Former NCAA swimmer Riley Gaines will speak at UC Davis against trans women in college sports

Riley Gaines, a former college swimmer at the University of Kentucky and controversial figure in the debate around trans women in sports, will speak Friday at UC Davis.

The event, “Protecting Women’s Sports with Riley Gaines,” is hosted by the Davis College Republicans, and is one of Gaines’ many stops on her country-wide “Speak Louder” tour put on by the Riley Gaines Center at the Leadership Institute, a nonprofit that trains conservative activists in fundraising, campaigning, and grassroots organizing.

UC Davis students and progressive activists with the group NorCal Resist plan to protest Gaines’ visit Friday night.

“For the phrase ‘Davis is for Everyone’ to have any meaning, we must show up to support trans youth and kick out this transphobic speaker!!” the group wrote in an Instagram caption on Sunday.

Gaines, 23, rose to prominence last year when she began campaigning against trans women playing on womens’ sports teams. She has spoken out about her experience competing against and losing to fellow NCAA athlete Lia Thomas, who is trans. Gaines has said she is “not anti-trans, but pro-woman.” However, she has also denied the existence of trans people entirely.

“Men are men, women are women. There are only two sexes,” she said last week when giving a talk at Harvard. She also claimed that “you can’t change your sex.”

Gaines’ views are counter to the stance of major medical groups such as the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics, who support medical transition and gender-affirming health care for people with gender dysphoria — a condition in which one’s gender identity does not match one’s biological sex.

Gaines is also a vocal supporter of conservative political candidates; she spoke at a Donald Trump rally in 2022, and earlier this year, she endorsed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ bid for president.

Her visits to college campuses, such as San Francisco State and Harvard, are frequently met with protests. The UC Davis event already sparked controversy when Eventbrite, an online event and ticketing platform, removed it last week for “violating our Community Guidelines and Terms of Service.”

“Specifically, we do not allow content or events that — through on- or off-platform activity — discriminate against, harass, disparage, threaten, incite violence against, or otherwise target individuals or groups based on their actual or perceived race, ethnicity, religion, national origin, immigration status, gender identity, sexual orientation, veteran status, age, or disability,” the company’s Trust and Safety team wrote in a letter.

“As a result, your event has been unpublished.”

Gaines responded on X, the social media platform formally known as Twitter, encouraging her followers to “Give ‘em the Bud Light treatment,” in reference to the Bud Light boycott after the beer company partnered with a trans TikTok influencer.

Gaines’ visit coincides with a growing tension between the LGBTQ community and the local chapter of Moms for Liberty, a parents’ rights group many LGBTQ people say is anti-trans. The Davis Moms for Liberty president, Beth Bourne, was recently served a restraining order for harassing Davis Joint Unified High School staff.

In August, the Mary L. Stephens Davis Library hosted a Moms for Liberty event about trans women in sports. Close to 30 protesters rallied outside, waving rainbow flags in support of LGBTQ people. Inside, the speaker, Sophia Lorey, called trans women athletes “men.”

“We don’t want any transgender females being called male in sporting events with females,” a library official told Lorey. “If that happens, it’s not following our code of conduct and we will ask the person who says it to leave immediately.”

Lorey then referred to a trans women as “biological men,” at which point library staff asked her to leave. Since the incident, Davis schools and the library have received several bomb threats.