The sudden and violent death of the American activist Charlie Kirk, who rallied a youth movement and held celebrity status among his fans, has sparked fierce debate over his political legacy.

The 31-year-old’s young supporters appreciated his conservative Christian values and frank opinions. Speaking to the BBC, many were in tears as they remembered a man who listened to them and understood their concerns.

His views were polarising on the college campuses where he held large events, and his provocative speeches would draw crowds of vocal opponents as well as fans.

Kirk was a strong supporter of gun rights, vehemently opposed abortion, was critical of transgender rights and promoted false claims about Covid-19. He wasn’t shy when it came to expressing his views – and his detractors also didn’t hold back.

Encouraging and taking part in fierce, open debates was central to both his professional success and his personal worldview. “When people stop talking, that’s when you get violence,” Kirk says in a video that has been widely shared since his death.

“When people stop talking,” he adds, “that’s when civil war happens, because you start to think the other side is so evil and they lose their humanity.”

Now, both supporters and opponents have been left shaken after he was killed by a single shot on stage while debating at a university in Utah.

“I am sad, distraught,” said the left-wing influencer Dean Withers, 21, who is known for posting about political issues and debating conservatives, including Kirk.

In an emotional video posted to his millions of followers, Withers said gun violence “is always disgusting, always vile and always abhorrent”.

Many of the tributes referencing gun violence openly pushed back on disturbing comments online which implied Kirk deserved to be shot because of his position on gun rights, which included the view that more people should own weapons and some shooting deaths were inevitable.

Those comments also reflect a broader conversation in the wake of his death. As people paid tribute to Kirk and shared condolences to his wife and children, many also stressed that regardless of the person’s viewpoints political violence is never justifiable.

Withers, for example, said he never agreed with Kirk’s ideas, but stressed this should never have happened.

“It should come as no shock that I think Charlie Kirk was a bad person – I’ve made that very clear over the last year,” he said. “But does that mean I think he deserves to lose his life? No.”

“On campus today, I have had many conversations with people, and everyone agrees it is shocking,” Adam Sarr, a student in Cleveland, Ohio, told the BBC.

“Most people I’ve spoken to don’t agree with him politically but we are very disturbed by what happened,” he said.

Beyond the immediate shock and the tributes, some have also begun debating Kirk’s legacy as one of America’s foremost political activists. Many are wrestling with the impact of a man who attracted fervent crowds, bringing young people into politics and conservative Christian thinking, while at the same time shocking many with his provocative opinions.

Kirk spoke of his family – a wife and two children – and was an unapologetic defender of his evangelical Christianity.

“He was one of the main people who really helped me to be bold about my Christian faith,” influencer Savanna Stone, from Florida, told the BBC.

The 20 year old, who got married two years ago, is a self-described “tradwife” – a traditional wife, who embraces stereotypical gender roles with her husband, something Kirk believed in.

Stone said she had been nervous to publicly talk about her faith and traditional values.

“Feminism has really hurt the nuclear family and has hurt women,” she said, adding that she has been heavily criticised for talking openly about her beliefs.

“Charlie Kirk made me think more critically about feminism,” Stone added.

It was in debates that Kirk gained many loyal supporters. They could clearly hear his ideas, and he was surrounded by other young people on all sides of the political landscape – an environment that often produced explosive viral videos of his exchanges and rebuttals.

Sixteen-year-old Ellie, from Brooklyn, New York City, told the BBC that she and her friends used to “get angry” when they saw these clips.

“When we found out about his death, I wanted to know if I misjudged him, so I looked again on YouTube,” she said.

“But I found the way he talks to people in a debate is not opening up any genuine discussion – especially when he debates with a woman. He tends to talk very fast and talk over them,” she said.

“Everyone I know is horrified by his shooting,” the teenager added. “Nobody should be shot for saying their ideas.”

Julia Pierce, who has been a member of Kirk’s organisation, Turning Point USA, for more than 10 years, said Kirk would be remembered for giving young conservatives in America the confidence to be themselves.

“It used to be that for young people it was cool to be a Democrat. But he made it cool to be a Trump supporter and to wear the Maga hat and live your life with traditional family values,” she told the BBC.

Activist Chandler Crump, 20, who first met Kirk when he was 14 and has been to every Turning Point national conference since, feels similarly.

“We were young black leaders wearing Maga hats and he said it doesn’t matter if you are black or white,” Chandler said.

“Political figures tend to speak down to us – but he did not. He paid attention to us. That’s why young people listened to him.”

Kirk’s stance on gay and transgender rights was particularly polarising.

He opposed same-sex marriage and argued against gender care for transgender people, often citing his Christian faith on these issues.

“I believe marriage is one man one woman,” he wrote in 2019.

“Also gay people should be welcome in the conservative movement. As Christians we are called to love everyone,” he said.

But last month, Kirk, who vocally opposed Pride month and celebrations, attracted criticism for writing on X: “It should be legal to burn a rainbow or [Black Lives Matter] flag in public.”

Activist Josh Helfgott said Kirk was “the loudest homophobe in America, and his words caused immense harm to LGBTQ+ people”.

Referring to one of Kirk’s podcast episodes where he called for a ban on gender care, Helfgott said: “This was more than political theatre. It was a dangerous, real-world assault on LGBTQ+ safety and dignity.”

Whether they agreed with Kirk or not, the young people the BBC spoke to all said his killing marked a potentially dangerous turning point in freedom of speech and expression.

“Political violence like this affects all of us, it doesn’t just affect the people that you disagree with,” said Tilly Middlehurst, a University of Cambridge student whose ‘gotcha’ moment during a debate with Kirk in May went viral.

“This isn’t a step in the right direction. This isn’t fighting fascism,” she said. “This is not what politics should look like.”