Federal statutory preemption is the mechanism that makes every state-level women's sports law legally fragile. When Congress restricts a state's authority to enact or enforce sports eligibility rules, it creates a federal hook that challengers can use to void those state statutes. Former NCAA swimmer Riley Gaines is arguing publicly that the Protect College Sports Act carries exactly that language, and that it threatens all 27 existing state laws barring male athletes from women's competition.
The eligibility preemption clause
The specific problem sits in the bill's text governing state eligibility rules. Gaines writes that the legislation "limits the ability of states to enact or enforce sports eligibility rules," language broad enough for a male athlete claiming eligibility on a women's team to argue that the applicable state law is no longer valid. Supporters of the bill say that reading is too wide, that the limitation covers only a narrow set of specific eligibility rules and does not reach state women's sports protections. Gaines' answer is direct: if that was the intent, the drafters could have written it plainly. They did not.
The NCAA as enforcement layer
The bill's second structural problem, in Gaines' analysis, is its reliance on the NCAA to enforce state women's sports laws. That is the same organization that opposed state-level protections early on and reversed course only after significant public pressure. It also presided over William (Lia) Thomas standing on the podium at the NCAA Swimming Championships while Gaines and her teammates competed against him. Delegating enforcement authority to the NCAA on this question is, she argues, delegating it to an institution with a documented record of resistance.
The preemption risk in context
Republican senators have already filed an amendment specifically aimed at preventing the bill from overriding state women's sports laws. That response from within the Republican caucus suggests the preemption concern is not a stretch reading. Twenty-seven states have enacted these protections. President Trump signed an executive order affirming biological sex as the basis for sports eligibility, but executive orders carry no statutory durability and can be reversed by a successor. Gaines' position is that Congress has the tools to write the protection explicitly into the bill's text and has not done so. The amendment, as of this writing, has not passed.