Updated: Oct. 17, 2024 at 2:33 p.m.
CONTENT WARNING: This article references triggering topics such as transphobia and sexual misconduct. Please proceed with caution.
Turning Point USA (TPUSA) at SRU is hosting public figure Riley Gaines for her Take Back Title IX tour on Oct. 30 from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. in the alumni house. The free event will be open to the public.
Event promotion has caused controversy on campus due to Gaines’s political ideology. Her tour focuses on training women to stand up for what she feels is unjust: the participation of transgender women in female sports.
The Rocket gained input from Gaines herself, a gender scholar, and transgender students and allies to better understand what can be expected at the event.
Who is Riley Gaines?
Gaines is a championship swimmer and director of the Riley Gaines Center at the Leadership Institute.
“Men are men. Women are women. There’s no doubt we were created equal – but we’re not the same. That’s why I launched the Riley Gaines Center at the Leadership Institute. My team of Ambassadors and I are building a movement of students, athletes, and concerned citizens who are fed up with the attack on our freedoms and rights,” the Riley Gaines Center website says.
She first gained notoriety when competing in a prestigious college swimming competition against transgender athlete Lia Thomas.
Thomas, who was assigned male at birth, narrowly won first place in the competition. Gaines felt this was unfair due to the biology of male and female bodies.
“I can attest to the tears that I witnessed from finishers who missed being named an All-American [swimmer] by one place…to the extreme discomfort in the locker room from 18-year-old girls exposed to male body parts and having to undress with a male watching in the same room,” Gaines said on her website.
Gaines claimed this was a violation of Title IX, a landmark civil rights law that protects against gender discrimination in federally funded educational programs and activities.
In 2022, the Biden administration changed the law so that schools must allow transgender students to participate in activities and use amenities that align with their gender identity. Thus, Gaines titled her tour “Take Back Title IX.”
“[W]hat I’m there to talk about is a little bit more in-depth of me and the situation that allowed me to have the platform that I now have…the unfairness of the competition…the silencing that we faced,” Gaines said. “More important is answering the question of, why is this happening? How deeply is this rooted? How this has spread beyond just sports and what we can do about it as everyday common sense Americans who intuitively know that men and women are different.”
This will be Gaines’s first time at SRU, but she has heard of the university before.
She spoke of a personal friendship with mayor Longo. “He has been someone who has filled me in on Slippery Rock, what the student body is like, what the administration is like, and so I’m very, very excited for my upcoming visit,” she said.
Gaines feels the talk is especially relevant to the Slippery Rock community during election season.
“Pennsylvania in particular is a very key state leading up to November…encouraging people to not shy away from the conversation [is important]. As younger people we don’t want to get labeled as every phobia or ism they will throw our way for stating this biological fact,” she said.
She claimed it would be a good use of her time if she inspired even one person to vote.
“I will not be there to tell people who to vote for, or anything like that, but it is worth noting that there is one candidate who has made it very clear that he will reverse course from the disastrous and destructive policies that the current administration has put into place,” she said. “And we have another candidate, another ticket, who will be this current administration on steroids.”
She claimed people have been largely supportive of the tour so far, despite a few oppositional protests. “College students in particular are pretty desperate to hear the truth,” Gaines said. “This is actually a unifying issue…open[ed] the eyes of a lot of people to the harm that’s being done when we deny the very real and immutable existence of women.”
The Riley Gaines Center website claims: “I am not anti-trans. I’m pro-woman.”
Gaines said she does not identify with the label trans-exclusionary radical feminist (TERF), though several of her colleagues do.
“I think ‘radical feminist’ implies certain things about other topics like abortion, and I feel strongly that human life is human life, but I would feel comfortable calling myself a feminist for sure,” she said.
An academic perspective
Emily Keener is an SRU psychology professor who does not identify as LGBTQ+ but has studied gender for over 20 years. They contacted The Rocket with concerns about misinformation potentially spreading via the Gaines event.
