Transgender Rights
What do Americans think about transgender rights?
Broad support for general civil rights, but polarization on key issues from bathrooms to sports
By: Daniel Lewis, Andrew R. Flores, Don Haider-Markel, Patrick Miller and Jami Taylor
Over the past year, states across the country have introduced and enacted policies that restrict the rights of transgender people. Republican state legislators introduced 64 bills to ban transgender students from participating in athletics that match their gender identity, bringing the number of statewide bans to 18. Another 41 bills aimed to restrict transition medical care for transgender youth and four states — Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, and Texas — currently impose these restrictions.
Meanwhile, policy proposals aimed at restricting bathroom and locker room access continue to be introduced in state houses. These proposals are part of a wave of anti-LGBTQ bills that has particularly focused on children. This begs the question of why elected officials in the U.S. are motivated to target the rights of the transgender community. Is this wave of restrictive policies simply a reflection of changing American public opinion? How do Americans view transgender people and the policies under consideration by policymakers?
Our recent study published by Public Opinion Quarterly of trends in Americans’ attitudes toward transgender people and rights sheds some light on these questions. The study examined hundreds of survey items fielded since 2002, though most surveys only began including questions about transgender people and policies in 2015. It is common to measure general attitudes toward transgender people with a feeling thermometer rating — a 101-point measure ranging from very cold feelings (0) to very warm feelings (100).
On these thermometer ratings, Americans’ opinions have trended more positive in recent years. Early ratings of transgender people hovered in the mid-40s, on the colder end of the thermometer scale and among the lowest rating of any group in the surveys. Yet, the average ratings have increased to nearly 60 degrees by 2021, on the warmer end of the scale. However, they still tend to trail gays and lesbians by a wide margin.
On some issues, these relatively positive feelings toward transgender people seem to translate into support for general civil rights. Our national 2021 survey found that 85 percent of adults agree that transgender people deserve the same rights as other Americans. Similarly, allowing transgender people to serve in the military and laws protecting transgender children from bullying in school have high levels of public support.
This increase in positive attitudes in the past seven years mirrors an increase in the visibility of transgender people and issues. Pew surveys have found that the percentage of people that know someone who is transgender has increased from 30 percent in 2016 to 44 percent in 2022. Contact with transgender people, like contact with other groups in society, can help overcome negative stereotypes and reduce prejudice toward the group as a whole.
However, these supportive attitudes appear to run counter to the recent spate of restrictive policies being considered in state capitals nationwide. Perhaps Americans are less favorable toward issues being addressed by these proposals, such as athletics, medical transition care, and restroom access. General feelings, or affect, toward a group may not translate over to attitudes toward specific policies regarding that group. The way that a policy is framed can shape the kinds of values and social identities that people draw on to form opinions about that issue.
Similarly, different types of issues can focus attention on different aspects of a policy. For example, policies related to bathroom use and medical transition care are “body-centric” and may activate a different set of considerations (e.g., disgust sensitivity) compared to nondiscrimination policy which likely invokes concerns related to equality and civil rights
Indeed, attitudes toward these specific body-centric issues are less favorable and more divided.
When asked to select a policy that would require transgender people to use public restrooms consistent with their birth gender or current gender identity, the public is evenly split. Similarly, when asked about policies related to medical gender transition care for children, 38 percent prefer a ban and 39 percent want to allow this type of medical care. Despite the seeming popularity of banning transgender girls from participating in sports, only a bare majority is supportive of these restrictive policies. Furthermore, these attitudes already appear to be shifting as our May 2022 survey showed that 59% opposed such bans.
Evidently, there is not a clear majority in support of restrictive policies. Instead, we see a closely divided public that mirrors many other issues dividing the nation.
Thus, it is not surprising that analyses of the factors that may underlie these opinions have changed since 2015 in ways that reflect the polarized political environment. Unlike just seven years ago, partisanship and ideology have become significant predictors of Americans’ attitudes on these issues, with Republicans and conservatives viewing restrictive policies more favorably than Democrats and liberals.
For example, the figure below shows the divergence in partisan identification between people that believe that policies should require transgender people to use public restrooms that are consistent with their birth gender and people who believe policies should allow transgender people to use public restrooms consistent with their gender identity. People who identify as or lean toward Republicans account for 49 percent of those that prefer the more restrictive policy and just 19 percent of those that want a more inclusive policy. Democrats and Democratic leaners, meanwhile, account for two-thirds of those that want a policy based on gender identity and just 36 percent of those that want policy based on birth gender.
This politicization of American attitudes toward transgender rights along party lines has likely contributed to the wave of Republican proposals in the past couple of years. So rather than the spate of proposals and policies reflecting American attitudes toward transgender people, they reflect yet another issue where the public has become polarized and only represent the positions of some Americans.
Although we expect attitudes towards transgender people to continue to become more positive, we also expect that Republican politicians will continue to target transgender people with legislation on issues where there is less public support for transgender rights. They perceive political benefits and they may be right in the short term. In the longer term — as we saw with gays and lesbians — attitudinal shifts will likely mean that Republicans will see fewer and fewer benefits to attacking transgender people.
