Virtually every subgroup surveyed—from mothers to Black voters to even rural white voters—expressed greater confidence in the Democratic Party’s handling of transgender issues in the latest poll.
Good to see but only helps so much. Voters in general also rank trans issues close to the bottom of what they care about. So the extremely radical vocal minority if elected politicians continues the crucifixion and the majority of voters just don’t care enough to swing their vote away from Republican.
The answer, then, is to be loud. To show it matters to (the generic) you.
Political parties don't just look for voters, they look for motivated voters, not only because they're a source for campaign volunteers but more importantly because they're the ones most likely to turn out if they think the party is on their side and also are the ones most likely to say "the hell with it" and not vote at all if they think it's not.
That "extremely radical vocal minority" you cite fits that description: loud and motivated. So should we.
Exactly! And to add to that, the wild card is always a politician's fate in the primaries, where that "extremely radical vocal minority" turns out in highly disproportional numbers to remove an incumbent who isn't doing their bidding. The primaries are where LGBTQ people can have an outsized influence on who represents them.
Case in point: I remember visiting my trans friends in Houston when Anise Parker was running to be the first openly lesbian member of the City Council. I got dragged by my friends to her campaign headquarters, where I spent the day stapling yard signs. And we spent that evening driving all over town, sticking those signs in the ground. Her crew of loyal volunteers was probably 80% trans. She won, and she never forgot who put her in office. She was a steadfast ally of our community, eventually becoming mayor and appointing one of our own as a judge.
Similarly, I remember phone banking for Ralph Northam for governor of Virginia and Ghazala Hashmi for state senator. I can't attest to the makeup of the entire campaign staff, but I do remember that at least half of the people phone-banking that day were trans. Both won, and both proved themselves as staunch allies of the trans community. Eventually, Hashmi went on to become the first Muslim elected to statewide office - Lt. Governor. She's there because of a lot of trans sweat equity, and I have no doubt she will never forget that.
This is true even within the LGBTQ community. I remember lobbying the Virginia General Assembly in 2020 for a slate of civil rights legislation that passed. Who were the LGBTQ lobbyists? We were mostly trans and nonbinary. I think it's no accident that the legislation on the table was very heavily and deliberately trans-inclusive and that some legislation introduced by openly gay members of the House and Senate was just for the unique issues of the trans community (e.g. birth certificates, gender markers including 'X', school policies).
That's how we make change and have our voices heard: We show up and do the hard work.
Except when the corporations that own the centrists of the “Democratic” party object against us! They are quick to change their minds when they are threatened with being Primary fodder!! They love the Money and Power First and Foremost!
Sad but true. The next Dem presidential nominee will be expected to publicly disavow trans people in the general election. Not sure whom among the field has the guts and integrity to stand up for us.
No, I think the expectation is definitely there. There is definitely a narrative being constructed in certain powerful factions of the Democratic Party that the reason for the loss in 2024 was because of the party's stances on, among other things, transgender issues. And I think they will put pressure on the next Dem nominee to distance themself from that in some way, likely by publicly repudiating trans women in sports (most likely), bathrooms and private spaces (possible), or by decrying trans youth healthcare (unlikely but possible).
Now, what I think is uncertain is whether those factions' hold on the party will be strong enough to overcome opposition from other factions. To use a sports metaphor, there are still a lot of innings left in this game, and it is unclear who will eventually emerge with an upperhand.
But we cannot assume the Democrats will always stand with us. They have turned their backs on other constituencies when politically convenient (for instance: the working class), and every day sees another editorial in a major publication that mentions trans rights as a reason the party lost in 2024.
We have to give Democrats a REASON to stand with us - that we are among their most engaged voters / contributors / volunteers. Politics is less about the championing of noble principles and more about loyalty to those who put you in office.
I look at it this way: Dems threw us under the bus several times at the beginning of this Congress. However, when we started screaming loudly about it, they have been less willing to do so. I don't think it was just dumb luck that the anti-trans riders in this appropriations bill were stricken. The Dems had to have negotiated those away. I'd like to believe that my own two bus-bouncer Dem senators curtailed their bouncing in some part because I've been a solid contributor and supporter, and because I DEMANDED they stop doing it, loudly and frequently spitting expletives at their staffers over the phone, until I think I was finally understood.
Support relationships have to be groomed and nurtured. I am confident that we will have Dems on our side as long as we groom them that way and nurture our relationships with them.
I suspect, and strongly hope, that you may be correct in that assumption.
My worry is that it will come about as one of those classic general election shifts. Whatever is said in the primaries, once the nominee is chosen, that person will be asked to "move to the center", which in the minds of many means throwing trans people overboard.
Frankly, I think the same concern applies as well to immigration, but there's a lot of ground left to cover on that issue, too. Maybe a positive outcome of these nightmarish years will be a renewed commitment to basic human dignity. Or so I hope.
As an Ally, 75 year old, lifetime Democrat that votes I totally agree with your comment-. "But we cannot assume the Democrats will always stand with us" <-- I certainly do not.
I think we need to look at parallels with other issues too. Attacks on trans people and reproductive health often co-occur, and approaches used to ban trans healthcare can also be used on abortion. I think we also need to be concerned that trans healthcare bans could be used to justify wider pre-existing condition exclusions returning (compliant scotus and a bit of legal maneuvering...)