“I’m not somebody who thinks that speakers on campus should be censored. My concern, though, is: is there an opportunity for debate, or is it just one-sided?” Keener said. “I don’t know what Riley Gaines is going to say, but…I looked at her interview that she did with Joe Rogan, and I will say that it was not just a scholarly debate on trans issues in sports, it was, there was a lot of transphobia, there was a lot of things that were misinformation, and that is problematic.”
Keener said some of the transphobic language includes using he/him pronouns for the swimmer Gaines competed against and referring to the issue as “men in women’s sports.”
“The data is that…gender affirmation does save lives,” Keener explained. “When you use their chosen pronouns, take other affirming steps like names and seeing them as they see themselves and validating their gender, it saves lives.”
Keener believes many of these issues distract from other inequalities women face in sports such as unequal pay and rape culture.
“This goes back to this misinformation, this boogeyman, this look over here, trans women are dangerous,” they said. “That’s creating a false narrative…they make it about culture wars, and that’s not their real platform. That’s how they’re manipulating you.”
Keener then disagreed with previous statements Gaines has made claiming no amount of hormones or surgery can change what it means to be a woman.
“This is neuroscience…I won’t say every single person in psychology agrees, but I will say that there is very, very, very strong evidence…that male and female brains are indistinguishable…male and female hormones, that’s a false dichotomy.”
Keener explained that sex is not binary either, and males and females both have testosterone and estrogen. They also referenced cultures with more than two genders.
“I think it’s dangerous in our society to overemphasize gender and sex…men are from Mars and women are from Venus, but men and women aren’t that different. They are more like South Dakota, North Dakota.”
A response
Transgender students and allies at SRU have expressed distaste for the event.
“I am repulsed by her as a person, and vehemently reject her rhetoric and views,” Ryan Wajert, a transgender ally and member of both TransACTION and SRU College progressives, said. “Her and her friends want to eradicate the people I care about.”
Bella Raines, a TransACTION and RockOUT e-board member, shared her perspective as a transgender woman.
“If we’re encouraging people that transgender people shouldn’t have rights [or] be included in women’s spaces, then that’s not okay at all,” Raines said. “I’m not going to the event. I feel like if I were to go, people could see me and start to question me (and potentially hurt me with transphobic slurs).”
An anonymous nonbinary student and member of TransACTION said they will also be sitting out the event for their safety.
“This event makes me feel very anxious about how trans people could be mistreated due to misinformation. We already have struggles with this, and I’m really worried this event will just make it worse,” they said.
The nonbinary student clarified that Slippery Rock is safer for transgender people than other places, but they have still overheard misinformation and hateful rhetoric. They said Gaines should not be allowed to speak because her words fall under hate speech, not free speech.
“I can’t stop anyone from expressing their freedom of speech, but I feel that this is not right for the LGBTQ+ community,” Raines said.
She said the school could intervene by educating students on transgender issues in DEI classes, while Wajert proposed better communication about services offered to transgender students.
“I understand as a state school they are largely handcuffed, and I respect free speech. However, I find [Gaines’s] presence disgusting…I’d be content with no political speakers on campus, regardless of affiliation,” Wajert said.
He is correct about the constitutional obligation of the university to allow speakers of all kinds.
The SRU website highlights this message in purple on their First Amendment page: “All individuals have the right to peacefully assemble and demonstrate their viewpoints on SRU’s campus, regardless of content or message.”
In the past, SRU students have protested against events perceived as harmful to the LGBTQ+ community using the silent witness method. This involves students using rainbow umbrellas to ‘shield’ themselves from hate. It was designed to be a quiet and peaceful opposition.
A group of silent witness protesters will likely be present at the Gaines event.
“It’s important to know what people like her are up to, and to hold her accountable to the things she says,” Wajert said.
A note
TPUSA at SRU was contacted numerous times over the course of a month for comment on this article. The intent was to discover why they felt Gaines’s message was valuable to the SRU community and provide an equal platform for their expression.
An e-board member agreed to an interview when approached in person but ultimately did not follow up.
