Donald Trump Jr. has the median American opinion on transgender issues
Tiana Lowe
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Donald Trump Jr. faced fire for comments he made about transgender issues — not from the Left, but rather from the Right. On the Full Send podcast, the former president’s son conceded that although he’s “liberal” on the transgender issue as it concerns adults, he blasted forcing gender ideology on minors as “f*cking b*llsh*t.”
Cue the criticism, including the absurd notion that “the Trump family is fundamentally indistinguishable from the Left on this.”
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Much like with the abortion issue, the median and average American opinion on the transgender issue is stubbornly muddled and not necessarily logically sound from end to end. That doesn’t change the fact that Trump here is hitting the nail on the head with what a winnable center wants from a presidential candidate such as his dad.
Nearly two-thirds of respondents to a 2022 Pew poll said they favor legal protections for trans people from discrimination in employment, housing, and public spaces. Nearly seven in 10 respondents said that it is extremely, somewhat, or very important to use a transgender person’s new name, with only 12% stating that it shouldn’t be done.
This tracks with what Trump was alluding to with regard to transgender adults. Two and a half seconds ago, it was considered liberal to call Caitlyn Jenner by her new name and to agree to a ban on gender identity-based discrimination. The first is now the overwhelming majority opinion, and the second is a civil rights protection ordered by the Supreme Court.
But pivot to the most hot-button issues pushed by activists, and public opinion shifts, mirroring Trump.
Nearly three in five Pew respondents say that athletes should be required to compete on the team of their biological sex, and 46% say it should be illegal for health professionals to help a minor medically transition, with only 31% opposing such a restriction. One-third of respondents say parents should be investigated for child abuse if they help a minor medically transition, one-third say they shouldn’t, and one-third expressed no opinion.
Consider the abortion polling we have analyzed here in the past.
The median American espouses neither the fetal personhood promulgated by the Right nor the unfettered “my body, my choice” until the moment of birth mantra of the Left. The central majority of the country favors legal first-trimester abortion, banning second-trimester abortion, but doesn’t look favorably on any abortion done only because a pregnancy is unwanted.
As with abortion, the median transgender opinion may be logically inconsistent, but the dividing lines are obvious. People are broadly okay with adults changing their names and living out their preferred gender identities, but the moment you impose those identities or ideologies upon women’s athletics, private spaces, or upon children, they balk.
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Democrats have done a wonderful job alienating the winnable center of the country as they embrace radical activists who insist your children should be taught gender ideology in elementary school and allowed to take sterilizing hormones as preteens. Republicans would be wise to learn from their mistakes and not race to the most alienating positions.
Trump doesn’t deserve scorn for taking the tactful stance.