The executive order outlines a broad interpretation of last year's landmark Supreme Court ruling that gay and transgender employees are covered by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination "because of sex." The Trump administration had interpreted that decision in Bostock v. Clayton County narrowly and only applying to employment.
Biden's order calls on agencies across the federal government to review existing regulations and policies that prohibit sex discrimination, and to revise them as necessary to clarify that "sex" includes sexual orientation and gender identity.
"Children should be able to learn without worrying about whether they will be denied access to the restroom, the locker room, or school sports," Biden's executive order states. "Adults should be able to earn a living and pursue a vocation knowing that they will not be fired, demoted, or mistreated because of whom they go home to or because how they dress does not conform to sex-based stereotypes. People should be able to access healthcare and secure a roof over their heads without being subjected to sex discrimination."
The executive order set the stage for an administration that has pledged to pursue a "bold" agenda on LGBTQ issues and that has already named LGBTQ leaders to prominent positions in the administration.
LGBTQ advocates celebrated the move as a crucial step toward tolerance and equity for a community that has long lacked protections under federal law. Alphonso David, president of the Human Rights Campaign, called it the most "wide-ranging" executive order concerning sexual orientation and gender identity ever issued by a U.S. president.
"We have a new administration that values inclusion and we have a government that has a responsibility to represent all of us," David said in an interview.
But Biden's action also outraged some social conservatives, who said it would threaten the rights of women an argument often used by right-wing groups that oppose transgender rights. On Thursday, the day after the order was issued, the hashtag #BidenErasedWomen was trending on Twitter.
The early tension is an indication of the backlash the Biden administration is likely to face amid a continuing culture war over gender.
"On the same day he called for healing and unity, President Joe Biden signed a radical divisive transgender executive order that threatens the privacy and safety of women in single-sex facilities, equality and fairness in single-sex sports, and good medicine based on the reality that males and females are biologically different," said Ryan T. Anderson, a fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation.
As the debate over the executive order grew on social media, transgender advocates quickly countered claims it would erode women's rights.
"President Biden most certainly did not 'erase women' whatever that means," wrote Chase Strangio, deputy director for transgender justice at the American Civil Liberties Union. "By stating the administration's intention to follow Supreme Court precedent and federal law, at core all the newly-elected president did was lay out what the law is and agree, unlike his predecessor, to follow it."
Many of the arguments against the executive order focused on a perceived threat that transgender women pose to women's sports, an idea transgender advocate Gillian Branstetter called "opportunistic and deeply unfounded."
More than 16 states have policies that facilitate full inclusion of transgender students in high school sports and "and have for quite some time," said Branstetter, a spokesperson for the National Women's Law Center. "Last I checked, girls athletics did not vanish" from those states, she said.
The executive order also drew opposition from some religious conservatives looking to seek compromises with the Biden administration.
Russell Moore, the president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, who had famously spoken out against President Donald Trump, said he takes Biden at his word that he wants to "see unity." Moore said he does not believe that anyone should be mistreated and thinks all Americans should be treated with dignity and respect.
But he noted that scripture makes clear "you are male or female."
"You won't see Christians in the orthodox areas who will like these orders," Moore said.
The Biden presidency has already marked a drastic shift from a Trump administration that repeatedly erased protections for transgender people in health care, federal employment, federal prisons, homeless shelters and schools.
Betsy DeVos rolled back civil rights protections for transgender students less than two weeks into her tenure as Trump's education secretary. The department later stopped investigating civil rights complaints from transgender students who were locked out of bathrooms that matched their gender identity. On Jan. 8, two days after DeVos resigned, the department circulated a memo asserting that the Bostock case did not apply to schoolchildren.
Eliza Byard, executive director of GLSEN, a nonprofit organization that promotes inclusion for LGBTQ youth in education, said the Biden administration is sending "a clear message to students across the country who have been facing really vicious and harmful and gratuitous attacks from the bully pulpit of the Department of Education for four years."
Francisco M. Negrn Jr., the chief legal officer for the National School Boards Association, said despite such efforts, under the Trump administration, transgender students continued to win more court cases affirming their right to use facilities that match their gender identities. He said more school systems have adopted inclusive bathroom policies, and that the ruling in Bostock has largely affirmed that transgender students have a right to access bathrooms in line with their gender identity.
Amid these advancements, Republican state lawmakers have already filed a wave of bills attempting to ban medical professionals from treating transgender teens with hormones and gender-affirming surgery, and restricting transgender students' participation in sports according to their gender identity.
Percival Rayne Ereth, an 18-year-old nonbinary high school senior in Spearfish, S.D., said, while they find Biden's actions heartening, "I am terrified."
South Dakota was one of the states that attempted to pass legislation last year that would have criminalized medical professionals for treating transgender youths with hormone blockers and surgery. Advocates in the state are expecting similar legislation to emerge in coming weeks.
"The division in this country is so strong right now," Rayne Ereth said, "that trans issues are not going to be resolved simply."