Survey: Most Americans support protections for LGBTQ+ people
Three-quarters of Americans support nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ+ people, but remain divided over support for laws restricting gender-affirming care for minors, according to a Public Religion Research Institute survey out Tuesday.
Why it matters: President Trump made attacks against trans people a central part of his campaign — and many of his earliest actions in office have targeted or rolled back protections for trans Americans.
By the numbers: 89% of Democrats, 62% of Republicans and 78% of independents support nondiscrimination protections in housing, employment and public accommodation for LGBTQ+ people, according to the PRRI survey.
Americans are largely divided along partisan lines over laws restricting gender-affirming care for minors, according to the survey.
70% of Democrats oppose laws that would ban parents from allowing their child to receive gender-affirming care, compared to 30% of Republicans.
A slightly smaller share of Democrats, 60%, oppose laws that require a person's driver's license or ID to match their sex assigned at birth. 14% of Republicans oppose such laws.
Reality check: Major medical organizations, including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychiatric Association, consider gender-affirming care medically necessary and lifesaving.
Zoom in: Most states still allow transgender people to update their gender marker on their birth certificates or IDs.
But a day one Trump executive order stating the federal government would only recognize two genders, male and female, has sparked confusion at the state-level over individuals' wanting to update their passport to ensure it matches their gender identity, Axios' Christine Clarridge reports from Seattle.
What they're saying: "Support for LGBTQ rights, including marriage equality and non-discrimination protections, have largely stabilized after some modest declines last year, with strong majorities — including majorities of most people of faith — supporting such policies," PRRI CEO Melissa Deckman said in a news release.
"Americans are more divided on the rights of transgender Americans, however, largely polarized along partisan lines," Deckman said.
The big picture: Trump's allies across the government are also passing policies targeting trans Americans, including as recently as last week when the Pentagon moved to ban transgender service members unless they receive a waiver.
On his first day in office, Trump also rescinded some Biden-era orders that in part provided nondiscrimination protections in health care and schools for LGBTQ people, according to KFF.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission under the second Trump administration has also moved to stop enforcing — or dismiss entirely — nondiscrimination cases and protections for LGBTQ+ people in the workforce.
Methodology: The PRRI survey was conducted online between March 13 and Dec. 2, 2024. It is based on a random sample of 22,260 adults in all 50 states. Among those, 20,642 are part of Ipsos's KnowledgePanel and an additional 1,618 were recruited by Ipsos using opt-in survey panels, per PRRI.
The margin of error for the national survey is +/- 0.84 percentage points at the 95% level of confidence,
Go deeper: All of the anti-trans executive orders Trump has signed
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