WASHINGTON: United States President Donald Trump has taken his first direct step into the world of sports governance by signing an executive order banning trans women athletes from competing in female sports.

The move is designed to prevent people who were biologically assigned male at birth from participating in certain sporting events, including those at school.

The order, entitled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports”, will call for “immediate enforcement” against schools and athletic associations that deny women single-sex sports and single-sex changing rooms.

The issue of trans competitors has troubled world sport. World Athletics prohibits athletes who have gone through “male puberty” from participating in women’s world rankings competitions, which included last year’s Olympic Games.

Paris also saw controversy in the boxing competition when Imane Khelif won women’s gold because the Algerian and Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting had failed a questionable gender test administered by the International Boxing Association in 2023 but were declared fit for entry by the International Olympic Committee.

Trump said: “In Los Angeles in 2028 my administration will not stand by and watch men beat and batter female athletes. We’re just not going to let it happen and it’s ending right now.”

Lord Sebastian Coe, president of World Athletics, is one of the seven candidates competing for election as new president of the International Olympic Committee in Greece in March.

Trump widened the focus of the order to include his government’s approach to next year’s World Cup in central and North America.

He said: “I’m also directing our secretary of homeland security to deny any and all visa applications made by men attempting to fraudulently enter the US while identifying as women athletes to try and get into the games . . . the war on women’s sports is over.”

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