People supporting transgender athletes’ participation in and restriction from sports gather outside a Riverside Unified School District meeting outside Los Angeles on Dec. 19, 2024. (Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
Since taking office, President Donald Trump has signed several executive orders related to transgender people. These have included orders banning trans women and girls from women’s sports and ending federal funding for health care related to gender transitions for youth.
A new Pew Research Center survey finds that majorities of U.S. adults favor or strongly favor laws and policies that:
- Require trans athletes to compete on teams that match their sex assigned at birth (66%)
- Ban health care professionals from providing care related to gender transitions for minors (56%) How we did this
Pew Research Center conducted this analysis to explore how Americans view certain laws and policies related to transgender issues and how these opinions have changed in recent years.
For this analysis, we surveyed 5,097 adults from Feb. 10 to 17, 2025. Everyone who took part is a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), a group of people recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses who have agreed to take surveys regularly. The survey was conducted either online or by telephone with a live interviewer. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other factors. Read more about the ATP’s methodology.
Here are the questions used for this analysis, the topline and the survey methodology.
At the same time, 56% of adults express support for policies aimed at protecting trans people from discrimination in jobs, housing and public spaces.
Views on these policies and several others have shifted in recent years, with Americans becoming more supportive of restrictions for transgender people, according to the survey of 5,097 U.S. adults conducted Feb. 10-17, 2025.
A diverging bar chart showing that about two-thirds of U.S. adults support policies requiring transgender athletes to compete on teams that match the sex they were assigned at birth.
The survey also finds that more Americans support than oppose laws and policies that:
- Require trans people to use public bathrooms that match their sex at birth, rather than the gender they identify with (49% favor or strongly favor, 26% oppose or strongly oppose)
- Make it illegal for public school districts to teach about gender identity in elementary schools (47% favor or strongly favor, 34% oppose or strongly oppose)
In turn, adults are much more likely to oppose than favor policies requiring health insurance companies to cover medical care for gender transitions (53% vs. 22%).
Line charts showing that Americans’ views of laws and policies related to transgender people have changed in recent years.
Compared with 2022, Americans have become more supportive of laws that limit protections for trans people – and less supportive of laws aimed at safeguarding them.
More Americans now say they favor or strongly favor laws and policies that:
- Ban health care professionals from providing care related to gender transitions for minors (up 10 percentage points)
- Require trans athletes to compete on teams that match their sex at birth (up 8 points)
- Require trans people to use public bathrooms that match their sex at birth (up 8 points)
- Make it illegal for public school districts to teach about gender identity in elementary schools (up 6 points)
At the same time, fewer Americans now express support for laws and policies that:
- Protect trans people from discrimination (down 8 points since 2022)
- Require health insurance companies to cover medical care for gender transitions (down 5 points)
These shifts reflect changing views among both Republicans and Democrats. For example, 79% of Republicans now support making it illegal for health care professionals to provide medical care for a gender transition for minors. This compares with 72% in 2022. On the same question, 35% of Democrats now express support, up from 26% in 2022. (These figures include independents who identify with or lean toward each party.)
As was the case in 2022, there are wide partisan gaps in views of trans issues. Republicans are much more likely than Democrats to express support for policies that limit protections for trans people (by margins of 43 to 50 points). In turn, Democrats are much more likely than Republicans to support policies that safeguard trans people (by margins of more than 30 points).
Note: Here are the questions used for this analysis, the topline and the survey methodology.
As a trans person I know it's not a good issue to focus on for them because it's basically 50/50. There are likt s thousands of issues they could focus on that would actually win them the election. I think they will try to protect us anyways, but they shouldn't campaign on it. They should campaign on workers rights, ending mass surveillance, taxing corporations to get inflation down, and arresting progendists who are taking money from private companies to influence the elections.
The reason leftist couldn't really do this in the past is because the corpos would crash the economy and people being stupid would blame the Democrats. However the economy will likely crash in the near future anyways which takes away that power they have over us. People putting their money in 401ks will realize how stupid it was to gamble on their retirement unfortunately. However the left can really make its rise then because the corporations won't have anything but news media and influencers and stuff which most people these days don't believe anyways.
It's not quite as break as it looks, dirty tricks only really work one time. Now that the Republicans pretending to care about freedom, people know they are full of shit. Now that they pretended to care about the working class, people know they are full of shit. They are doing an excellent job of destroying themselves and overplaying their hand time and time again, which is nice because they are already barely winning by technicalities with trillions in propaganda, and in actual elections by popular vote Republicans nearly always lose. They are running out of tricks and they can't actually fix the core issue of the average American is getting poorer and less free every year, and most people outside of Republican political circles are not actually Nazis. They may have a few racist options but they don't want to see people stripped of rights and stuff. They have almost no moral high ground on any issue, especially the trans issues which they love to harp on because it's the most popular issue for them.