GENEVA, Switzerland (AFP) — The United Nations’ special rapporteur on violence against women and girls on Wednesday hailed United States (US) President Donald Trump’s executive order barring transgender athletes from women’s sports.

Reem Alsalem called the February 5 order a decisive step to ensure fairness, safety and dignity for female athletes, but also called for open sports categories to be created, to ensure nobody is left behind.

“This decision reaffirms the importance of maintaining sex-based categories in sports, thereby safeguarding equal opportunities for women and girls,” Alsalem said in a statement.

Trump’s order allows US government agencies to deny funds to schools that allow transgender athletes to compete on women’s teams.

“From now on women’s sports will be only for women,” Trump said at the time.

The order has been criticised by the human rights organisation Amnesty International, which called it “yet another cruel attack on transgender people”.

Alsalem said the order “sends a clear message that the rights of women and girls to female-only spaces, including in sports, matter”.

UN special rapporteurs are independent experts mandated by the Human Rights Council to report their findings. They do not speak for the United Nations itself.

Alsalem urged Washington to make sure that while it reviews its policies, everyone could participate in sports in safety, dignity and equality.

“To ensure that no-one is left behind, I urge the US government to ensure that open sports categories are created — or that the male category in sport is converted into an open category, for those not wishing to play in the category of their biological sex,” she said.

The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), which regulates student athletics in colleges across the country, welcomed Trump’s order and said they would align to it.

Trump has said he will push the International Olympic Committee to change its rules on transgender athletes before the 2028 Los Angeles Games, and had ordered Secretary of State Marco Rubio to tell the IOC “we want them to change everything… having to do with this absolutely ridiculous subject”.

The IOC allows each international sports federation to set their own rules on the issue.

Many of those have in the past or still do allow males who identify as transgender to compete in female categories.

“I welcome the emphasis on promoting international rules and norms to protect women and girl athletes at all levels,” said Alsalem.