Spot on! And it's no accident, because abortion and LGBTQ issues are top of the list for the same powerful enemy - the religious right.
I think we should form alliances accordingly - between trans and abortion rights activists. We argue that our bodies are our own, and that we should be able to make decisions about them. Their pseudo-religious argument is that our bodies are not our own - that they belong to greater society, or even to god, and that we should not have agency over our bodies to the extent that it conflicts with the interests of society or the will of god.
So, we need to draw alliances tighter with the abortion rights community, under the shared banner, "My body, my choice." We need to go lobbying with abortion rights activists and invite them to lobby with us - with a shared message of, "Bans off our bodies."
I'm glad I can read the actual question. That re-assures me no ambiguity or misinterpretation by answerers is involved. Thank you Erin, this is very good news.
This is great news. For me, the result in this poll means a couple of important things. It means the Republicans in competitive elections will be careful drawing attention to trans issues. It also means that we can expect to see a slowdown in legislative attacks on trans people in states/municipalities where elections are competitive.
I am not still so sure what this means in terms of public opinion. I think it is important to look at trends, i.e. the last few times similar surveys were conducted. Absent of historic data, I feel that most likely what this says about public opinion is mixed. On the one hand, Republican position on trans issues, which are extremely bad, have not become more entrenched (22pts is significant, especially for the conservative-leaning population in Fox News polls). On the other hand, this result doesn't seem particularly surprising for the following reason.
I've been following the Pew opinion 2012 - 2025. What I have found is that while American public narrowly supports basic rights and freedoms for trans people (e.g. freedom from discrimination) there have been troubling trends on issues related to GAC for minors, sports, and bathrooms (see https://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep57473?seq=1). This is consistent with the result of the poll, which features a "banning biological male in women's sports" question at the en, where 70% of people were in favor. ::sigh:: Whatever. Throughout, the mainstream Democratic position have tracked consistently with the majority opinion, which is to say there have been and continues to be anti-trans elements in the more centrist Democrats, e.g. Gallego or Newsom, and we can't necessarily expect any leadership at the national level to try to move the Overton window towards trans affirmative opinions.
In any case, it isn't clear if the public had always been supportive of Democrats' lukewarm reception of trans issues or if the public has gained a greater appreciation for Democrats' position or if backsliding in trans support is slowing down and therefore more and more people find alignment with the Democrats.
If there has been a substantive shift in support for more "moderate" trans policies, the most interesting question IMO is why. Why did the public grow more supportive? After Kirk, the community got flak and anti-trans activism resumed in large parts of the country. Is this the backlash? Is this backlash against some of the more cruel policies? Is it because there have been a bunch of outreach that took place recently? 🤷🏻♀️ It would be great to know, but it's not something the polling result can tell us.
"It also means that we can expect to see a slowdown in legislative attacks on trans people in states/municipalities where elections are competitive."
Sadly, I don't think this is true. It would be a mistake to assume these legislative attacks have been driven by popular animus, rather than simply by big money and disproportionate political activity from fringe religious right activists on the other side. They don't care about the popularity of their positions. They consider this some sort of holy war to purge humanity of LGBTQ people. They exert an outsized influence in the primary process to shoehorn their extreme policies into the GOP ecosystem. They are fighting the same fringe war that we are - the same war that elevates the fringe issue of transgender rights to the attention of society at large.
Republicans have tried to sway public opinion as the religious right's mouthpiece. The religious right (the ventriloquists) have spent probably billions of dollars to platform their GOP dummies and put anti-trans messaging in their mouths. However, their ultimate inability to land their hateful message will not dissuade them from working to dismantle our civil rights. They'll simply try to be stealthier about it - like slipping anti-trans riders into appropriations bills and such.
I think the implications of this survey are that trans people are better off having this battle play out in the light of day, while the GOP and religious right would now prefer cover of darkness.
It would be a mistake to assume these legislative attacks have been driven by popular animus, rather than simply by big money and disproportionate political activity from fringe religious right activists on the other side. They don't care about the popularity of their positions. They consider this some sort of holy war to purge humanity of LGBTQ people.
I think that’s a really good reminder! I think it is extremely useful to remember that the rightwing political vision regarding trans issues is driven largely by religious conviction and by the susceptibility of the public to being distracted by their intense negative affects engendered by bigotry towards minorities. When I wrote what I did, I was definitely high from the idea that constituent power can have an impact on location and direction of policy battles. I think forgetting that there are greater forces at play may have made what I wrote a bit naïve.
That said, I am not sure that I would discount popular opinions entirely. There are definitely more ideologically-driven Republicans e.g. Stephen Nosferatu Miller, but there are also factions that take their cues from the public. Susan Collins, e.g. And I would arguably include Nebraska governor Jim Pillen and New Hampshire governor Kelly Ayote. Their significance as more responsive rightwing political actors in state-level politics is that as executives in state-level governments, they dictate legislative agenda that can have serious impact on trans rights. What I would be watching is whether opinion polls like this one and the result of the Virginia race have any impact on the rate and success of anti-trans legislation at the state level in these two states (e.g. tracked in https://translegislation.com/bills/2026/NH and https://translegislation.com/bills/2026/NE in the context of the existing legislative environments). My guess is that these bills will fail more frequently, and there would be fewer of them that pass.
