On Oct. 24, 2023, the University of Wyoming chapter of Turning Point U.S.A. hosted Riley Gaines, a former collegiate swimmer, now a speaker and face for conservative organizations like Turning Point U.S.A and the Leadership Institute, during her tour of the nation’s legislatures and college campuses.
With an estimated audience of over 600 in attendance, according to UWTPUSA, the Agriculture Auditorium quickly ran out of space and the overflow of crowd members were hosted in the Agriculture building instead.
Gabe Saint, President of UW’s chapter of TPUSA and an ASUW Senator introduced Gaines by rehashing the March 2022 Lia Thomas and April 2023 San Francisco State University controversies saying that, “When it came time for a presentation of awards, the NCAA took her trophy and gave it to Thomas as they claimed it was necessary for a photo op. It was then that Riley knew it was time to speak up and fight back against men competing in women’s sports and the harmful transgender agenda.”
Saint concluded his introduction of Gaines by saying “Riley is now the director of the Riley Gaines center at the Leadership Institute, where she will be expanding her already incredible impact empowering other women, girls, parents, school leaders and athletes to stand for truth and to speak out.”
Gaines speech opened with allegations of an assault at San Francisco State University, made specific note that she was attacked by ‘men in dresses with beards’ and that she was apparently held ransom along with police officers until she gave the protestors $10.00 each (though the Branding Iron is unable to find substantiated evidence for these claims at this time).
Gaines went on to provide a brief summary of her life and early collegiate experience before claiming that ‘God had different plans for her’ and compared her struggle to those of biblical stories such as Moses and the Israelites, Joshua and his battle against the Canaanites and Esther of the Book of Esther.
“As a Christian myself I entirely see it as spiritual warfare. It’s no longer a battle of right versus wrong or good versus bad. It really is moral versus evil. And I’ve looked this evil in the eyes, and in the name of love, and tolerance and acceptance and welcoming and whatever other word they want to use. It’s the most hateful, vengeful, violent movement.”
Gaines went on to talk about “COVID Theatrics” making reference to her own refusal of the vaccine before diving into the main topic of conversation, her loss of a fifth place title at the NCAA against Lia Thomas, who she referred to with he/him pronouns and their birth given name.
“I don’t claim to speak for every single girl on that whole day. But I do claim to speak for the overwhelming majority of us, because I can attest to the tears that I saw not just from the moms in the stands watching as their daughters are getting obliterated in the sport that they once loved. I can attest to the tears that I saw from the girls who placed ninth and seventeenth and missout out on being named all American by one place. And I can wholeheartedly attest to the extreme discomfort in the locker room when you turn around and there’s a six foot four, 22-year-old man fully intact, with exposing male genitalia,” said Gaines.
However, at about 20 minutes into the presentation a group of 20-25 protestors stood up, ripped up the posters provided at the event (which included phrases like ‘Cowgirls stand with Riley Gaines’ and ‘There are only two sexes’) and walked out of the venue.
“Love your neighbor” was called out by one of the protestors upon exit.
The protestors remained outside of the building for approximately 20 more minutes, standing in solidarity and peace.
Among the group were UW students Ava Olsen, a sociology and gender studies major, Grace Harden, a criminal justice major, and Madison Greenberg also a sociology and gender studies major.
When asked for their reason for attending the presentation Olsen said, “I wanted to come because I find it really horrific that we’re holding this event the same month as the 25th anniversary of Matthew Shepard. How can you say we’ve grown as a community or a campus when we’re facilitating this kind of discussion and this kind of hate speech?”
“You are not facilitating any kind of communication or any kind of transaction of respect when you’re just holding these speeches where people can clap for hate speech.”
As for Harden they said, “This campus has really tried to silence this community as a whole through threats of violence with the whole Matthew Shepard thing last year, and with the whole incident with Artemis Lang[ford] this year, and I think it’s very important that everybody be given a voice and when those people aren’t given a voice that we demand that they be given a voice because, yes, we’re out here.”
“I found it really important to show up because there was a comment made that the Wyoming speech she was giving was going to be a lot more … welcoming or less quiet or disruptive than some of the protestors at other campuses. And I wanted to make sure that was not the case. I wanted to make sure that people knew this is not everyone in Wyoming’s perspective, not everyone agrees with this hateful ideology and I just think it’s really important to stand up for what you believe in,” said Greenberg.
One protestor informed the Branding Iron that protestors were encouraged to stay until after the event, and told that afterwards Gaines would speak with them. This remains unconfirmed.
“I was on President Seidel’s Free Speech Committee last spring. And as a part of the committee was committed to protecting the Free Speech of all students, no matter their identity or whatever they believe in and to make constructive and respectful dialogue,” Saint said.
“Us conservatives, we want to have these conversations with people that are opposed to us. They’re welcome at our events. They’re welcome to ask questions. Anybody that’s opposed as is always asked to be the first person in line. Sadly, everybody that I think was opposed, probably left last night.”
