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Riley Gaines, a former Kentucky swimmer has made a plea to all former and current athletes to send emails to the NCAA Board of Governors in a bid to "take action" on the policy around participation of transgender athletes in women's sports.
Recently, the NAIA announced a new transgender policy that prohibited transgender athletes from competing in all NAIA-sponsored women's sports meets.
On their Instagram handle, Independentwomensforum posted a video of Riley Gaines, where she discussed NAIA's recent policy around on participation of transgender athletes.
"Calling all athletes, former athletes, collegiate athletes, high school athletes. What have you, we need you. You may have seen last week where the NAIA which is a National collegiate governing body voted overwhelmingly in support of preventing men from competing in women's sports. The vote has 25 to nothing."
She further added,
"The NAIA was the first collegiate governing body to take the bold first step in prioritizing fairness and safety over inclusion."
With NCAA reportedly holding a meeting this week, Riley Gaines requested all the athletes and parents to send an email to all the NCAA Board of Governors to urge them to take action.
"The NCAA needs to be inundated by emails coming from girls and women or parents who would specifically be impacted or have been impacted by this movement at the hands of the NCAA," she said.
Sharing the video on her Instagram story, Riley explained the next steps to be taken.
She wrote,
"The NCAA will be voting on their transgender policy (similar to what the NAIA did) this week, We've made it super easy for you to send an email to all the NCAA Board of Governors. It will take 3 mins max!!"
Riley Gaines's reaction to NAIA transgender policy
Riley Gaines has always been vocal when it comes to transgender athletes participating in women's sports and has also criticized the NCAA for allegedly violating Title IX.
Appreciating NAIA's recent transgender policy, Gaines took to her X (formerly Twitter) account to applaud NAIA for taking such a bold step.
"The NAIA becomes the first national college governing body to mandate athletes compete with their sex in an overwhelming 25-0 vote."
In her tweet, Gaines also added a statement made by the NAIA President, Jim Carr, who said, while speaking to CBS Sports,
"We believed our first responsibility was to create fairness and competition in the NAIA.. We also think it aligns with the reasons Title IX was created."