My one beef with what I wrote, in retrospect, is that I am not sure that I know what the public opinion here even is, much less whether it has changed towards the better. I am hoping that people have grown tired of talking about trans issues. What happened in the Virginia governor’s race is an important data point that suggested that this might be the case. However, it is also a complicated picture. There are opinion entrenchment of sports and children’s issues, and you can see this reflected in legislative successes in both of these states. The ones that fail tend to be areas where the impact of rightwing talking points have been limited: cutting off GAC access financially or by fiat, privacy protection for trans individuals in public, and biological markers in government documents, etc.
All said, yes, 100% agree with your point that there are dark forces at play that are driving both public opinion and political agenda. I think it’s important to not take our eyes off of the elements within societies that are secreting transphobic bile into the system.
I think the implications of this survey are that trans people are better off having this battle play out in the light of day, while the GOP and religious right would now prefer cover of darkness.
Yes, I agree completely.
Regarding cover of darkness, it isn’t just legislative riders, but along the full interface of social touch points that can be weaponized against trans people, e.g. funding rules against healthcare institutions and other economic structures, epistemic erasure of trans identity from public landmarks and public education, and secluding the trans community by restricting access to public spaces. Many of these areas are ones where they have direct control over, and they are making these moves in the open, e.g. RFK funding rule against healthcare providers in the unholy name of ending GAC for minors. The problems that we face are not only from legislative and legal fronts, and I think we need to be more vigilant that, because the legislative direction seems to be more difficult (if even), the attacks are now coming from, say, financial or cultural angles where the reaches of traditional political activism might be more limited.
I worry a lot about a cultural entrenchment that are reinforced by political discourse. I think there is a certain sense within the political science community — partly because we don’t have good tools to understand the interplay of culture and politics and partly because we recognize the power and stamina of culture in shaping political discourse — that culture reigns supreme to more traditionally political mechanisms. For example, I worry a lot about the further entrenchment of transmisogynistic motifs that may have been in recession for a brief spell during 2010s.
You wrote: " Their significance as more responsive rightwing political actors in state-level politics is that as executives in state-level governments, they dictate legislative agenda that can have serious impact on trans rights. What I would be watching is whether opinion polls like this one and the result of the Virginia race have any impact on the rate and success of anti-trans legislation at the state level in these two states (e.g. tracked in https://translegislation.com/bills/2026/NH and https://translegislation.com/bills/2026/NE in the context of the existing legislative environments). My guess is that these bills will fail more frequently, and there would be fewer of them that pass."
I think it becomes a very delicate dance. I think in blue states like California, future governors are going to be less likely to pull a Gavin Newsom on us, as they would know it would alienate Dems and independents. In red states, though, GOP politicians will always realize they have to win Republican primaries, so they will have to track with the ideological extremism of the folks who turn out at those times (when they are most vulnerable).
Putting on my biologist's hat for a second: I remember when I took my first course in evolutionary biology. We were studying runaway sexual selection, a common, but curious phenomenon in which the traits that are most favored for mate selection are actually maladaptive with regard to survival - that sexual selection is at odds with natural selection. Sexual selection always seems to win. One species we discussed was the long-tailed widow bird, in which males with freakishly long tails are more attractive as mates and, simultaneously, more susceptible to predation. The tail evolves to get longer and longer, because the sexual selection that favors it is more potent than the natural selection that doesn't. I asked the prof after class, "So, does this mean that the widow bird evolves to extinction?" Without skipping a beat, he said, "Exactly!"
So, primaries are like mate selection, and the most favored candidates are the ones with the most extreme positions that the primary voters find the most attractive, with little regard as to how well those positions will fare in the general election. And the general election is like everyday life, in which whatever traits were selected for propagation have to survive the more complicated real world. The up-shot of this, I think, is that the GOP goes extinct - just like the Whig Party did, and for exactly the same reasons. That's of course assuming our democracy doesn't die first.
Your thoughts about the interplay between cultural attitudes and politics are interesting. And yes, I agree that they are very complex and would have to be rather elusive at this time. We're still very new on the social radar. Within the span of a few decades, we've gone from "Trans-WHAT?" to "Oh, my cousin is transitioning" to "I think everyone should be allowed to live life however they please" to "Keep out of female-only spaces!" to "You don't exist" to "I just don't want to talk about it anymore. It gives me a headache." I think/hope we're finally on the cusp of "Oh, god, you don't deserve these attacks from the right-wing bigots!" This has all moved so fast and taken so many twists and turns, that I can't imagine how you poli sci folks can make heads or tails of it!
Good discussion. I've enjoyed your perspectives. I always enjoy bumping into another academic. :-)
“So, primaries are like mate selection, and the most favored candidates are the ones with the most extreme positions that the primary voters find the most attractive, with little regard as to how well those positions will fare in the general election.”
That’s such an interesting dynamics! The trait selection theory is a very interesting way to explain some of the weirder phenomena in elite polarization and group radicalization. This reminds me a lot of this article that I was reading about evolutionary intra-group dynamics https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2216186120. Thank you for sharing, and your explanation is extremely clear.
