By Manzanita Miller
As transgender issues have risen in prominence, a patchwork of federalism has emerged, with red states taking a firm stand against the mutilation and chemical castration of young people and blue states declaring themselves “sanctuary states” for transgender youth.
States like Idaho, Florida, Alabama and North Dakota have taken a strong stand against the chemical castration or mutilation of minors, making it a felony to drug or operate on children under the age of eighteen for the purposes of changing their gender.
According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, a total of twenty-six states have enacted laws either limiting or restricting transgender care for young people.
That said, radical leftists have geared up in response, and seventeen states with restrictions on transgender access for minors are embroiled in legal challenges from radical left gender ideologues.
In response to conservative legislatures passing laws to protect young people from being chemically castrated and mutilated, eleven states, including California, Colorado, Washington, and Minnesota, have declared themselves “sanctuary states” for young people seeking transgender hormones and other “gender affirming care”.
Left-wing radicals may have seized control of the legislature in states like California and Colorado to push a radical agenda, but on a broad slate of transgender policies the American people align with how red states are handling these issues.
According to recently released polling from YouGov, Americans are far more conservative across a slate of transgender issues than might be expected, especially when it comes to handling children under the age of eighteen. That said, most Americans want to take steps to protect transgender adults from discrimination in the workplace and the military.
YouGov’s survey shows that by a margin of twenty-three points – 52 percent to 29 percent – Americans support banning transgender youth from accessing synthetic hormones to change their gender. By an even greater margin – 58 percent to 19 percent – Americans support requiring transgender athletes to play on sports teams that match their sex assigned at birth, rather than competing against students of the opposite sex.
By twenty-three points – 52 percent to 29 percent – Americans support banning transgender youth from accessing puberty blockers to halt their natural hormonal cycles. Americans also say by a twenty-one-point margin – 50 percent to 29 percent – they support creating a law that defines gender as an individual’s sex assigned at birth, rather than their gender identity.
Americans are also pushing back heavily against the often-insidious addition of transgender content and ideologies into children’s spaces. Americans say by twelve points – 47 percent to 35 percent – that public schools should be banned from adding “lessons” on transgenderism for school-aged students. Americans also support requiring public school personnel to refer to students by their proper biological pronouns rather than terms that do not match their sex by six points, 42 percent to 36 percent.
On healthcare matters, Americans appear to take a libertarian-conservative approach to transgender issues – the public largely believes that both private companies and government sponsored insurance should have the right to refuse to cover the costs associated with transitioning.
According to the YouGov survey, Americans say by twelve points – 45 percent to 33 percent – that private health insurance companies should be allowed to deny coverage for the cost of surgeries and other methods of transitioning. Americans say by fifteen points – 48 percent to 33 percent – that government health insurance should not cover the cost associated with changing one’s gender as well.
While these views might sound shockingly ‘conservative’ to the left-wing ideologues who believe that most Americans support their fringe approach to gender politics, Americans do show a dedication to protecting the rights of transgender people.
For instance, Americans support including protections for transgender people in hate-crime laws by thirty-seven points, and they support banning employers from firing employees based solely on their gender identity by 22 points. Americans also support allowing transgender people to serve in the military by fourteen points.
Most Americans are far from the caricatures of ‘hateful bigots’ that gender ideologues would like to portray us as, but a majority of the public also believes in a science-based and rational approach to gender identity issues.
The public isn’t without compassion for individuals suffering with gender dysphoria. A majority of Americans express concern for protecting transgender people from discrimination – but the public also isn’t buying the anti-science politically-correct agenda forced onto us by big government.
When it comes to protecting children’s safety, Americans take a hardline stance against the radical left’s gender ideology.
The Democratic Party suffered major, crippling losses among several groups of voters that were not entirely on board with the radical left’s gender ideology in November.
Black and Hispanic men, many of whom do not see eye to eye with the gender ideologues controlling the Democratic Party, are leaving the left in droves. According to exit polls, President-elect Donald Trump gained nineteen points with Latino men this year, winning them as a whole. Trump also made stunning gains with Black men in states like Pennsylvania – where he gained fourteen points – and North Carolina – where he gained twelve points.
Then there are Gen Z voters. According to exit polls, Trump made a sweeping eleven-point gain with Americans aged 18-24, a group that is steeped in radical gender ideology on high school and college campuses more than perhaps any other group of voters.
The radical left gender ideologues that have consumed the Democratic Party in recent years would do well to listen up – if they do not stop disseminating anti-science and anti-child propaganda and labeling anyone who disagrees with them a bigot, they are going to continue losing elections.
Manzanita Miller is the senior political analyst at Americans for Limited Government Foundation.
