NCAA's new trans-participation policy is 'as clear as mud,' Riley Gaines says

Riley Gaines talks to Fox News Digital about "loopholes" within the NCAA's new trans-athlete participation policy.

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