Over 60% of likely voters oppose gender transition for kids, allowing boys in girls' sports
The vast majority of Americans, regardless of their political affiliation, support the preservation of single-sex spaces and women's sports as female-only, a new survey has found.
The poll, which was conducted by Spry Strategies on behalf of Women's Liberation Front, found that a majority of likely voters in the 2020 election object to "gender identity" policies, including the Equality Act, which passed in the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives last year.
The proposed federal bill is an update to the 1964 Civil Rights Act — considered by many to be the legislative legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. — that would redefine sex to include self-declared gender and thus remove distinctly sex-based protections in spaces such as prisons, shelters, and athletics.
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Sampled nationally from all 50 states, the 3,500 likely voters were comprised of different races, ethnicities, and political affiliations. The poll results found that black and Hispanic voters approve of such things as single-sex prisons and homeless shelters, at a higher rate than whites.
In response to the question: "Do you think men who are sex offenders or domestic abusers should be allowed to serve their sentences in women's prisons," 66.93% of those polled strongly disagreed. An additional 10.44% said they merely disagreed.
Regarding transgender-identifying males being allowed to compete in girls' and women's sports, nearly 67% of respondents indicated that they either disagreed or strongly disagreed with it.
Just under 60% of likely voters opposed allowing males to enter women's restrooms and changing facilities.
The survey also asked whether children younger than 18 who identify as transgender should be allowed to undergo medicalized gender-transition such as taking hormones that cause sterility or cosmetic gender surgeries to appear as the opposite sex.
Two-thirds of respondents disapproved, most of them strongly.
"The poll also revealed that ... the wealthiest Americans (those with household incomes over $150,000) are the most likely to support these policies which are largely unpopular with middle-class voters," WoLF noted in a summation about the survey on its website.
"These results indicate that those most likely to actually be impacted by gender identity policies (poor or working-class families and people of color) are more likely to oppose them."
Those sampled from May 1, 2018, to Oct. 20, 2020, said they had voted in at least two of the last four election cycles or were newly registered voters. The data was modeled after the 2016 General Election voter turnout, which is the anticipated model for the 2020 cycle.
The latest poll is commensurate with similar findings released in September in which likely voters were surveyed in Idaho, a conservative state that adopted a bill banning trans-identified males from competing in women's sports, and California, a progressive state.
The Spry Strategies poll, conducted in conjunction with WoLF, showed that opposition to males in girls' sports had significant cross-partisan backing.
Some 79% of likely voters in Idaho, and 74% of likely voters in California, agreed that boys and men, regardless of how they identify, ought not to be permitted to participate in female-only sporting competitions, the survey found.
