The live-event company Eventbrite announced Thursday that it would no longer sell tickets for a speaking series on protecting women’s sports, featuring former University of Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines, on the grounds that the topic violates the company’s hateful-conduct policy.
“We have determined that your event is not permitted on the event, Brite marketplace as it violates our community guidelines in terms of service, with which all users agreed to comply,” the notice read.
The major event-management company removed the talk — “Protecting Women’s Sports with Riley Gaines,” part of a college speaking tour headlined by Gaines — from its website. Gaines was set to speak at the University of California, Davis in November. When Gaines spoke at Penn State earlier this month, a skirmish broke out between protesters and attendees, with some protesters flipping a table. Police arrested two people.
“Specifically, we do not allow content or events that – through on– or off-platform activity– discriminate against, harass, disparage, threaten, incite violence against, or otherwise target individuals or groups based on their actual or perceived race, ethnicity, religion, national origin, immigration status, gender identity, sexual orientation, veteran status, age, or disability,” Eventbrite wrote in an email to Gaines that she later released on social media.
Gaines suggested that conservative consumers should boycott Eventbrite in the same way they did after Bud Light launched a creative collaboration with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney. The backlash resulted in a significant sales slump for many months.
“I love all the people in my comments saying they’ve deleted their Eventbrite account,” Gaines wrote on X. “Give ’em the Bud Light treatment.????Newsflash: being a woman and advocating for such isn’t a hate crime.”
As of Wednesday, Eventbrite had not deplatformed events that sympathized with Hamas terrorists, who perpetrated the most brutal massacre in Jews since the Holocaust in its invasion of Israel. A group titled “Tempest NYC,” for instance, advertised a “Stop the Genocide! Free Palestine!” event, which was still on the site as of Wednesday. On Thursday, the Eventbrite link to the event showed: “this event is currently not available.”
“Early on Saturday, October 7th, Palestinian resistance fighters broke through Israel’s siege of Gaza,” information for the event read on Eventbrite. “In response, Israel has declared total war against the people of Gaza, completely cutting off access to food, water, and electricity, while bombing the Strip and killing entire families,” they posted on Eventbrite. “This attack on Gaza takes place after 75 years of settler-colonial violence conducted by the Israeli state.”
Senator Ted Cruz chimed in to support Gaines, agreeing Americans should abandon Eventbrite for removing an event advocating for fair competition in women’s athletics.
“Americans need to stop giving money to woke corporations that hate them,” he wrote on X. “@eventbrite’s idiotic policies allow pro-Hamas rallies but ban people who hold the radical belief that women exist. They should get the FULL Bud Light treatment.”