SF State president calls Riley Gaines' sex-protected sports speech 'deeply traumatic' to trans community

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San Francisco State University’s president has now given her opinion on the Riley Gaines situation that occurred at the school, and once again, it wasn’t a message in favor of the NCAA champion swimmer.

Gaines claimed that she was "verbally and physically assaulted" by pro-transgender protesters following a speech she gave on campus on behalf of Save Women’s Sports. 

She clapped back at an email sent to the student body by the university’s vice president for student affairs and enrollment management, Jamillah Moore, who called the protest "peaceful."

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Former University of Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines speaks during a rally on Jan. 12, 2023, outside the NCAA Convention in San Antonio. (AP Photo / Darren Abate)

Now, SFSU President Lynn Mahoney said in her piece that the event was "deeply traumatic" for the trans community.

"Last Thursday, Turning Point USA hosted an event on campus that advocated for the exclusion of trans people and athletics. The event was deeply traumatic for many in our trans and LGBTQ+ communities, and the speaker’s message outraged many members of the SF State community," Mahoney wrote in a letter to the campus community, per KRON4.

RILEY GAINES BLASTS SF STATE FACULTY MEMBER WHO CALLED PROTESTS AT HEART OF INCIDENT ‘PEACEFUL’

"As we have seen here and at many universities, balancing these with dearly held commitments to inclusion and social justice is hard and painful," Mahoney added. "To our trans community, please know how welcome you are. We will turn this moment into an opportunity to listen and learn about how we can better support you."

Mahoney also called the incident an unfortunate "disturbance" that "delayed the speaker’s departure" when Gaines said she was assaulted. 

Karina Zamora, chapter president of Associated Students at the university, addressed Gaines speech and stands "against the hateful rhetoric and promotion of violence spread by TPUSA and Riley Gaines as well as the confrontational behavior of the behest of Campus Administration."

"As President of Associated Students and on behalf of the organization, I call on President Lynn Mahoney and her administration to hold themselves accountable and host a community forum to hear how damaging these tactics have been to our student body."

Zamora also said that there was "violence spread by Riley Gaines," to which Gaines took offense.

"All for sharing my lived experience of competing against a male and why it's harmful to not have sex protected sports…At least we can agree that SFSU needs to hold themselves accountable," Gaines wrote on Twitter.

Swimmer Riley Gaines was barricaded in a room at San Francisco State University after a speech she gave on campus on behalf of Save Women’s Sports. (Riley Gaines via Twitter | Rich von Biberstein / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images / File)

Gaines was barricaded in a room for hours before city police arrived to escort her off campus. Gaines said she would have embraced the protest if it was peaceful but that it got beyond that point.

"I was grateful to see a diverse crowd in the room during my speech, which I expressed multiple times," Gaines added. "We had great dialogue and listened to each other. But that ambush was the opposite of peaceful."

RILEY GAINES ‘AMBUSHED AND PHYSICALLY HIT’ AFTER SAVING WOMEN'S SPORTS SPEECH AT SAN FRANCISCO STATE

Gaines joined Fox News’ Tucker Carlson to explain that she won’t be backing down with her mission of saving women’s sports, and situations like the one that happened at SF State, though "terrifying," won’t steer her offtrack. She also noted that she will be filing a lawsuit against the university. 

"This does not deter me. This assures me that I am doing the right thing," she said Friday on "Tucker Carlson Tonight." "This will not silence me. When they want me to be silenced, it just means I need to speak louder."

"They will face repercussions."

Former NCAA swimmer Riley Gaines (Fox News)

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Gaines received national attention when she publicly criticized University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas, who is a transgender woman, for competing against her as a female. Thomas ended up winning the Division I national championship in the women’s 500-yard freestyle event, becoming the first openly transgender athlete to win at that level.