Franklin Graham: I Hope People Stand with Riley Gaines Against ‘Insanity’ After Transgender Mob Attack

Riley Gaines and Franklin Graham
LOGAN CYRUS/AFP via Getty Images, Darren Abate/AP
Hannah Knudsen

Christian evangelist Franklin Graham expressed support this week for former NCAA women’s swimming star Riley Gaines after a transgender mob assaulted her after she delivered a speech at San Francisco State University.

“Thank you to @Riley_Gaines_ for being a brave voice for women’s athletics. The former NCAA swimmer was ambushed & assaulted by a man in a dress after giving a speech at @SFSU against biological males competing in women’s sports,” Graham wrote, expressing hope that people “will stand with Riley against this insanity.”

The attack occurred Thursday after Gaines delivered a campus speech about saving women’s sports from the gender insanity. Video shows Gaines, who competed against biological male athlete Lia Thomas, being escorted to another area as the mob screamed. One activist shouted, “Trans rights are human rights!”

Gaines later took to social media and said she was “physically hit twice by a man.”

“This is proof that women need sex-protected spaces. Still only further assures me I’m doing something right. When they want you silent, speak louder,” she added:

“Instead of a thoughtful discussion tonight at SFSU, Riley was violently accosted, shouted at, physically assaulted, and barricaded in a room by protestors,” Gaines’ agent Eli Bremer told Fox News, noting it is “stunning” that it is “acceptable for biological male students to violently assault a woman for standing up for women’s rights” in 2023.

Further outrage ensued on the right after SFSU and the police department told TMZ Sports that no arrests were made.

“The disruption occurred after the conclusion of the event, which made it necessary for UPD officers to move the event speaker from the room to a different, safe location,” SFSU officials said in a statement.

Gaines recently responded to SFSU’s statement on the incident after the school described the mob as “peaceful” when the video shows anything but.

The email stated in part:

Thank you to our students who participated peacefully in Thursday evening’s event. It took tremendous bravery to stand in a challenging space. I am proud of the moments where we listened and asked insightful questions. I am also proud of the moments when our students demonstrated the value of free speech and the right to protest peacefully. These issues do not go away, and these values are very much at our core.

“When I saw this email — one of my friends who goes to the university sent it to me — I had to reread it, because there was clearly no mention of what actually happened. Anything that actually occurred, there was no mention of it,” Gaines said.

“What they described in that email was how proud they were of their ‘brave’ students who protested ‘peacefully.’ What I experienced wasn’t peaceful. It wouldn’t even be peaceful in an alternate universe. It was, quite literally, the exact opposite,” she said, highlighting that she was “barricaded in a room where I could not leave for three hours, where they were yelling obscene, terrible, violent things towards both myself and these officers who were protecting me.”

“I was atrocious. It was heinous. It was terrible,” she added:

Despite the apparent lack of action from the school or authorities, Gaines said she would seek legal action, assuring there would be “repercussions” for her alleged attackers.

“But I will be pursuing legal action,” she said during an appearance on Tucker Carlson Tonight. “I will ensure that the people who physically assaulted me, the people who put me in that position, they will face repercussions.”

This is far from the first time Graham has spoken out on social issues, openly supporting Canadian pastor Derek Reimer — the pastor who spent Easter in jail after protesting drag queen story events for children.

COMMENTS

Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.