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By Suzanne Blake
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Nearly one in three Republicans support children having access to transgender care, a new poll conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago for the Los Angeles Times revealed.
The poll, which looked at how attitudes toward gay and lesbian people have changed over the past four decades based on the responses of more than 1,600 Americans, found that 29 percent of Republicans said they were in favor of state laws that protect access to gender-affirming care for minors.
Democrats were much more likely to advocate for protected access to this care, at 70 percent, but the 29 percent is higher than many may have guessed based on the public Republican view on the issue.
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Republicans were more unified when it came to their views on transgender women competing on women's sports teams. On that issue, a whopping 88 percent of Republicans said they were against transgender women competing, but there was much more division on whether transgender children should be able to get care helping them transition.
Robert Shapiro, a political science professor at Columbia University, said Republicans might be making a distinction between what they view as fair when it concerns affecting others versus their own individual health care choices, which more might be inclined to protect.
"It is understandable that the transgender issue is more clear-cut in that it pertains to fairness in competition where transgender women may have at least a possible lingering physiological advantage that can be perceived as unfair that infringes on the prospects of their competitors," Shapiro told Newsweek.
He added: "Whereas transgender care only affects the prospects of the individual receiving the care, and Republicans and conservatives may be acknowledging that there are personal health and well-being issues that are between the individuals and medical professionals and the rights of individuals should be protected from state interference."
Shapiro said this differs from Republicans' view of abortion, as many are worried about protecting the life of a fetus over preserving the autonomy and decisions between women and their doctors.
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The greater support for gender-affirming health care comes despite Republicans leading the effort nationwide to ban transgender care for minors. According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), at least 510 anti-LGBTQ+ bills were introduced in state legislatures across the country in 2023.
However, there have been signs that Republicans are not as steadfast in their opposition to minors getting the hormones and surgeries for the gender they identify with.
Kansas Republicans proposed a ban on all gender-affirming care for children earlier this year, but the bill died in April after two Republicans switched their votes, allowing Democratic Governor Laura Kelly's veto of the bill to go through. The law would have also prohibited state employees working with children to encourage kids to transition, even if they expressed concerns over their gender identity.
Republicans have long touted that bans on gender-affirming care would protect children from making harmful lifetime decisions before they're capable of deciding whether they want to fully transition. Meanwhile, those in favor of surgeries and hormone treatments argue that preventing access to these services can cause long term suffering and mental health problems for children and teens, who aren't able to live in a body that feels like their own.
More than 60 House Republicans also recently took up a legal challenge to President Joe Biden's new rule expanding the federal nondiscrimination protections for transgender students under Title IX.
Some Republicans have pushed against the new rule, which goes into effect August 1, for covering discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity for the first time in history.
"This divergence is a blatant violation of the protections Title IX was meant to guarantee, and it undermines the very foundation of women's rights and security in their private spaces," Representative Mary Miller, an Illinois Republican, said in a statement earlier this week.
At the state and local level, Republicans have looked to ban transgender athletes' competition in women's sports as well due to what they say is an unfair advantage against athletes who were born women.
Across the United States, roughly 300,000 children aged 13 to 17 identify as transgender, according to the Williams Institute, the LGBTQ+ research center at UCLA Law.
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