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The NCAA flipped a switch and appeared to alter its gender-participation policy to bar biological males from competing in women’s sports in the wake of President Donald Trump’s executive order.
Two weeks after Trump’s No Men in Women’s Sports executive order, long-standing critics of the top collegiate athletic association in the U.S. have pointed out the new policy leaves a lot to be desired. Riley Gaines, Jennifer Sey, Kim Jones and others who have championed the protection of women’s sports have pointed out the possible loopholes in the NCAA’s policy.
The major criticism is the policy fails to go far enough or establish clear barriers to protect women’s athletes in the college ranks. The most common criticism has been that the policy allegedly allows trans athletes to bypass the restriction by changing the gender on their birth certificate.
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NCAA headquarters on Feb. 28, 2023, in Indianapolis, Indiana. (Mitchell Layton/Getty Images)
In the U.S., 44 states allow birth certificates to be altered to change a person’s birth sex. The only states that do not allow this are Florida, Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Montana. Meanwhile, there are 14 states that allow sex on a birth certificate to be changed without any medical documentation required, including California, New York, Massachusetts and Michigan.
Gaines, the host of OutKick’s “Gaines for Girls” podcast and former All-American swimmer at Kentucky, told Fox News Digital in an interview on Wednesday that the new NCAA policy is “explicitly in conflict” with Trump’s executive order.
“No. 1, first and foremost, this policy removes all accountability from the NCAA, which, of course, is something that has been on their minds for a long time,” Gaines said. “It provides loopholes for both states and schools because it does not define sex, which we have seen now is a problem, unfortunately. I mean, it’s wild we have to define sex-based terms like male and female, but we’ve seen what happens when we don’t. We see unelected bureaucrats go through the back door and reinterpret these words to mean what they want them to mean.
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Riley Gaines speaks at the Independent Women’s Forum’s “Our Bodies, Our Sports: We Won’t Back Down” rally on Jan. 11, 2024, in Phoenix. (Megan Mendoza/The Republic/USA Today Network)
“So, it doesn’t define sex, it doesn’t define male or female, but it does define gender identity. And it defines gender identity as both man and woman. So, of course, you can see where that’s a problem. The qualifications for how they do deem and assign sex is based on your birth certificate, which of course is a piece of paper that we have now seen that can be totally forged and fraudulent.”
“This policy explicitly allows men and women on the women’s team. No matter how you read it, men are still allowed to receive women’s benefits, which includes access to their locker rooms. There’s no screening. There’s no oversight. All of those and more are just a few reasons why this NCAA policy is certainly problematic.”
The NCAA’s new policy for student-athletes “assigned male at birth” and their participation on women’s teams stated that athletes may not compete on the women’s team but they “may practice on the team consistent with their gender identity and receive all other benefits applicable to student-athletes who are otherwise eligible for practice.”
An NCAA spokesperson told Fox News Digital that the governing body will not allow trans athletes to compete in the women’s category based on changed birth certificates.
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Riley Gaines speaks during a roundtable event calling to protect women’s sports in Grand Blanc, Michigan, on Aug. 5, 2024. (Ryan Garza/USA Today Network)
“The policy is clear that there are no waivers available, and athletes assigned male at birth may not compete on a women’s team with amended birth certificates or other forms of ID,” the spokesperson said.
Regarding trans athletes practicing on a women’s team, the NCAA considers male practice players a “staple” of women’s sports.
“Male practice players have been a staple in college sports for decades, particularly in women’s basketball and the association will continue to account for that in the policy,” the spokesperson said.
Gaines told Fox News Digital the policy “speaks for itself.”
“The policy simply is not clear. Again, it removes accountability from the NCAA,” she said. “So, of course, they’re going to say, ‘Look, the onus is not on us. We’ve done what we need to do.’ Bottom line is they have opened up women almost even further than their previous policy, given that they’ve taken away screening and oversight. They used to have testosterone thresholds, which is by no means satisfactory or what makes a woman a woman, but now they’ve even removed that. So, the policy is as clear as mud.
“These schools can and will – mark my words, interpret it to mean what they want it to mean. I don’t know why so many people are so naïve to believe that the NCAA essentially grew a spine overnight and decided to do everything in their power to protect athletes – female or male for that matter – because as someone who was on the receiving end of the NCAA’s mistreatment, I can tell you that’s not the case. They betrayed us women. They betrayed us as their student athletes and that has not changed unfortunately.”
Kim Jones, a former college tennis star and co-founder of the Independent Council on Women’s Sports, said on “Fox & Friends” she would implore Trump to bring the NCAA back to the table, rip up the new policy and start anew.
President Donald Trump signs an executive order barring transgender female athletes from competing in women’s or girls’ sporting events, at the White House, Feb. 5, 2025 (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Gaines said she would tell the president that now was the time to hold the NCAA’s “feet to the fire.”
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“The NCAA certainly receives federal funds. So, if they’re not willing to comply with President Trump’s, again, thoroughly and beautifully written executive order, then I believe the NCAA should lose federal funding.”
Fox News’ Jackson Thompson contributed to this report.
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