51 percent say changing gender is morally wrong: Gallup

A majority of Americans say that it is morally wrong for a person to change their gender, according to a Gallup poll released Friday.

Fifty-one percent of respondents to the poll said it is morally wrong for one to change their gender, compared to 46 percent who said it is morally acceptable.

Gallup found that women were more likely to view switching genders as morally acceptable than men. Fifty percent of women said switching genders is morally acceptable, compared to 43 percent of men.

Seventy-eight percent of those who identified as liberal said it is morally acceptable to be transgender, and nearly the exact same percentage of conservatives, 76 percent, said it was morally wrong.

Those who identified as moderate appeared to be split on the issue, with 48 percent saying switching genders was morally acceptable, and another 48 percent saying it was morally wrong. 

The survey comes as transgender rights have moved into focus amid GOP-backed measures targeting transgender people.

Last month, the Human Rights Campaign declared 2021 “the worst year in recent history” for anti-transgender bills. These measures include barring gender reassignment surgery and preventing transgender people from participating in athletics.

Gallup’s survey on changing genders came as part of a larger survey on American’s views of the moral acceptability of a variety of issues.

For example, Gallup found that the percentages who said abortion, divorce and gay or lesbian relations were morally acceptable reached their highest percentages since they were first tracked more than two decades ago.

Gallup surveyed 1,016 adults from May 3 to 18. The margin of error is plus or minus 4 percentage points.