Editor’s Note: The perspectives and opinions printed in this Letter to the Editor are the views and statements of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the positions of Portland State Vanguard or its editorial staff. Some claims have not been independently verified by PSU Vanguard.
Yesterday, our PSU campus was host to a Turning Point USA (TP USA) event where the latest transphobic grifter, Riley Gaines, was invited to speak. Riley Gaines’ claim to fame is tying with a trans woman for fifth place behind four cis women in a swimming competition. She has been on a tour talking about how unfair it was for her to tie with a “biological man” in a race where she lost to other cis women and had worse times than other cis women swimmers in other races. Never mind the fact Katie Ledecky and other cis female swimmers have superior times to competitive cis male swimmers. Gaines was invited to speak by the local PSU Turning Point USA chapter, whose president said DEI stands for Didn’t Earn It. This person also did not win her run for President of ASPSU, so she did not earn that just as Gaines did not earn a medal in her race—perhaps she finds Gaines to be a kindred spirit in that way.
That was the event in the beginning on the surface, but as the day went on, the event became something more. The entirety of the Smith Memorial Building, the main student hangout hub, became shut off in its entirety to the student body. The Women’s and Queer Resource Center shuttered early due to concerns of harassment. It’s unknown who did it—maybe only a lost student—but someone pushed open the rear emergency exit door to the space which set off an alarm. This occurrence spooked the workers at the center. The Basic and Family Needs hubs were also shuttered early. Doors were locked, and students were steadily ushered out of the building to make way for Gaines, Turning Point USA members, Proud Boys, and other registered attendees. Even the ASPSU elected officials had some hassle reentering the building to get to their offices. There were even riot police with tear gas canisters for use against student protesters. PSU, as a federally and state funded college, does have to adhere to the constitutional right to free speech as stipulated in the First Amendment, but I do wonder where the line would be drawn. Would the college allow a chrome-domed, sieg heiling skinhead or fully robed [Ku Klux] Klan members to hold a rally in the Smith ballroom if they didn’t make overt calls for violence and paid the fee?
There is a current investigation of Free Palestine protest students on the accusation of antisemitism, some were even expelled, but this event was host to groups which are known to fraternize with Neo Nazis and Representative Margorie Taylor Greene who has made accusations of Jewish space lasers. There was someone with a student ID handing out Nazi literature at the event. Will the college respond to these displays of antisemitism? Gaines’ movement here is the latest to speak on the premise of cis women’s safety from trans women, a sentiment reminiscent of white women’s fears of desegregation, so she’s being show-ponied about by groups well known for their desire to increase women’s autonomy and empowerment. This event drew in other dangers to women in the form of a man who stalked some women to the point they needed to hide in student accommodations and require an escort group to leave the campus safely.
Students lost their space to study and socialize in Smith, students elsewhere had their work time interrupted, some hid in their dorms, others didn’t come to campus at all due to fear of being attacked by a cowboy cosplaying Proud Boy. Our space was taken from us. One arrest I witnessed had someone arrested without stated cause and not read her rights. The police car went rushing up the pedestrian plaza without sirens on to whisk her away. She gave her dead and chosen name to the crowd for people to keep track of her no matter where she was booked; there were concerns that she, as a trans woman, would be sent to a men’s jail. She was only one of the five people arrested yesterday.
Riley Gaines is a grown woman who has her own autonomy to stop when she wants, but she can also be exploited by conservative astroturf groups. Someone who was inside the event says her responses were not that well put together or politically salient; many of the attendees were probably invited by Turning Point to ask canned questions. Gaines is being paid for her appearances by these groups, lord knows she wasn’t going to be making a career as a competitive swimmer. Now her job, this significant chapter of her life, is going around the country to talk about how she lost a race to four cis women and how it’s all a trans woman’s fault. She could’ve spent the time getting better at swimming or otherwise reevaluating her life goals since swimming on the levels she wanted wasn’t working out. It can be shattering to not fulfill one’s dreams, but we can choose not to take it out on others. Turning Point or other transphobes probably swooped in and stoked the flames of her despair at her aspirations not working out—their modus operandi is to exacerbate and twist people’s pain to convince them to take it out on others—so now Gaines is the temporary star who will be dumped once she runs out of usefulness to the group’s goals. Hopefully, she makes a better choice for her future once that happens.
PSU’s motto is “Let Knowledge Serve the City.” As a student in the Urban and Public Affairs program, my education from the college will more directly serve the city, and so many other students who were at the protest will serve Portland upon their graduation. We are the people who will represent PSU as we go through our working lives. What does the college really have to gain from allowing these groups on campus to frighten and harass students? Gaines is from Tennessee, and Charlie Kirk, the head of Turning Point, is from Illinois, what does their presence do for the college or the city?
Hardly any of the people who occupied the space were from Portland, possibly not even Oregon. We are currently in a time of the federal government cutting funding to higher education for not obeying demands, and detaining progressive political advocates. What is the history the college wants to write for itself? The Smith halls are being filled with the progressive choices of PSU in the past, what is it planning to do now in these circumstances? Who will PSU choose to support?
