Rochester — Women’s rights activist Riley Gaines spoke Tuesday evening at Oakland University to explain the importance of protecting girls and women’s sports from the gender ideology movement.
That movement, according to her, is one of the most serious threats to young girls and women today, and she blames her own demographic for that movement’s cultural and political power during the woke era:
“White liberal women are the biggest proponents of the gender ideological movement,” she stated. “And its intent is to destroy women’s sports”
Ironically, and to prove Gaines’ point, protesters who organized that evening against her speech were, in fact, mostly middle-aged white liberal women with homemade signs shouting unintelligible slogans to the front and rear of the Oakland Center.
The protesters didn’t do anything interesting, but the reaction of the campus zoomers was evidence that the culture war has shifted decidedly against the woke progressive agenda.
Students walking past the protest were bewildered, giggling at, and openly mocking the protesters. A small group of college-age women wearing Oakland U merch stood by the rear windows overlooking the protesters. One remarked in a sarcastic tone, “What are they doing?”
A young man sitting at a table briefly looked up at the protesters, shook his head, and buried it back down in his work.
Even worse for these activists, there was no mass of counter-protesters showing up to engage. These agitators were faced with complete and total indifference. Nobody cared, not even a little.
During Gaines’ speech, a young man abruptly stood up, ripped a piece of paper in half, and stomped his way out. A cringe-inducing moment, again eliciting bewilderment and laughs from the audience.
For a public speaker with Gaines’s name recognition and fame, you might think a public relations firm would glitz her up for the spotlight.
This was not the case. Gaines belongs to the very demographic of Americans she seeks to connect with. College and high school female athletes live a go-go-go lifestyle, and dressing for comfort is a necessity. Crocs, jumpers, and hoodies are code of the road for this group, and Gaines was dressed exactly like the Zoomer and Gen Alpha girls listening to her.
At the conclusion of Gaines’ public speech, attendees were greeted, harassed, filmed, and photographed leaving the Oakland Center by a second group of protesters camped by the main entrance, once again shouting organized chants. Less amusing was that a vast majority were white females, one of whom told me she was a former women’s Division 1 collegiate swimmer, but refused to give me her name.
Faced with looming irrelevance, ignored and amusingly mocked by passersby, and wearing patches and signs harkening back to 1960s political activism, I almost felt bad for them… almost.
A couple hundred feet away in the Oakland U parking lot, several women’s softball players were unpacking equipment and gear from their cars, prepping for a practice or a game. They paid no attention to the wild-eyed protesters. Their minds on something else: winning.
Jay Murray is a writer for Michigan Enjoyer and has been a Metro Detroit-based professional investigator for 22 years. Follow him on X @Stainless31.
