Liberals want to erase women. Trump is standing up for our most basic rights.

On his first day in office, former President Joe Biden signed an executive order that set the tone for his administration’s aggressive push to prioritize gender identity over biological sex.

On President Donald Trump’s first day, he did the opposite.

When Trump signed his order, “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism And Restoring Biological Truth To The Federal Government,” he signaled to the country that, as promised, he would stand up for fairness in women’s sports and privacy in women’s spaces – two things most at risk under the Democrats’ regime.

It seems almost silly that this needs to be clarified, but the order states that the federal government will recognize only the two sexes: male and female. And it seeks to “defend women’s rights and protect freedom of conscience by using clear and accurate language and policies that recognize women are biologically female, and men are biologically male.”

Trump’s executive action gets to the heart of why this is so important for upholding women’s rights, which are under threat when gender identity is allowed to supersede one’s biological sex.

“Invalidating the true and biological category of ‘woman’ improperly transforms laws and policies designed to protect sex-based opportunities into laws and policies that undermine them, replacing longstanding, cherished legal rights and values with an identity-based, inchoate social concept,” the order states.

Nowhere is this more obvious than when it comes to female athletics. Girls and young women who participate in high school and college sports should not have to face transgender athletes who have physical advantages they do not.

While professional and elite athletic organizations were tightening their rules around transgender athletes’ participation in women’s sports, Biden wanted to throw the door wide open.

In addition to his executive order related to gender identity, Biden immediately went to work to give these guidelines the force of law through changing definitions in Title IX – the law banning sex discrimination in schools that receive federal money. The new rule changed the definition of “sex” to include “gender identity,” undermining the intent of the 1972 law.

The Biden administration went through the tedious rule-making process, but the new rule, issued last year, attracted immediate lawsuits from Republican states, and it was recently thrown out entirely for its attempts to unilaterally rewrite the law – something only Congress can do.

Young women like Riley Gaines, who competed against a transgender swimmer when she was in college, have bravely spoken out and shed light on why this issue matters so much to female athletes.

And to his credit, Trump listened.

“Men and women have real biological differences,” said Kristen Waggoner, CEO and president of Alliance Defending Freedom, in a statement. “When the law denies this, people suffer.”

ADF has represented female athletes and others who have gotten caught up in the gender identity fight. The organization’s statement noted the “180-degree turn back toward reality and common sense.”

Republicans in Congress are also prioritizing fairness in women’s sports, and Trump should work with lawmakers to ensure there is no confusion going forward about the purpose of laws like Title IX, which is designed to protect sex-based opportunities.

Trump’s order is a start. States also should add protections for women.

Beth Parlato, senior legal adviser at the Independent Women’s Law Center, says she’s pleased to see Trump take action on this, but it’s also important for states to add these protections for women. The executive order applies only to federal agencies, not to the states.

Independent Women is already leading the charge to help states pass legislation similar to Trump’s order. The center has put together blueprint legislation that defines sex-based terms, and eight states have passed it. Fourteen more have introduced the legislation, Parlato says.

This is an excellent start, and kudos to Trump for understanding why this return to common sense will have long-lasting benefits for women and girls.