It is interesting to think about how this dynamics can/does play out within the Republican party. I would imagine that in order for the primaries to select for the more rightwing contingent of the Republican party, a similar shift must take place within the Republican electorate. Generally, there are two dimensions that can create this type of shift: the individuals’ policy positions shift rightward and individuals who are more moderate drop out and are replaced by other individuals who are more extreme. I think both of these dynamics are at play since 2016, and I am curious whether there are data evidence to quantify what the size of the shift is.
I think there is another dimension to what you’re saying, which is that primaries provide another means for rightwing elites to influence the field of candidates with money and political clout. I think that’s also true, which makes it difficult to draw any simple conclusion regarding how polling data can influence policy positions. I would be interested in looking at the trend of Republican campaign expenditure during primaries since 2010s, and compare that to the campaign expenditure during elections, especially PAC funds. Too lazy to do it 😋, though.
“This has all moved so fast and taken so many twists and turns, that I can't imagine how you poli sci folks can make heads or tails of it!”
In terms of poli sci of trans/LGBTQ issues, believe it or not there has not been a lot of people in academia who researching the subject. I am aware of a handful of people trying focusing primarily on public opinion studies. On topics such as understanding the impact of LGBTQ identity on electability (e.g. from Philip Jones at U. Delaware). From what I know, there has not been a lot of tools for studying culture and politics, especially of trans issues. Most tools are numerical, e.g. studying the correlation between media consumption and pro-trans attitudes. But a reasonable critique is that culture is multifaceted, multimedia and narrative-driven. So quantitative analyses, which are low-dimensional, have a lot of limitations and blindspots. I am not an expert in this field, so I’ll leave it at that.
I think one can be rather rigorous with respect to understanding the interplay between societal and cultural representation of trans people and our issues versus social and political attitudes as reflected through polls and focused studies. For example, we can design a research program based on a self-contained hypothesis that a lot of people think a significant % of trans women are secretly cis men trying to gain some kind of social advantage and that this point-of-view comes from (social) media representation of trans women. We can look at the historicity of this hypothesis: does the history media representation of trans women line up with the history of sports backslide? what is the impact of a film like Emilia Perez on popular opinion? We can look at specific mechanisms through which media influence public opinion. We can look comparatively at other cultures like China or Brazil that have experienced some cultural shifts as a result of modernization and globalization and ask how politics of trans issues evolved. And once enough pieces of the puzzle have fallen into place, someone — probably not me — will write a big thesis published in American Political Science Review, and get tenure at the Harvard Kennedy School etc.
All this predicates on a lot of research funding. And there’s just no money. Probably not going to for the next N years, where N >> 3.
I'm not surprised at all at the dearth of trans-related research in your field. It's the same in medicine, psychology, sociology, and neurobiology. Not only is research funding scarce, but anything trans is a risky and toxic focus of research - sort of like "mating" and "sexual selection" and anything pertaining to "evolution," those being the lightning rods of the day when MY research funding dried up.
I'm glad you appreciate the parallels to runaway sexual selection. I think there is a lot of research in evolutionary processes that could be extrapolated to the political sphere. And things like game theory and evolutionarily stable strategies (ESS) could get wickedly interesting.
I sometimes get a smile when I read about high profile people share their support for their trans children. It seems more and more stories and people speaking out. I rarely contact my Oregon legislators because I am confident how they will vote. I concentrate on writing letters to those legislators I believe may be voting in opposition.
This doesn't mean support for trans people. At best, it's apathy. Just like my boyfriend's southern white evangelical father, the best we are going to get is to be awkwardly and pointedly ignored.
Hopefully these polling data will get us a seat back on the Democratic bus. I hope we can purge the party of all the civil rights traitors who threw us under the bus.
Regarding the GOP, realistically, this only has the potential to change their tone. They probably won't be campaigning as fiercely with their anti-trans disinformation propaganda. However, they are unlikely to relent on their anti-trans policy ambitions. The reason is that the religious right demands it. Although most people apparently wish us no harm and don't like what they see the Republicans doing to us, we are among the top priority issues for the religious right - LGBTQ people and abortion. They want to eradicate us, because they imagine that's what their god wants them to do.
Most likely, Republicans will start trying to keep their anti-trans agenda low-key. Perhaps an effective way to campaign against them is to shine a light on their anti-people agendas - to show them as the cruel people they are.
But for now, let's hope we can step back on the bus. It's damned miserable underneath.
I think it would be wise if Democrat candidates did not make this a big issue until after the midterms. Once they regain power they can rollback antitransgender policies, but they need to get elected first. This may seem cowardly, but transgender people need immediate relief and protection that could get derailed by running on a pro-transgender policy. Democrats should learn from how Trump denied that he had any knowledge of Project 2025, then when elected he went balls out in implementing it.
They should not MAKE this a big campaign issue; however, they should also not demur when asked whether they support pro-trans positions. They should say that they do, and then say, "but there are so many more issues of importance to the other 99.5% of the population. I'd rather talk about that."
Quick! Somebody tell Kansas!
Good to see but only helps so much. Voters in general also rank trans issues close to the bottom of what they care about. So the extremely radical vocal minority if elected politicians continues the crucifixion and the majority of voters just don’t care enough to swing their vote away from Republican.
The answer, then, is to be loud. To show it matters to (the generic) you.
Political parties don't just look for voters, they look for motivated voters, not only because they're a source for campaign volunteers but more importantly because they're the ones most likely to turn out if they think the party is on their side and also are the ones most likely to say "the hell with it" and not vote at all if they think it's not.
