Editors Note: This story has been updated to include additional information on the SIU chapter of Turning Point USA and a statement from Carbondale’s Interim City Manager and Police Chief Stan Reno.
A group of protesters gathered at the Carbondale Police Station Thursday evening on Oct. 10 to push back against a controversial speaker associated with the Riley Gaines Center, an organization named after a former collegiate swimmer who advocates for policies that exclude transgender women from competing in women’s sports. The event, initially planned to be held on campus, was moved to the Carbondale Police Department, but event organizers made it clear that their voices wouldn’t be silenced.
The event, titled “Real Women’s Day,” was hosted by SIU’s chapter of Turning Point USA (TPUSA), an American nonprofit organization that advocates for conservative politics on high school, college and university campuses.
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According to a statement SIU released on Thursday, Turning Point USA had been placed on probation as of Oct. 4, 2024, due to a violation of the RSO Handbook Flier policy. The violation occurred when the organization posted stickers on the exterior of the Agriculture Building’s newly repainted door openers, resulting in damages amounting to approximately $200. As a result of this probation, the group was not permitted to use university facilities, including the Student Center, for their event.
In the statement it was noted that, “For an RSO to use university facilities, including the Student Center, it must be in good standing, and its members must adhere to university policy and the Student Conduct Code. A group’s ideology and the topic of the event are not criteria.”
Earlier in the day on Thursday, members of the group also set up a table outside of Lentz Dining Hall on campus to advertise the event and were asked to leave by a representative from the housing department.
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The SIU chapter of Turning Point USA, which has previously had events on campus before, will be permitted to resume regular activities as of Nov. 1.
“We respect the First Amendment rights of our campus community to peacefully express their opinions, including those on issues where people passionately disagree,” the statement further clarified. “We will balance that right with the necessity for our community to be safe, the requirement to provide an environment free of discrimination and harassment, and the obligation to conduct education and research without disruption.”
The “Real Women’s Day” event featured speaker Kaitlynn Wheeler. The date, Oct. 10 or 10/10, was chosen to symbolize the XX chromosomes that often determine a person is assigned female at birth. Wheeler, known for her opposition to trans-inclusive policies, framed the event around the exclusion of transgender women from women’s sports and public spaces, which sparked the protest.
Protesters met at Friendship Plaza (at Mill St. and Illinois Ave) and marched to the Carbondale Police Department. Carrying signs, passing out water, and chanting messages of support for the transgender community, they rallied with chants like, “Trans liberation, in this nation,” and “Trans athletes, trans rights.”
The event was open only to pre-registered attendees, which limited public access, and the lobby of the Carbondale Police Station was temporarily closed from 4 to 8 p.m. during the event. President of SIU’s chapter of Turning Point USA at SIU, Zachary Lochard, denied a Daily Egyptian reporter and photographer entrance to the event. Police Sgt. Dylan Yost and Police Chief and Interim City Manager Stan Reno also confirmed Daily Egyptian journalists would be unable to report from within the building without having pre-registered.
A statement from the city of Carbondale released on Thursday said, “We were met with a request from a group, Leadership Institute, a non-partisan organization, to rent a public space to hold a public forum this evening. This event was scheduled to be held on SIU Campus and was cancelled due to a technicality…With following First Amendment Rights, we must honor the following components: freedom of speech…and freedom of assembly.”
In the statement, Stan Reno, Carbondale’s interim city manager and police chief, said, “The City of Carbondale is a public entity dedicated to protecting the First Amendment rights of everyone. We recently received a request from a group to rent a public space for a forum. At that time, the City did not realize the same group was canceled at SIU. When the City was approached, our staff carefully considered options while balancing other scheduled events at the Civic Center.”
The same night, the City of Carbondale sponsored an event to commemorate LGBTQ+ History Month at the Civic Center. The event, inspired by the Paulette Curkin Pride Resource Center’s 2024 theme, “Reclaiming Queer History,” was held to celebrate the 30th anniversary of LGBTQ History Month in the U.S.
In a follow-up call with Reno, he said he stood by the contents of the statement and said hosting the event at the police station was the best option to protect the safety of both groups involved.
Police presence at the protest outside of the police department was not large, but remained on the premises throughout the event. After the event had concluded, police personally escorted participants of the event out of the building in waves.
Groups of demonstrators gathered at both the front and south sides of the police station, making their presence known through chants and pounding on windows and doors.
Among the protest leaders was Christina Garnette, representing Pride in Action Southern Illinois, an organization working to engage the local LGBTQ+ community in political activism.
“So one of my biggest reasons for being here today is to open everybody’s eyes,” Garnette said. “My group has been posting since we found out about it [the event], to get as many people as we can here to make sure these people know that we’re not accepting any transphobia in this area.”
Garnette spoke about her motivation for attending as a drag queen of over 30 years.
“I am 52 years old, and being one of the older queens in the area really puts me out there to try to help out the community, especially our younger people that are quite aware of what’s going on,” Garnette said.
She said she wants everybody to feel comfortable in the community.
Garnette said, “I’m hoping that people that aren’t aware of what’s going on with the transphobia will be more aware, and people that live here in Carbondale and are afraid to come out and fight stuff like this will maybe feel a little more comfortable fighting as well, because they’ll see that there are people here backing them and supporting them.”
