Gallagher was an applicant with Piano Teachers Connect, not an employee. We apologize for this error.