That "extremely radical vocal minority" you cite fits that description: loud and motivated. So should we.
Exactly! And to add to that, the wild card is always a politician's fate in the primaries, where that "extremely radical vocal minority" turns out in highly disproportional numbers to remove an incumbent who isn't doing their bidding. The primaries are where LGBTQ people can have an outsized influence on who represents them.
Case in point: I remember visiting my trans friends in Houston when Anise Parker was running to be the first openly lesbian member of the City Council. I got dragged by my friends to her campaign headquarters, where I spent the day stapling yard signs. And we spent that evening driving all over town, sticking those signs in the ground. Her crew of loyal volunteers was probably 80% trans. She won, and she never forgot who put her in office. She was a steadfast ally of our community, eventually becoming mayor and appointing one of our own as a judge.
Similarly, I remember phone banking for Ralph Northam for governor of Virginia and Ghazala Hashmi for state senator. I can't attest to the makeup of the entire campaign staff, but I do remember that at least half of the people phone-banking that day were trans. Both won, and both proved themselves as staunch allies of the trans community. Eventually, Hashmi went on to become the first Muslim elected to statewide office - Lt. Governor. She's there because of a lot of trans sweat equity, and I have no doubt she will never forget that.
This is true even within the LGBTQ community. I remember lobbying the Virginia General Assembly in 2020 for a slate of civil rights legislation that passed. Who were the LGBTQ lobbyists? We were mostly trans and nonbinary. I think it's no accident that the legislation on the table was very heavily and deliberately trans-inclusive and that some legislation introduced by openly gay members of the House and Senate was just for the unique issues of the trans community (e.g. birth certificates, gender markers including 'X', school policies).
That's how we make change and have our voices heard: We show up and do the hard work.
Once again, white evangelicals are the nastiest demographic
Well 165 years ago they were Confederates, so, there's that.
Except when the corporations that own the centrists of the “Democratic” party object against us! They are quick to change their minds when they are threatened with being Primary fodder!! They love the Money and Power First and Foremost!
Sad but true. The next Dem presidential nominee will be expected to publicly disavow trans people in the general election. Not sure whom among the field has the guts and integrity to stand up for us.
"The next Dem presidential nominee will be expected to publicly disavow trans people in the general election."
I am far from sure that is likely.
No, I think the expectation is definitely there. There is definitely a narrative being constructed in certain powerful factions of the Democratic Party that the reason for the loss in 2024 was because of the party's stances on, among other things, transgender issues. And I think they will put pressure on the next Dem nominee to distance themself from that in some way, likely by publicly repudiating trans women in sports (most likely), bathrooms and private spaces (possible), or by decrying trans youth healthcare (unlikely but possible).
Now, what I think is uncertain is whether those factions' hold on the party will be strong enough to overcome opposition from other factions. To use a sports metaphor, there are still a lot of innings left in this game, and it is unclear who will eventually emerge with an upperhand.
But we cannot assume the Democrats will always stand with us. They have turned their backs on other constituencies when politically convenient (for instance: the working class), and every day sees another editorial in a major publication that mentions trans rights as a reason the party lost in 2024.
I have no doubt that expectation is there on the part of some. I doubt they have the pull you anticipate.
"But we cannot assume the Democrats will always stand with us" <-- I certainly do not.
We have to give Democrats a REASON to stand with us - that we are among their most engaged voters / contributors / volunteers. Politics is less about the championing of noble principles and more about loyalty to those who put you in office.
I look at it this way: Dems threw us under the bus several times at the beginning of this Congress. However, when we started screaming loudly about it, they have been less willing to do so. I don't think it was just dumb luck that the anti-trans riders in this appropriations bill were stricken. The Dems had to have negotiated those away. I'd like to believe that my own two bus-bouncer Dem senators curtailed their bouncing in some part because I've been a solid contributor and supporter, and because I DEMANDED they stop doing it, loudly and frequently spitting expletives at their staffers over the phone, until I think I was finally understood.
Support relationships have to be groomed and nurtured. I am confident that we will have Dems on our side as long as we groom them that way and nurture our relationships with them.
"We have to give Democrats a REASON to stand with us"
Precisely. Politics can be highly transactional so the impact of engaged, motivated voters is greater than their numbers would otherwise indicate.
I suspect, and strongly hope, that you may be correct in that assumption.
My worry is that it will come about as one of those classic general election shifts. Whatever is said in the primaries, once the nominee is chosen, that person will be asked to "move to the center", which in the minds of many means throwing trans people overboard.
Frankly, I think the same concern applies as well to immigration, but there's a lot of ground left to cover on that issue, too. Maybe a positive outcome of these nightmarish years will be a renewed commitment to basic human dignity. Or so I hope.
As an Ally, 75 year old, lifetime Democrat that votes I totally agree with your comment-. "But we cannot assume the Democrats will always stand with us" <-- I certainly do not.
It'd leave me with more hope and confidence if the Democrats actually had a decent stance that wasn't simply opposition
What a great comment. Democrats are always on the defense.
I think we need to look at parallels with other issues too. Attacks on trans people and reproductive health often co-occur, and approaches used to ban trans healthcare can also be used on abortion. I think we also need to be concerned that trans healthcare bans could be used to justify wider pre-existing condition exclusions returning (compliant scotus and a bit of legal maneuvering...)
