When I started working at Independent Women, one of my assignments was advancing a first-of-its-kind legislative model to define “sex.” Developed by Independent Women in 2021, the concept was simple: Define sex-based words to prevent the erasure of women’s rights.

Admittedly, it took me some time to realize the importance of what we were doing. With soaring inflation and rampant crime, trying to convince elected leaders to care about a conceptual idea about “sex-based terms” just didn’t seem like a priority. But I quickly understood the mission wasn’t just to make leaders care, but to make Americans aware of the assault not only on women’s rights but also on language and common sense.

The Stand with Women initiative, launched by Independent Women in 2022, doesn’t just offer policy solutions to define sex-based terms like “woman” and “man” but offers a home to the 70+% of Americans who believe there’s a need to protect women’s private spaces and opportunities – prisons, locker rooms, sports, etc.

The rise of gender ideology – a movement aimed to prioritize one’s sense of themselves over biology – gave birth to the belief that basing laws on a person’s sex excludes trans-identifying people. This couldn’t be more wrong. Sex is objective and fixed. There are only two sexes. So regardless of how one identifies or feels, their sex never changes. If sex-based words are defined in law, every single human is included. No one can be “erased.”

When words don’t have meaning, it opens Pandora’s box for the twisted imaginations of judicial, bureaucratic, and cultural activists to run amok. Not defining sex-based words disproportionately harms women and girls. 

In one short decade, gender ideology permeated government, business, education, and more. It became acceptable for teenagers to identify as animals and use litterboxes at school. Tomboys were told they were born in the “wrong body” and fast-tracked to lifelong medicalization. Autogynephiles and pedophiles gained access to women’s private and vulnerable spaces by simply declaring an opposite-sex identity.

Emboldened gender ideologues made great progress conflating the immutable reality of sex with the concept of “gender identity.” Their calculated strategy paid off – at least temporarily.

Reflecting the cultural shift, the Biden administration rewrote Title IX – the landmark civil rights law that prevented discrimination on the basis of sex – to replace sex with gender identity. In other words, a law meant to ensure that women have equal opportunities was transformed into one effectively outlawing single sex spaces. Mediocre male athletes were given license to steal female athletic titles by assuming a female gender identity. Legislation to remedy this and to bar men from playing in women’s sports failed, thanks to congressional Democrats’ unanimous opposition. In her nomination hearings to become a Supreme Court justice, Ketanji Brown Jackson claimed she couldn’t define the word “woman,” despite being one.

The list goes on and on, but Americans were paying attention. They listened to stories from victims of gender ideology who courageously sounded the alarm: athletes like Riley Gaines, Payton McNabb, Christina Ciasca, and Sia Liilii; and chilling accounts from female inmates forced to endure cruel and unusual punishment because of the male takeover of prisons.

So when November 5, 2024 rolled around and Americans cast their votes for a return to normalcy, delivering a landslide victory to Donald Trump and a Republican trifecta, no one should have been surprised.

I certainly wasn’t because I had been tracking the growing support for reviving biological reality – not just in remarkably strong polling but in grassroots momentum. From a bus traveling the nation to “Take Back Title IX” to some athletic associations barring men from playing in women’s sports and thousands of athletes pleading with the NCAA to do the same, to a scorecard that gave every American access to which members of Congress stand with women – wins for equality were stacking up.

President Trump’s choice to prioritize defining sex in mere hours of assuming office wasn’t just good governing; it was a declaration that the insane gender ideology game is over. His order, drafted by Independent Women’s former Law Center Director May Mailman, builds on Independent Women’s original model to define sex-based words and clearly state the overdue message that sex and gender identity are not the same. A huge step forward.

But the work is far from done. Now it is state legislators’ responsibility to carry the torch. President Trump’s executive order is a beautiful package, but it only pertains to the federal government. If states want to ensure male and female terms used in their laws have biological meaning beyond one presidential administration, they need to define those words.

Thankfully, Stand with Women legislation makes it easy. Already law in eight states and introduced in an additional 14, Independent Women’s sex-definition model has vast public support. Words matter, and all 50 states have a responsibility to take action and define “sex.”