Poll: Nearly half of Americans think politicians should not focus on transgender issues
Protestors hold a flag in New Orleans on March 31, 2023 as part of the International Transgender Day of Visibility. A new poll found most Americans think politicians should focus less on transgender issues and found a majority opposed legal bans on gender-affirming care. (Greg LaRose/Louisiana Illuminator)
This story was originally reported by Jasmine Mithani of The 19th. Meet Jasmine and read more of her reporting on gender, politics and policy.
President Donald Trump has taken aim at trans people during his first 100 days in office in his second term. He has sought to restrict access to accurate passports, erase the accomplishments of trans elders, remove transgender members from the military and purge the government of what he has termed 'woke gender ideology.' But a new 19th News/SurveyMonkey poll shows that 49% of Americans think politicians should not be focusing on transgender issues at all.
It's a rise from before the election, when 43% of Americans said they believed politicians should not focus on trans issues, versus protecting trans rights or restricting gender-affirming care. In 2023, the figure was 44%.
Democrats and Independents are less likely than they were in September to think politicians should be protecting transgender rights, and 42% of Democrats think politicians should not focus on trans issues — up from 33% last year.
More Republicans also think politicians shouldn't focus on trans issues — 57% vs 53% last year — and the number who think lawmakers should concentrate on restricting transgender rights has fallen.
Overall, despite the Trump administration's attempts to erase trans people from public life, the majority of Americans (59%) support the right of transgender adults to access gender-affirming care. However, fewer Americans, 43%, support the right of trans youth to seek such care. That doesn't necessarily translate into a desire for bans. In fact, 55% opposed laws that would restrict gender-affirming care for minors, including 41% of Republicans and 57% of Independents.
Gender-affirming care for trans people is any health care designed to support and affirm their gender identity, and typically differs depending on age. For trans adults, care can include therapy, consultations with doctors, hormones or other medication, and surgery. For trans youth, gender-affirming care can include therapy, consultations with doctors, hormones or puberty blockers, other medication, and, rarely, surgery. The World Professional Association for Transgender Health does not recommend gender-affirming gential surgeries for anyone under 18.
The results are from a 19th News/SurveyMonkey poll conducted online from April 11-21, 2025, among 5,032 American adults. Results have a margin of error of 1.5 percentage points.
The majority of Americans are not confident that politicians are informed enough about gender-affirming care for transgender minors to make fair policy. But the number who say they are informed enough has risen from 24% last year to 31% this year.
Women continue to be more likely than men to support access to gender-affirming care for both adults (65% versus 52%) and youth (46% versus 38%). While this survey collected only binary gender data, a 19th News/SurveyMonkey poll from September showed widespread support for access among nonbinary and transgender Americans.
Movement in favor of transgender rights is notable given how central antri-trans rhetoric was to Trump's campaign, which is now manifesting into federal policy impacting hundreds of thousands of lives.
Meanwhile, Democrats are split on whether to support their trans constituents. In the immediate aftermath of the election, some congressional Democrats loudly criticized their party for supporting trans people. And in the inaugural episode of his new podcast, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signaled interest in restricting how trans women athletes can compete in sporting events.
But others, like Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, have vocally condemned Trump's anti-trans policies and refused to back down.
This was notably seen a couple months into the Trump administration, when Senate Democrats did band together to block a bill which would have prevented transgender girls from playing on girls' sports teams in federally-funded schools.
This 19th News|SurveyMonkey poll was conducted online from April 11-21, 2025, among a national sample of 5,032 U.S. adults 18+. Respondents were selected from the more than two million people who take surveys on SurveyMonkey each day. Results for this non-probability survey have an error estimate of plus or minus 1.5 percentage points. Data have been weighted for age, race, sex, education and geography using the Census Bureau's American Community Survey to reflect the demographic composition of the United States aged 18 and over.
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