Spot on! And it's no accident, because abortion and LGBTQ issues are top of the list for the same powerful enemy - the religious right.
I think we should form alliances accordingly - between trans and abortion rights activists. We argue that our bodies are our own, and that we should be able to make decisions about them. Their pseudo-religious argument is that our bodies are not our own - that they belong to greater society, or even to god, and that we should not have agency over our bodies to the extent that it conflicts with the interests of society or the will of god.
So, we need to draw alliances tighter with the abortion rights community, under the shared banner, "My body, my choice." We need to go lobbying with abortion rights activists and invite them to lobby with us - with a shared message of, "Bans off our bodies."
I'm glad I can read the actual question. That re-assures me no ambiguity or misinterpretation by answerers is involved. Thank you Erin, this is very good news.
This is great news. For me, the result in this poll means a couple of important things. It means the Republicans in competitive elections will be careful drawing attention to trans issues. It also means that we can expect to see a slowdown in legislative attacks on trans people in states/municipalities where elections are competitive.
I am not still so sure what this means in terms of public opinion. I think it is important to look at trends, i.e. the last few times similar surveys were conducted. Absent of historic data, I feel that most likely what this says about public opinion is mixed. On the one hand, Republican position on trans issues, which are extremely bad, have not become more entrenched (22pts is significant, especially for the conservative-leaning population in Fox News polls). On the other hand, this result doesn't seem particularly surprising for the following reason.
I've been following the Pew opinion 2012 - 2025. What I have found is that while American public narrowly supports basic rights and freedoms for trans people (e.g. freedom from discrimination) there have been troubling trends on issues related to GAC for minors, sports, and bathrooms (see https://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep57473?seq=1). This is consistent with the result of the poll, which features a "banning biological male in women's sports" question at the en, where 70% of people were in favor. ::sigh:: Whatever. Throughout, the mainstream Democratic position have tracked consistently with the majority opinion, which is to say there have been and continues to be anti-trans elements in the more centrist Democrats, e.g. Gallego or Newsom, and we can't necessarily expect any leadership at the national level to try to move the Overton window towards trans affirmative opinions.
In any case, it isn't clear if the public had always been supportive of Democrats' lukewarm reception of trans issues or if the public has gained a greater appreciation for Democrats' position or if backsliding in trans support is slowing down and therefore more and more people find alignment with the Democrats.
If there has been a substantive shift in support for more "moderate" trans policies, the most interesting question IMO is why. Why did the public grow more supportive? After Kirk, the community got flak and anti-trans activism resumed in large parts of the country. Is this the backlash? Is this backlash against some of the more cruel policies? Is it because there have been a bunch of outreach that took place recently? 🤷🏻♀️ It would be great to know, but it's not something the polling result can tell us.
"It also means that we can expect to see a slowdown in legislative attacks on trans people in states/municipalities where elections are competitive."
Sadly, I don't think this is true. It would be a mistake to assume these legislative attacks have been driven by popular animus, rather than simply by big money and disproportionate political activity from fringe religious right activists on the other side. They don't care about the popularity of their positions. They consider this some sort of holy war to purge humanity of LGBTQ people. They exert an outsized influence in the primary process to shoehorn their extreme policies into the GOP ecosystem. They are fighting the same fringe war that we are - the same war that elevates the fringe issue of transgender rights to the attention of society at large.
Republicans have tried to sway public opinion as the religious right's mouthpiece. The religious right (the ventriloquists) have spent probably billions of dollars to platform their GOP dummies and put anti-trans messaging in their mouths. However, their ultimate inability to land their hateful message will not dissuade them from working to dismantle our civil rights. They'll simply try to be stealthier about it - like slipping anti-trans riders into appropriations bills and such.
I think the implications of this survey are that trans people are better off having this battle play out in the light of day, while the GOP and religious right would now prefer cover of darkness.
It would be a mistake to assume these legislative attacks have been driven by popular animus, rather than simply by big money and disproportionate political activity from fringe religious right activists on the other side. They don't care about the popularity of their positions. They consider this some sort of holy war to purge humanity of LGBTQ people.
I think that’s a really good reminder! I think it is extremely useful to remember that the rightwing political vision regarding trans issues is driven largely by religious conviction and by the susceptibility of the public to being distracted by their intense negative affects engendered by bigotry towards minorities. When I wrote what I did, I was definitely high from the idea that constituent power can have an impact on location and direction of policy battles. I think forgetting that there are greater forces at play may have made what I wrote a bit naïve.
That said, I am not sure that I would discount popular opinions entirely. There are definitely more ideologically-driven Republicans e.g. Stephen Nosferatu Miller, but there are also factions that take their cues from the public. Susan Collins, e.g. And I would arguably include Nebraska governor Jim Pillen and New Hampshire governor Kelly Ayote. Their significance as more responsive rightwing political actors in state-level politics is that as executives in state-level governments, they dictate legislative agenda that can have serious impact on trans rights. What I would be watching is whether opinion polls like this one and the result of the Virginia race have any impact on the rate and success of anti-trans legislation at the state level in these two states (e.g. tracked in https://translegislation.com/bills/2026/NH and https://translegislation.com/bills/2026/NE in the context of the existing legislative environments). My guess is that these bills will fail more frequently, and there would be fewer of them that pass.
