Over 500 people attended an event featuring conservative commentator Charlie Kirk and anti-trans athlete activist Riley Gaines at San Francisco State University. It was part of Kirk’s “The American Comeback Tour” and held at the Mashouf Wellness Center field. The open-mic Q&A session engaged attendees in debating religion, human rights, gender, and politics as over 200 students protested outside the field.

The protest started with a small group of students speaking on the median of Font Boulevard. More students joined and watched from outside the field’s fence. Eventually, a band set up speakers and instruments on the traffic circle where Font Boulevard, Tapia Drive and Arballo Drive intersect.

While the event was mild, the protest outside escalated as more students joined and as Trump supporters with American flags and “Make America Great Again” flags moved through them. Both the event and protest ended around 3:30 p.m.

Kirk made his first appearance at SFSU, joined by former NCAA swimmer and anti-trans athlete activist Riley Gaines. Gaines was on campus last month and also in 2023. Her first visit sparked a major protest.

The audience’s reactions were mixed; some sat back and watched the debates happen, while others had a strong opinion on the presence of both Kirk and Gaines.

“I feel like he’s coming here to incite arguments with liberal campuses because he knows it’s rage bait and clickbait, and I think it’s annoying that the campus is allowing them to rile up people, but I guess freedom of speech,” said Josephine Cava, a political science student at SFSU. “Him bringing Riley Gaines on here is a personal attack on the school because I know that we really protested it previously, because transgender people are super important and accepted here.”

Julie Lane, a San Francisco resident and Riley Gaines fan, walked over to see SFSU students engage with Kirk and Gaines. 

“I think it’s important to challenge these kids and they’re getting ideologies poured into them in school about all this gender stuff,” Lane said. Lane was at Gaines’s appearance earlier this year after missing her first appearance and said, “I’ll never miss one again after what happened to her here.”

Red and white “Make America Great Again” hats were thrown into the audience while “Welcome to the Jungle” played for Kirk and Gaines to walk out to. Students and residents of the Bay Area gathered together to watch the event unfold. 

One of the first questions asked to Gaines and Kirk was about transgender athletes, which Gaines handled in a way similar to her past appearance at SFSU.

“If by transgender athletes, you mean men, why am I disgusted with men participating in women’s sports?,” Gaines said. “It’s because I lived it.”

Devin Gall, a resident of Santa Rosa, came to hear Kirk.

“Charlie Kirk coming to San Francisco State is very beneficial because there are a lot of different opinions here and he’s given the chance to hear those other opinions and debate,” Gall said. “He’s bringing more awareness and letting people who are here that do believe what he believes know that there are more people like them, especially in the Bay Area.”

Some of the attendees who got to speak directly to Gaines and Kirk claimed to be conservatives who wanted to have conversations about topics such as tariffs, foreign aid and abortion. One question directed at the pair was about the legalization of marijuana, which Gaines has admitted to have used since a young age. 

“If I’m being real, nothing really feels real,” said Gaines, when asked how her early marijuana use has affected her. “Everything’s kind of distorted for me.” 

Gaines shared that she has been sober for four days, which gained applause from the crowd as well as Kirk’s suggestion to “Try hyperbaric oxygen.” 

Benny Toe, a nursing student, was one of many who participated in a protest just outside the field.

“It’s infuriating,” Toe said. “They’re obviously here to try and rile up students, get them arrested, get them in trouble. The same thing happened last time with Riley Gaines, they got our students in trouble.”

Miranda Bradey, a resident who lives near campus, joined the protest when there was just a small group of people. 

“I’m not going to shut up until I’m heard. I had someone tell me: ‘Don’t let them dim your light, don’t let them push you down, don’t let them silence your voice, and don’t let it change your heart,’ and that’s why I’m here,” Bradey said. 

A student on campus who wishes to remain anonymous identified himself as “the Joker” while wearing face paint resembling the comic book character. The student passed out fliers to protestors with information on what both Gaines and Kirk believe in. 

“We need to show them that we’re not afraid. That’s the thing,” the Joker said. “The more we shut down, the more we hide, the more power they will gain. The more spaces we let them territorialize, the more their power grows. We’ve beaten them before, we’ll do it again.”  

SFSU alum Luke Del Monte returned to campus to debate Kirk on the topic of slavery in the Bible.

“The whole time, I never actually got to make my point,” Del Monte said, “What I was here to do, more than anything, was to discuss the Bible to show [that] this man is not capable of responding to ideas as they are brought to him.”

According to Del Monte, throughout the debate session, Kirk repeatedly claimed to know what questions he was going to be asked by attendees and cut them off mid-sentence. 

“Charlie Kirk does not know how to listen to people,” Del Monte said. “He’s just wanting to assume my point so he can make his premade, pre-ready-to-go counterpoints that he’s already planned out.”

Kirk ended his time at SFSU the same way he began, by throwing more red and white “Make America Great Again” hats into the crowd while more music blasted over the speakers.

“We’ll make San Francisco red,” Kirk said, “That’ll be fun.”