Link to the video of the speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OW-06YXQMD0

On Thursday, Oct 26, 2023, I attended the speech Riley Gaines gave at Harvard University. The event was held at Boylston Hall on the Harvard Campus. When I arrived, a small group of students had gathered outside the building for a “trans-joy party.” Screenshot of Riley's tweet about the party. The main group of “protesters” was gathered off the side, so I didn’t interact with them. They had also set up an information table and some of the students were writing slogans on the walkway in front of the building with chalk. The table had markers and construction paper for students to write statements and a flyer “fact-checking” some of Riley’s talking points. Pics of table and signs

To get into the building we had to line up around the back to check in. (We had to pre-register for the event). There were Harvard police and security present around and inside the building. While I was waiting in line, a group of students came around to hand out the “fact-checking” flyer. This was the only interaction I had with this group of students and despite their flyer being nonsense, the group was polite and even took some pro-woman stickers that another attendee offered them.

The speech was hosted by the Harvard Undergraduate Network of Enlightened Women, which is a conservative women’s group on campus. There were, at best guess, around 100 attendees. I think the room hit capacity, so I don’t know if everyone who was waiting outside got a chance to get in. Most of the attendees looked like undergrads and there were a surprising amount of young men.

Before the talk, there was a notice about how the school was going to handle any disruption to the event. They said that they would allow a protest to last for 10 min. After 10 min, if the protestors were still being disruptive they would be escorted out of the building.

Riley spoke for about an hour. She detailed her experience with Lia Thomas, about being forced to share the trophy and the changing room with a man. She made it clear that this is an institutional problem. She said that she had to attend media training about Thomas and practice pronoun use. The school also told them that they shouldn’t speak out against Thomas because they were supposed to represent the university. She also said Thomas was allowed to use the women’s changing room because they had turned the changing room into a “unisex” space. She said when she started speaking out people would be supportive in person, but were reluctant to sign their name to any sort of petition or to be on the record.

Near the end of the speech she said that, although this journey for her started as a fairness in sports issue, she recognizes that this issue has wide-reaching consequences, such as the erasure of language and the presence of men in women’s prisons/domestic violence and rape shelters. She is also an advocate for The Women’s Bill of Rights.

The speech went long, so there wasn’t that much time for questions. The presenters asked that we use a website to submit questions. Most of the questions that I saw were supportive. There were one or two questions submitted to the website asking why Riley insisted on misgendering Thomas.

The audience was receptive and there were no disruptions. I have a feeling that most of these students were conservative-leaning. By the time the speech was over, the “trans-joy party” outside had also ended.

Overall I enjoyed her speech. She was eloquent and prepared. She is very comfortable talking about her own experiences. Though I hope in the future she takes the time to condense her speech. At the beginning, we were told the speech would be 20 min and it ended up being about an hour. It took her about 15 min just to get to the meet with Thomas. The length of the speech cut down on the curated question time.

She is Christian and conservative and those ideas did seep into her speech at times. (Examples are talking about Covid restrictions, Marxism, how men need to practice “positive masculinity”). She is still young and I can see her continuing to refine her speech and position.

Overall I’m glad I attended. I had been a little nervous about attending, but everything went smoothly. The TRA students were not disruptive and there was a good security presence which made me safe as an attendee.

Here is a link to the Crimson, if you want to see how Harvard reported on the event. link | archive link