Do Americans agree with Republicans transgender bathroom bans?

The history of restroom access in the US Capitol is part of a broader narrative about how political representation in the US was previously restricted to men. Until 2011, almost a century after the first woman served in Congress and four years after the House elected its first female speaker, female lawmakers did not have access to restrooms close to the House chamber.

Rep.-elect Sarah McBride of Delaware will become the first openly transgender member of Congress in January. But there have been difficulties in becoming a trailblazer.

Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina submitted a resolution last week that would forbid transgender individuals like McBride from accessing the Capitol’s women’s toilets in response to McBride’s election.

House Speaker Mike Johnson reiterated that all single-sex facilities in the Capitol and House offices are strictly for people of the same biological sex under pressure from other Republicans, including Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Since then, Mace has put out a bill that would forbid transgender individuals from accessing public facilities on federal property, which is an even more expansive plan.

These bills’ proponents usually portray them as attempts to preserve women-only areas and shield women and girls from sexual predators. In fact, when speaking about her bill, Mace has often brought up her experience as a survivor of sexual assault.

Critics have argued that Republicans arguments are hypocritical, considering the allegations of sexual assault against President-elect Donald Trump and some potential members of his administration, and the notion that policing bathroom use would violate privacy.

Mace’s idea was rejected by McBride as an attempt to divert attention from the nation’s actual problems.

In the past ten years, transgender rights have become a hot topic in state and local politics and a relatively new cultural battleground. States started enacting laws limiting transgender rights about 2016, with toilet access being one of the first things to be targeted.

Other states, such as California, have responded by enacting laws to defend transgender individuals’ rights. Aside from bathroom bans, half of U.S. states now restrict or prohibit transgender youth from participating in school sports on teams that reflect their gender identity, and 26 states have banned gender-affirming health care for children under the age of 18.

Similar measures were part of Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s comprehensive plan for federal policies in the upcoming Republican administration. Additionally, Republicans nationwide made extensive use of anti-transgender rhetoric during the campaign this year.

That may have been a good message. A YouGov/Yahoo News poll earlier this month found that 56 percent of Americans agreed that transgender rights have gone too far, infringing on the rights of women and children, while 32 percent agreed that protecting transgender rights is essential to ensuring equality for all Americans.

In a recent YouGov poll, 43 percent of Americans expressed their preference for their congressional representatives to prioritize upholding traditional gender definitions, while 30 percent expressed their preference for them to prioritize protecting the rights of transgender people.

Regarding specific policies, about half of Americans in that survey (including 78 percent of Republicans and 29 percent of Democrats) seemed to support Mace’s position on bathroom bans. They told YouGov that they think transgender people should use the bathroom that corresponds to the sex they were assigned at birth, while 34 percent think they should use the bathroom that corresponds to their current gender identity, or both.

A slightly larger number of voters appear to support sports participation bans, while opinions on gender-affirming youth care remain divided. In an October UMass Amherst poll, 47 percent of Americans supported bans on transgender people participating in school sports teams that matched their gender identity, while only 25 percent opposed them (the rest were undecided).

On November 6-7, a Morning Consult poll of registered voters revealed that 56 percent supported and 30 percent opposed the prohibition of transgender girls and women from participating in high school and college sports.

Meanwhile, 39 percent of respondents to a UMass Amherst poll said they would oppose policies prohibiting gender-affirming care for trans youth, while only 35 percent said they would support them. In the Morning Consult poll, 46 percent of respondents supported the bans, while 39 percent opposed them.

However, public opinion polling on transgender issues is frequently muddy, owing to a high level of uncertainty and the fact that many Americans have not dealt with them until recently. For instance, a CNN poll from October asked registered voters if they supported federal policies that either supported or restricted transgender rights.

A plurality, 42 percent, said they don t have strong feelings either way, despite the roughly evenly split responses. This suggests that these issues may not be as pressing or important to many Americans as they are to politicians seeking to stoke the culture war flames.

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