Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer has urged sporting chiefs to ban trans women from competing in female categories in elite sports.
She said officials have a duty to give biological women a "sporting chance" because athletes born male have an "indisputable edge".
Frazer called representatives from a number of sports, including cricket and football, to a meeting yesterday, to encourage them to bar transgender athletes from competing against biological women at elite levels.
She urged sporting governing bodies to take an "unambiguous position" on the issue.
Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer has urged sporting chiefs to ban trans women from competing in female categories
PA
The Culture Secretary argued that some sporting authorities are "not going far or fast enough", despite Government guidance encouraging them to consider safety and fairness.
Writing for the Daily Mail, she said: "In competitive sport, biology matters.
"And where male strength, size and body shape gives athletes an indisputable edge, this should not be ignored.
"By protecting the female category, they can keep women's competitive sport safe and fair and keep the dream alive for the young girls who dream of one day being elite sportswomen.
"We must get back to giving women a level playing field to compete. We need to give women a sporting chance."
Her intervention comes a week after the publication of the Cass Review, a report into gender identity services.
The Culture Secretary argued that some sporting authorities are "not going far or fast enough", despite Government guidance encouraging them to consider safety and fairness
PA
The review found that there is "remarkably weak evidence" to support gender treatments for children. It also warned that the "toxicity of the debate" is not helping, claiming that people are afraid of discussing trans issues openly.
In her report, Dr Hillary Cass said: "I have been disappointed by the lack of evidence on the long-term impact of taking hormones from an early age; research has let us all down, most importantly you.
"The reality is we have no good evidence on the long-term outcomes of interventions to manage gender-related distress."
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS:
She said that people have been "caught in the middle of a stormy social discourse".
Cass added: "There are few other areas of healthcare where professionals are so afraid to openly discuss their views, where people are vilified on social media, and where name-calling echoes the worst bullying behaviour."