As a trans woman, she said, she has dedicated her life to advocating for the rights and visibility of the LGBTQ+ community, sharing her experiences and insights to educate others and combat discrimination.
“I can talk about this kind of stuff my whole life,” Garnette said. “I mean, that’s what I am. I came out in days when there was still the Westboro Baptist Church and everything else, and have fought so many different issues throughout the years. I’ve been out in the community since 1990 so every day for me is trying to get more rights for our community.”
The Westboro Baptist Church is an unaffiliated Primitive Baptist church in Kansas. This church gained significant notoriety and was most prevalent in the late 1990s and 2000s. It is known for its public protests against LGBTQ+ individuals and various other groups.
Groups like these continue to engage in controversial activism, often sparking discussions about the balance between free speech and hate speech, as well as the impact of their actions on the communities they target.
One organizer of the protest, who gave the punk name, “Gritty Biscuit,” said, “TPUSA’s whole shtick is that they’re against anything progressive. They’re against women’s rights. They’re against trans rights. They support the genocide in Palestine. They support basically everything that’s bad. And I think it’s laughable the idea that anyone in TPUSA actually cares about women’s sports or women’s rights. They’re just doing this as a dog whistle to attack trans people.”
He said that the group moved the event to the police station after SIU shut down the event and as a way to intimidate the group of protesters. He spent the evening running between groups outside and starting chants to keep the momentum going.
“Personally, the change in location made me feel even more militant, because it’s like a challenge,” he said. “It’s like, it’s a crazy play on their part to come to the police station, but police and bigots have always been in alliance together. The police are going to protect intolerance and attack dissenters.”
The Commune is a local punk house in Carbondale, credited as one of the rallying points for those opposing the views expressed by the speaker at the TPUSA event. Activists from The Commune played a key role in organizing the protest through social media, bringing together community members to voice their support for the transgender community and challenge hate speech.
Gritty Biscuit said, “There’s a network of radical individuals in Carbondale. We see events like this. It’s communicated to us, and we come up with an action on how we’re gonna combat this.”
He said that The Commune and all the other punk houses create this radical space in Carbondale that allows for not only punk kids to get together and have fun when there are shows, but it also creates a network where they can bring people together for political activism as well.
Biscuit emphasized the protesters’ commitment to free speech while advocating for the rights of marginalized communities.
He said, “It’s not about not allowing them to speak. It’s about having someone else to speak to. They try to argue that we’re trying to infringe on their free speech, and we don’t want them to have free speech, but that’s not what it is at all. It’s just that we’re gonna use our free speech too.”
Izzy Burkhardt was a protester at the event as well. She said her current education and future goals pushed her to participate in the protest.
“For me, I’m going to be a teacher, and I see my students who are trans and who do participate in sports and do things like that, and I want to fight for them and for all my friends who are trans, because it’s not okay to go around and say that they are not valid people, because they are,” Burkhardt said.
Another protester, Amber Koteras, added onto this statement.
They said, “Transphobic rhetoric is hate. Hate leads to violence, and then we get dead kids. You know it’s – and that seems extreme to say – but it’s not because of this kind of thing. It leads people to believe they’re not valid. It leads them to commit suicide. What about the kids going through this?”
Burkhardt said she hopes that by aiding in the protest, other individuals in the community feel safer.
“Those populations who are marginalized deserve to know that there’s people who are going to stand up for them,” Burkhardt said.
Koteras said, “Transphobes need to know they’re not welcome in our town. We don’t deal with bigots, we don’t deal with transphobia, we don’t deal with homophobia, we don’t deal with racism, none of it. Trans women are women, and women belong in sports, and that is the end of it. And it never stops with just sports. Once it’s scorched, it spirals. They don’t want trans people to exist.”
Garnette also expressed her views on the stance of Turning Point regarding transgender individuals in sports.
“They are really against trans people in sports, but I really think, honestly, if the person is legally blood tested and have qualified for the gender they have chosen, then they should have every right to support,” she said. “They don’t realize how much transgender people go through to become the gender they’ve chosen, so why can’t we represent that in every aspect.”
She continued by offering a possible solution for the future of sports participation.
Garnette said, “If there is really that fear of it, then maybe we need a different category in sports. Something like that isn’t going to happen right away, but that’s really an issue. Maybe we ought to see what we can do to make it better for everybody.”
In the midst of the 2024 presidential election season, this event has sparked conversations about LGBTQ+ rights and the political ideologies of candidates on the ballot.
Garnette said, “Pride in Action Southern Illinois, works more with the political side of the Carbondale LGBTQ community, as well as getting people registered to vote and everything else. So that’s one of our big things. We have actually done multiple forums already in town this year to get ready for this year’s voting season.”
She said part of being with Southern Illinois Pride in Action includes pulling up any legislation that is going against the LGBTQ+ community. Part of their mission statement is educating the public about these issues, ensuring that individuals are informed about the legal challenges and barriers faced by LGBTQ+ individuals.
“We already have politicians that are against the trans community. This just gives them more fuel for the fire, to be honest with you, and we really don’t need that at this time,” Garnette said. “We need people to see how much trouble the trans community, as well as women’s rights and everything else, is in right now, because if certain people end up in the White House, we could lose our rights altogether. They’ve already tried.”
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