My one beef with what I wrote, in retrospect, is that I am not sure that I know what the public opinion here even is, much less whether it has changed towards the better. I am hoping that people have grown tired of talking about trans issues. What happened in the Virginia governor’s race is an important data point that suggested that this might be the case. However, it is also a complicated picture. There are opinion entrenchment of sports and children’s issues, and you can see this reflected in legislative successes in both of these states. The ones that fail tend to be areas where the impact of rightwing talking points have been limited: cutting off GAC access financially or by fiat, privacy protection for trans individuals in public, and biological markers in government documents, etc.
All said, yes, 100% agree with your point that there are dark forces at play that are driving both public opinion and political agenda. I think it’s important to not take our eyes off of the elements within societies that are secreting transphobic bile into the system.
I think the implications of this survey are that trans people are better off having this battle play out in the light of day, while the GOP and religious right would now prefer cover of darkness.
Yes, I agree completely.
Regarding cover of darkness, it isn’t just legislative riders, but along the full interface of social touch points that can be weaponized against trans people, e.g. funding rules against healthcare institutions and other economic structures, epistemic erasure of trans identity from public landmarks and public education, and secluding the trans community by restricting access to public spaces. Many of these areas are ones where they have direct control over, and they are making these moves in the open, e.g. RFK funding rule against healthcare providers in the unholy name of ending GAC for minors. The problems that we face are not only from legislative and legal fronts, and I think we need to be more vigilant that, because the legislative direction seems to be more difficult (if even), the attacks are now coming from, say, financial or cultural angles where the reaches of traditional political activism might be more limited.
I worry a lot about a cultural entrenchment that are reinforced by political discourse. I think there is a certain sense within the political science community — partly because we don’t have good tools to understand the interplay of culture and politics and partly because we recognize the power and stamina of culture in shaping political discourse — that culture reigns supreme to more traditionally political mechanisms. For example, I worry a lot about the further entrenchment of transmisogynistic motifs that may have been in recession for a brief spell during 2010s.
You wrote: " Their significance as more responsive rightwing political actors in state-level politics is that as executives in state-level governments, they dictate legislative agenda that can have serious impact on trans rights. What I would be watching is whether opinion polls like this one and the result of the Virginia race have any impact on the rate and success of anti-trans legislation at the state level in these two states (e.g. tracked in https://translegislation.com/bills/2026/NH and https://translegislation.com/bills/2026/NE in the context of the existing legislative environments). My guess is that these bills will fail more frequently, and there would be fewer of them that pass."
I think it becomes a very delicate dance. I think in blue states like California, future governors are going to be less likely to pull a Gavin Newsom on us, as they would know it would alienate Dems and independents. In red states, though, GOP politicians will always realize they have to win Republican primaries, so they will have to track with the ideological extremism of the folks who turn out at those times (when they are most vulnerable).
Putting on my biologist's hat for a second: I remember when I took my first course in evolutionary biology. We were studying runaway sexual selection, a common, but curious phenomenon in which the traits that are most favored for mate selection are actually maladaptive with regard to survival - that sexual selection is at odds with natural selection. Sexual selection always seems to win. One species we discussed was the long-tailed widow bird, in which males with freakishly long tails are more attractive as mates and, simultaneously, more susceptible to predation. The tail evolves to get longer and longer, because the sexual selection that favors it is more potent than the natural selection that doesn't. I asked the prof after class, "So, does this mean that the widow bird evolves to extinction?" Without skipping a beat, he said, "Exactly!"
So, primaries are like mate selection, and the most favored candidates are the ones with the most extreme positions that the primary voters find the most attractive, with little regard as to how well those positions will fare in the general election. And the general election is like everyday life, in which whatever traits were selected for propagation have to survive the more complicated real world. The up-shot of this, I think, is that the GOP goes extinct - just like the Whig Party did, and for exactly the same reasons. That's of course assuming our democracy doesn't die first.
Your thoughts about the interplay between cultural attitudes and politics are interesting. And yes, I agree that they are very complex and would have to be rather elusive at this time. We're still very new on the social radar. Within the span of a few decades, we've gone from "Trans-WHAT?" to "Oh, my cousin is transitioning" to "I think everyone should be allowed to live life however they please" to "Keep out of female-only spaces!" to "You don't exist" to "I just don't want to talk about it anymore. It gives me a headache." I think/hope we're finally on the cusp of "Oh, god, you don't deserve these attacks from the right-wing bigots!" This has all moved so fast and taken so many twists and turns, that I can't imagine how you poli sci folks can make heads or tails of it!
Good discussion. I've enjoyed your perspectives. I always enjoy bumping into another academic. :-)
“So, primaries are like mate selection, and the most favored candidates are the ones with the most extreme positions that the primary voters find the most attractive, with little regard as to how well those positions will fare in the general election.”
That’s such an interesting dynamics! The trait selection theory is a very interesting way to explain some of the weirder phenomena in elite polarization and group radicalization. This reminds me a lot of this article that I was reading about evolutionary intra-group dynamics https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2216186120. Thank you for sharing, and your explanation is extremely clear.
