Former University of Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines has detailed her “traumatic” experience of being physically assaulted and held against her will at San Francisco State University (SFSU) last month after giving a speech on the “injustices” surrounding women’s participation in sports.
Gaines, a former National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) swimmer who has advocated against biological males competing in women’s sports, explained that she attended SFSU on April 6 to speak to a campus group on “the right of women to compete on a level playing field.”
She noted that the school administration was aware of her visit, the program had been publicized on campus, and she was told she would be met by campus police to be briefed on a security plan over an hour before she was set to give the talk.
Gaines told Congress that police failed to show up for the scheduled meeting.
Despite having not met with police ahead of the talk, a defiant Gaines arrived at the classroom in which she was set to speak. She told lawmakers that the room quickly began to fill up with protesters, although she noted that they were not generally disruptive at first.
“Still, the campus officers did not show like I was told they would,” she said, adding that she decided to begin her speech even though she could hear chants from outside the room and sensed the situation was slowly becoming “confrontational,” which she found “unnerving.”
“No one provided me with any guidance to alert me that my safety was at risk,” Gaines said. “They continuously chanted outside the room ‘We fight back,’ and that’s when I began to fear for my safety.”
‘I Truly Feared for My Life’
Gaines said that once she had finished her speech, protesters in the classroom opened the locked door and a “chaotic flood of shouting, angry protesters forced their way in.”“They rushed at me with fists raised, most shouting, and angry faces coming around me,” she said. “They flickered the lights and ultimately then turned the lights off. The room filled with glares of cellphone flashlights, some in my face, and I realized I was at the mercy of the crowd and I was assaulted.”
Gaines said it was at this moment that a woman “grabbed” her and pulled her toward the door, informing her that she was with the campus police.
However, the swimmer told the committee she did not believe the woman was with the police because she “wore no clothes that indicated she was an officer, and she had a face covering on, so I couldn’t see her face.”
Although she initially resisted going with the alleged officer, Gaines said that ultimately she went with the woman after realizing she would not make it out of the classroom without help.
“I really, truly feared for my life,” she said.
After exiting the classroom, Gaines said she was met with a large mob of protesters blocking the hallways and she and others were ultimately forced to barricade themselves in an office alongside the hallway.
“The small room we had found would be my prison for the next three hours, and in those hours, I was certainly held against my will,” Gaines said.
“The mob screamed vengeful, racist, violent, awful things at both myself and the officers and I received no assurance that I would get out of that situation,” she said.
Gaines went on to tell the committee that officers in the room with her refused to provide her with any type of support as she became increasingly “flustered” about the situation because the issue was “too controversial for them.”
Protesters Demand Ransom
She claimed that she had also told one officer that she had been hit during the events but that no one asked her if she needed medical attention or if she was alright.When Gaines realized she missed her flight home because she was being held “hostage,” she said she became visibly upset and told the lieutenant in the room that she “just wanted to make it home” but that he responded back with, “Don’t you think we all want to go home?”
She said that after a while, some of the protesters began demanding a ransom for her release.
“They had asked for payment and threatened not to safely release me without it,” she said, adding that she also heard the dean of students outside the door of the room in which they were barracked trying to negotiate Gaines’s release.
“They said that my appearance on campus was so traumatic that they were owed something,” Gaines said. “They were under the false notion that the university paid me to be there,” she said. “Therefore they thought it was only fair that I should pay them if I wanted to leave.”
After being held against her will for “hours” Gaines said the San Francisco Police Department arrived and were much more “assertive” in getting her out of the situation.
‘Traumatic’ Lia Thomas Experience
“Free speech suffers when university administrators do not condemn violence and kidnapping on their campus,” Gaines said. “It’s chilled when administrators do not adequately prepare for and protect the safety of their speakers, whether liberal or conservative. Free speech is undermined when administrators misrepresent and malign the views with whom they disagree.”Gaines competed against Thomas at the NCAA championships in March 2022, during which she said she and others were not informed that Thomas would be using the female locker room.
She said that Thomas, who is 6 foot 4, walked in, disrobed, and was “fully intact with male genitalia while we were simultaneously undressing.”
Gaines said she spoke to an official at the pool and asked him how this was being allowed to happen, to which he allegedly told her that the locker room had been made “unisex,” meaning that any male could enter at any time.
She added that teammates of Thomas had also expressed their discomfort over the issue and that officials provided them with counseling resources they should seek if they felt “uncomfortable seeing male genitalia.”
“That’s the general consensus of what’s happening around the country,” she said. “That’s not what you’re hearing in the media.”
The Epoch Times has contacted San Francisco State University and San Francisco Police Department for comment.
