Record-High 60 Percent of Americans Say People Can’t Change Genders: Pew
A record-high percentage of Americans believe that people cannot change genders, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.
The survey also found that evangelicals are the most likely group among all religious categories to hold that traditional position.
The survey, conducted in May, found that 60 percent of U.S. adults believe that “whether someone is a man or a woman is determined by the sex they were assigned at birth,” according to the survey’s wording. That’s an increase from 56 percent in 2021 and 54 percent in 2017.
It’s a record-high percentage of Americans affirming the traditional position – a position that runs counter to the dominant message out of Hollywood and secular universities.
Meanwhile, a record-low 38 percent of Americans say they believe that someone “can be a man or a woman even if that is different from the sex they were assigned at birth” – a decrease from 41 percent in 2021 and 44 percent in 2017.
“Growing shares of Americans believe that a person’s gender is determined by their sex assigned at birth,” a Pew poll analysis said.
The poll found a major religious divide on the issue, although every religious group saw an increase in the percentage of adherents holding the traditional position.
Among white evangelicals, 87 percent believe people cannot change genders – an increase from 85 percent (2021) and 84 percent (2017). (Pew does not release data on evangelicals of all races.)
Among black Protestants, 70 percent affirm the traditional position – a significant uptick from 2021 (64 percent) and 2017 (59 percent).
Among Catholics, 62 percent believe that people cannot change genders – an increase from 52 percent in 2021 and 51 percent in 2017.
Although only 24 percent of atheists believe people cannot change gender, that’s virtually the same as in 2017, when it was 25 percent.
The poll surveyed 10,188 Americans.
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Photo courtesy: ©Getty Images/A Dragan
Michael Foust has covered the intersection of faith and news for 20 years. His stories have appeared in Baptist Press, Christianity Today, The Christian Post, the Leaf-Chronicle, the Toronto Star and the Knoxville News-Sentinel.
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