(LifeSiteNews) – A majority of Americans consider it “morally wrong” to attempt to change one’s gender, a recent Gallup poll found.
PinkNews reported that 54% of respondents gave that answer in a June survey of attitudes on the “moral acceptability” of various practices, and 40% called it “morally acceptable” and just 5% said it depends or it is not a question of morality.
The findings make transitioning notably less favorable in the public eye than birth control, extramarital sex, same-sex relations, or abortion. Moral acceptability for transitioning is down slightly from 44% last year.
However, the poll also found over 60% oppose banning transition procedures on minors, although that result may be due in part to the question’s generous wording of “gender-affirming care” and “help transgender individuals align with their gender identity.”
In reality, a large body of evidence shows that “affirming” gender confusion carries serious harms, especially when done with impressionable children who lack the mental development, emotional maturity, and life experience to consider the long-term ramifications of the decisions being pushed on them, or full knowledge about the long-term effects of life-altering, physically transformative, and often-irreversible surgical and chemical procedures.
Studies find that more than 80% of children experiencing gender dysphoria outgrow it on their own by late adolescence, and that even full “reassignment” surgery often fails to resolve gender-confused individuals’ heightened tendency to engage in self-harm and suicide — and may even exacerbate it, including by reinforcing their confusion and neglecting the actual root causes of their mental strife.
Many oft-ignored detransitioners attest to the physical and mental harm of reinforcing gender confusion as well as to the bias and negligence of the medical establishment on the subject, many of whom take an activist approach to their profession and begin cases with a predetermined conclusion that “transitioning” is the best solution.
“Gender-affirming” physicians have also been caught on video admitting to more old-fashioned motives for such procedures, as with a 2022 exposé about Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s Clinic for Transgender Health, where Dr. Shayne Sebold Taylor said outright that “these surgeries make a lot of money.”
Overall, the available evidence strongly indicates the public is not with LGBT activists on transgenderism.
Sixty-six percent of Americans oppose taxpayer funding for gender transitions, according to an April Cygnal poll, and Pew Research found that 66% support limiting athletic participation to actual members of a team’s designated sex, 56% support prohibiting transition procedures on minors, and 53% oppose forcing insurance companies to cover transition services. Another June Gallup poll found that not even half of Democrats support letting males compete in female sports.
In fact, exit polling by the pro-Democrat firm Blueprint found that the statement “Kamala Harris is focused more on cultural issues like transgender issues rather than helping the middle class” was the third-biggest reason for why overall voters chose not to vote for her and the number one reason why swing voters rejected her and voted for President Donald Trump instead last November.
