Majority of Americans support tolerance of but not laws favoring trans people, says Pew poll

A new poll from the Pew Research Center finds that most Americans oppose discrimination against transgender people but say gender is assigned at birth and athletes should compete on the teams of their biological sex.

Pew reported Tuesday in the poll that substantial numbers of U.S. adults also oppose policies favoring medical care for gender transitions and are “uneasy with the pace of change on trans issues.”

The survey found that 64% of adult respondents favored or strongly favored policies protecting trans people from discrimination in housing, jobs and public spaces.

But 60% said whether a person is a man or woman is determined by their “sex assigned at birth” — up from 56% last year and 54% in 2017.

According to the poll, 58% of Americans favor or strongly favor policies that would “require that trans athletes compete on teams that match the sex they were assigned at birth.”

Respondents were equally divided on society’s acceptance of trans people, with 38% saying it has gone too far and 36% saying it hasn’t gone far enough. About one-fourth said things have been “about right.”

“The fundamental belief about whether gender can differ from sex assigned at birth is closely aligned with opinions on transgender issues,” the survey states. “Americans who say a person’s gender can be different from their sex at birth are more likely than others to see discrimination against trans people and a lack of societal acceptance.”

Young adults and Democrats were likeliest to say that society hasn’t gone far enough in accepting trans people and that people’s gender can differ from their biological sex, according to the survey.

At least 40% of respondents support laws that would make it illegal for health care professionals to provide “gender transition” care to minors, require trans people to “use public bathrooms that match the sex they were assigned at birth” and make it illegal for public elementary schools to teach lessons on gender identity.

The survey of 10,188 U.S. adults in the Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel was conducted May 16-22. The margin of error was plus or minus 1.6 percentage points.