During the last year or so, there has been a lot of news involving around transgender people using the bathroom. North Carolina and other states have passed, or are trying to pass laws forcing transgender people to use the bathroom that corresponds to their birth gender, not their gender identity now.
However, polls show that the majority of Americans are against this ridiculousness. A recent US poll by the Public Religion Research Institute found that 53 percent of Americans oppose limiting transgender rights. Approximately 39 percent of responders were in favor of these laws, and the rest had no opinion.
Robert P. Jones, chief executive of the Washington-based group, said:
“This is a case where it really is Republicans kind of pulling away and being more of an outlier to the rest of the country.”
The Partisan And Religious Divides
The results differ by party and by religious groups. Around 65 percent of Democrats and 57 percent of Independents oppose these transgender “bathroom” bills; however, 59 percent of Republicans are in favor of these bills.
On the religious side of things, 64 percent of the people who do not identify with any religious group oppose the “bathroom bills.” Nearly 60 percent of Catholics are in favor of them. About 40 percent of Protestants favor of them.
Where Are These Laws Being Passed?
Fourteen states have introduced transgender “bathroom” bills, including:
- Alabama
- Illinois
- Kansas
- Kentucky
- Minnesota
- Missouri
- New York
- South Carolina
- South Dakota
- Tennessee
- Texas
- Virginia
- Washington
- Wyoming
Some of these bills even give a definition of what “sex” means in their state. For example, the bill proposed in Illinois:
“…Defines sex as the physical condition of being male or female, determined by chromosomes and assigned at birth.”
Kansas also defines sex the same way. Some of them go by what is on your birth certificate.
Here is John Oliver’s excellent take on transgender rights:
Featured image by Jax House via Flickr/CC-SA-2.0 license.
