NCAA champion swimmer Riley Gaines detailed her experience speaking at San Francisco University (SFSU) in a Tuesday interview released by conservative media outlet the Daily Wire.
The interview was released through the outlet’s sports program Crain & Company, which is hosted by former athletes and coaches Jake Crain, Blain Crain, and David Cone.
“I knew this was a different environment,” Gaines said of her April appearance at the California University. “I appreciated that because it meant I was getting in front of people that didn’t agree with me. … I was naive to think that they would be receptive to at least listening.”
“I was very quick to realize they didn’t care what I had to say no matter what came out of my mouth,” she continued, saying the room she spoke in was filled to capacity with a 50/50 split of supporters and protestors. “They had their signs, there was lots of heckling.”
“It was only after the speech when I was met with a mob of people, just totally ambushed,” she said, detailing how protesters turned the lights off and assaulted her along with others in the room including members of Turning Point USA, who hosted the event in conjunction with SFSU. “Ultimately, they hit women.”
Gaines recounted being escorted by officers out of the room and into a separate building where the swimmer said she was trapped for over three hours.
“They were yelling things the whole time,” she said of protesters who reportedly told Gaines she shouldn’t have been there and should have known what she was getting herself into.
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Gaines said protesters yelled at cops and claimed they were protecting her because she was a “white girl.”
At one point, protestors began yelling “we fight back,” to which Gaines said may have been in relation to White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre’s previous statement asserting LGBTQIA+ people “fight back.”
Video clips emerged following the altercation at SFSU featuring protestors appearing to suggest holding Gaines for ransom — to which the swimmer said was more in depth than what social media clips depicted.
“They genuinely were yelling at me, ‘If you want to leave here, you have to pay us,'” she said. “If you want to make it home safely, it’s only fair that you pay us,” they reportedly said.
Gaines said the SFSU Dean of Students began negotiating with protestors on behalf of Gaines while entertaining their calls for payment to allow the swimmer to leave campus.
“I’m sitting in that room listening to this just in utter disbelief that this is really happening,” she said, noting she missed her flight home because she was barricaded in the room.
The swimmer said SFSU’s campus police were “abysmal” and she was unaware of police presence until they began escorting her to the room she was barricaded in.
“I genuinely feared for my life,” she said of the ordeal. “The officers were scared to assert force.”
Gaines concluded by saying “silence is unacceptable” regarding female athletes who disagree with biological males participating in women’s sports.
“If you are silent and you are someone like Venus and Serena Williams or you are someone who is an influential athlete, [if] you’re not taking a stance on this then you’re okay with women losing out on opportunities,” she said.
