CV NEWS FEED // A recent study found that roughly two-thirds of Americans believe that healthcare professionals should not be allowed to provide “gender transition” surgeries for minors and even more say that topics related to gender identity and sexual orientation should be regulated in the classrooms of young children.
Statistician Ryan Burge compiled data from three questions in the 2023 Cooperative Election Study, which asked participants to state their views of issues related to gender and sexuality. He found that 66% of respondents agreed with the statement that it should be “illegal for health care professionals to provide someone younger than 18 with medical care for a gender transition.”
Burge noted in his report that an even larger number of people (71%) agreed that kindergarteners through third graders, as well as those in older grades, should not be taught topics related to sexual orientation or gender identity if the instruction is in “a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate.”
However, 58% of respondents said that the government should not interfere with a person’s ability to obtain gender transition surgery.
“The takeaway from these three questions is this – it looks like the public wants to put strong protections in place when it comes to discussing issues of sexuality and gender with kids in the classroom and make it illegal for a minor to receive transition surgery,” Burge wrote. “However, a majority of the public is fine with an adult seeking out medical help with gender transition.”
To investigate what might have influenced respondents to vote one way or another on the gender transition question, Burge divided them into religious groups to find out which religion is the most supportive of banning gender transition surgeries for minors.
White Evangelicals were at the top of the list—with 84% in favor of such a ban—followed by Mormons at 75% and White Catholics at 74%. The majority of respondents from other particular groups, such as non-White Christians, Muslims, and Hindus, also favored a ban.
Jews and Buddhists were fairly evenly divided on the issue. Only two groups—agnostics and atheists—were largely against banning gender transition surgeries for minors, with only 41% of agnostics and 35% of atheists agreeing with a ban.
Burge then divided those in each religious group in favor of a ban by their political partisanship, finding that those who thought it should be illegal for minors to obtain gender transition surgeries were largely Republican. Religious Democrats—especially Evangelical Democrats—were generally more likely to support a ban on gender transition surgeries for minors than their atheist or agnostic counterparts.
“There’s one finding that keeps popping up throughout these results that I wanted to dig deeper on – religious Democrats seem to be pretty reluctant to support gender transition for young people,” Burge noted. “It’s a sentiment that I have been hearing from a number of sources recently – the LGB movement is being held back by having the ‘T’ attached to it. So, I wanted to see what religious groups tend to lean toward the Democrats, but also struggle to accept the loudest voices on the left when it comes to the issue of gender transition among young people.”
“Here’s what I did – I calculated the share of each religious group that self-identifies as Democrats,” he added:
Then I calculated the share of each religious group that would ban any health care worker from helping a young person undergo gender transition surgery. Then I shot a line through those data points. Here’s a quick way to understand this – those groups above the trend line are more likely to identify as Democrats, but less on board with the discussion about gender transition. Those below the line are the opposite.
He concluded:
Let me point out that this graph perfectly illustrates the conundrum the Democrats face. Among Black Protestants, 78% are Democrats. It’s 73% of atheists. At the same time, two-thirds of Black Protestants oppose gender transition for minors. It’s only 35% of atheists. Good luck holding that coalition together in the decade to come.
