A growing majority of adults responding to an annual national poll say they believe in only two genders, male and female.
Among those responding to a recent survey, 65% said they embraced a gender binary, up from 62% last year and 59% in 2021, the nonprofit Public Religion Research Institute reported Thursday. An additional 34% said they believe in many possible gender identities, down from 35% last year and 40% in 2021.
A spike in “significant conservative media attention” to gender issues in recent years drove the shift, said political scientist Melissa Deckman, CEO of the D.C.-based pollster. The poll cited political battles over sexual identity lessons, parental rights and gender pronouns in public schools as examples.
“We’re seeing a hardening of position in support of a gender binary nationally, informed largely by partisanship and news consumption. It’s those who feel the most strongly about gender who are driving these conversations,” Ms. Deckman said.
Belief in two genders varied sharply according to the political party, religious affiliation, media preferences and demographics of those surveyed. Most respondents did not personally know a transgender or nonbinary person, the poll noted.
While 90% of Republicans surveyed embraced a two-gender outlook on sexuality, just 44% of Democrats agreed. The survey found older adults, straight people, Fox News viewers and religious believers with less education — including 91% of White evangelical Protestants — were far likelier than younger people, LGBT people, mainstream media consumers, the highly educated and the religiously unaffiliated to believe in only two genders.
On a related issue, 40% of respondents said they would feel “uncomfortable” if a friend admitted to using gender-neutral pronouns such as “they” instead of “he” or “she.” Thirty-five percent said they would be “somewhat” or “very” comfortable, while 23% said it didn’t matter to them either way.
Among those surveyed, 43% agreed with the statement that “young people are being peer-pressured into being transgender” and 53% said public schools interfere too much with parents’ rights to determine what their children learn. Both questions saw strong partisan splits between Republicans and Democrats.
Researchers from PRRI surveyed a randomized national sampling of 5,046 adults recruited through the Ipsos Knowledge Panel on March 9-23. The margin of error was plus or minus 1.5 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.
• Sean Salai can be reached at ssalai@washingtontimes.com.