It is interesting to think about how this dynamics can/does play out within the Republican party. I would imagine that in order for the primaries to select for the more rightwing contingent of the Republican party, a similar shift must take place within the Republican electorate. Generally, there are two dimensions that can create this type of shift: the individuals’ policy positions shift rightward and individuals who are more moderate drop out and are replaced by other individuals who are more extreme. I think both of these dynamics are at play since 2016, and I am curious whether there are data evidence to quantify what the size of the shift is.
I think there is another dimension to what you’re saying, which is that primaries provide another means for rightwing elites to influence the field of candidates with money and political clout. I think that’s also true, which makes it difficult to draw any simple conclusion regarding how polling data can influence policy positions. I would be interested in looking at the trend of Republican campaign expenditure during primaries since 2010s, and compare that to the campaign expenditure during elections, especially PAC funds. Too lazy to do it 😋, though.
“This has all moved so fast and taken so many twists and turns, that I can't imagine how you poli sci folks can make heads or tails of it!”
In terms of poli sci of trans/LGBTQ issues, believe it or not there has not been a lot of people in academia who researching the subject. I am aware of a handful of people trying focusing primarily on public opinion studies. On topics such as understanding the impact of LGBTQ identity on electability (e.g. from Philip Jones at U. Delaware). From what I know, there has not been a lot of tools for studying culture and politics, especially of trans issues. Most tools are numerical, e.g. studying the correlation between media consumption and pro-trans attitudes. But a reasonable critique is that culture is multifaceted, multimedia and narrative-driven. So quantitative analyses, which are low-dimensional, have a lot of limitations and blindspots. I am not an expert in this field, so I’ll leave it at that.
I think one can be rather rigorous with respect to understanding the interplay between societal and cultural representation of trans people and our issues versus social and political attitudes as reflected through polls and focused studies. For example, we can design a research program based on a self-contained hypothesis that a lot of people think a significant % of trans women are secretly cis men trying to gain some kind of social advantage and that this point-of-view comes from (social) media representation of trans women. We can look at the historicity of this hypothesis: does the history media representation of trans women line up with the history of sports backslide? what is the impact of a film like Emilia Perez on popular opinion? We can look at specific mechanisms through which media influence public opinion. We can look comparatively at other cultures like China or Brazil that have experienced some cultural shifts as a result of modernization and globalization and ask how politics of trans issues evolved. And once enough pieces of the puzzle have fallen into place, someone — probably not me — will write a big thesis published in American Political Science Review, and get tenure at the Harvard Kennedy School etc.
All this predicates on a lot of research funding. And there’s just no money. Probably not going to for the next N years, where N >> 3.
I'm not surprised at all at the dearth of trans-related research in your field. It's the same in medicine, psychology, sociology, and neurobiology. Not only is research funding scarce, but anything trans is a risky and toxic focus of research - sort of like "mating" and "sexual selection" and anything pertaining to "evolution," those being the lightning rods of the day when MY research funding dried up.
I'm glad you appreciate the parallels to runaway sexual selection. I think there is a lot of research in evolutionary processes that could be extrapolated to the political sphere. And things like game theory and evolutionarily stable strategies (ESS) could get wickedly interesting.
I sometimes get a smile when I read about high profile people share their support for their trans children. It seems more and more stories and people speaking out. I rarely contact my Oregon legislators because I am confident how they will vote. I concentrate on writing letters to those legislators I believe may be voting in opposition.
We can only hope that the rising tide of hate has hit its high water mark. 🤞🏳️⚧️💜
This doesn't mean support for trans people. At best, it's apathy. Just like my boyfriend's southern white evangelical father, the best we are going to get is to be awkwardly and pointedly ignored.
let's make sure they know this!
"you like me, right now, you like me" Sally Field upon winning her second Oscar and me while reading these bar graphs.
Hopefully these polling data will get us a seat back on the Democratic bus. I hope we can purge the party of all the civil rights traitors who threw us under the bus.
Regarding the GOP, realistically, this only has the potential to change their tone. They probably won't be campaigning as fiercely with their anti-trans disinformation propaganda. However, they are unlikely to relent on their anti-trans policy ambitions. The reason is that the religious right demands it. Although most people apparently wish us no harm and don't like what they see the Republicans doing to us, we are among the top priority issues for the religious right - LGBTQ people and abortion. They want to eradicate us, because they imagine that's what their god wants them to do.
Most likely, Republicans will start trying to keep their anti-trans agenda low-key. Perhaps an effective way to campaign against them is to shine a light on their anti-people agendas - to show them as the cruel people they are.
But for now, let's hope we can step back on the bus. It's damned miserable underneath.
Love wins! 🏳️⚧️💕🏳️⚧️
I think it would be wise if Democrat candidates did not make this a big issue until after the midterms. Once they regain power they can rollback antitransgender policies, but they need to get elected first. This may seem cowardly, but transgender people need immediate relief and protection that could get derailed by running on a pro-transgender policy. Democrats should learn from how Trump denied that he had any knowledge of Project 2025, then when elected he went balls out in implementing it.
They should not MAKE this a big campaign issue; however, they should also not demur when asked whether they support pro-trans positions. They should say that they do, and then say, "but there are so many more issues of importance to the other 99.5% of the population. I'd rather talk about that."
I 100% agree with you. Your response is perfect.
I'm reasonably sure that not emulating Trump's dishonesty is preferable.