Associated Students of San Francisco State, which serves as the student government at the university, released a memo about the recent Turning Point USA event on campus featuring former NCAA women’s swimming star Riley Gaines, claiming the swimmer and TPUSA spread “hateful rhetoric and promotion of violence” at the event where Gaines was attacked by a mob of transgender activists and barricaded in a room for hours.
“On the evening of Thursday, April 6, 2021, the SF State chapter of Turning Point USA hosted ‘Saving Women’s Sports with Riley Gaines’ on the SF State Campus, an event that promoted discriminatory rhetoric towards trans women athletes,” Associated Students President Karina Zamora began in her memo.
Zamora also claimed that the university’s “Time, Place, and Manner (TPM)” policy was “weaponized to silence and threaten protestors.”
Riley Gaines“I believe the ‘enforcement’ of TPM was weaponized to silence and threaten protestors and the presence of police was both excessive and uncalled for,” the Associated Students president said of the event where Gaines was physically attacked.
Ironically, the memo went on to state, “I, as President of Associated Students, condemn and stand 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.”
The memo continued:
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. I call on campus administrators to work with our students and community to revisit and amend current policies and practices to uplift student voices and protect our student body, including transparency in publicly sharing with the AS Board of Directors how the university plans to move forward with a plausible action plan.
Gaines was “ambushed” and “hit by a man wearing a dress” after giving a speech about saving women’s sports during a Turning Point USA and Leadership Institute event on the campus. She was also barricaded in a room for three hours.
The memo made no mention of the violence spread by protestors, nor did it apologize to Gaines.
The former NCAA women’s swimming star reacted to the memo by pointing out the irony in a tweet, writing, “‘Presence of police was excessive and uncalled for’, ‘Violence spread by Riley Gaines.'”
“All for sharing my lived experience of competing against a male and why its harmful to not have sex protected sports… At least we can agree that SFSU needs to hold themselves accountable,” Gaines added.
"Presence of police was excessive and uncalled for"
"Violence spread by Riley Gaines"
All for sharing my lived experience of competing against a male and why its harmful to not have sex protected sports…At least we can agree that SFSU needs to hold themselves accountable pic.twitter.com/CX5OWMLt6G
— Riley Gaines (@Riley_Gaines_) April 12, 2023
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.
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