While Americans’ transgender beliefs vary widely by party, Black and Hispanic Democrats are far closer to Republicans’ views than are White Democrats, a new Pew Research survey reveals.
In its latest poll, Pew surveyed on transgenderism views of a nationally representative panel of randomly selected 4,573 U.S. adults recruited from landline and cellphone random-digit-dial (RDD) surveys between Aug. 8 and Sept. 28, 2017.
A majority (54%) of all Americans said that whether a person is a man or a woman is determined by “the sex they were assigned at birth,” while 44% said “it can be different.”
Among Republicans and Republican-leaning Independents, 80% said sex is determined by a person’s birth-sex.
Only 34% of all Democrats and Democrat-leaning Independents said sex is determined at birth – but a majority (55%) of Black Democrats and 41% of Hispanic Democrats said birth determines sex.
Just 24% of White Democrats believe birth determines sex.
Likewise, while 68% of White Democrats say society “hasn’t gone far enough” in accepting people who are transgender, only 46% of Black Democrats and half (50%) of Hispanic Democrats agree.
Only 12% of Republicans said societal acceptance of transgenders hasn’t gone far enough, compared to 60% of Democrats and 39% of all Americans surveyed. Conversely, 57% of Republicans said society has gone “too far” with transgender acceptance, while only 12% of Democrats agree.
In all, 59% of Americans said society’s acceptance of transgenders is either “About Right” (27%) or has “Gone Too Far” (32%). The belief that acceptance “Hasn’t Gone Far Enough” was expressed by 39% of respondents.