More than two-thirds of American adults now say that transgender athletes should be allowed to compete only against athletes of the same birth gender, as Democrats who support gender-identity-based participation on sports teams are no longer in the majority, a new Gallup survey reveals.
In the national survey of U.S. adults, conducted May 1-24, Gallup asked the following question:
“Do you think transgender athletes should be able to play on sports teams that match their current gender identity or should only be allowed to play on sports teams that match their birth gender?”
The percentage of all Americans who say transgender athletes should compete only against athletes sharing the same birth gender has increased to 69% today, up from 62% in 2021, Gallup reports.
Meanwhile, support for allowing transgender athletes to compete on teams of their choice, by professing a gender “identity,” fell from a third (34%) to a quarter (26%) of U.S. adults.
“Democrats are now divided on allowing transgender athletes to play on either male or female teams, while in 2021 more were in favor than opposed,” Gallup observes.
Self-identified Democrats who think transgender athletes should be able to play on teams that match their chosen gender identities has fallen, from a majority of 55% in 2021, to 47% in the latest survey.
Likewise, support for identity-based athletic competition also declined among both Independents (from 33% to 28%) and Republicans (from 10% to 6%).
“Laws that restrict participation for transgender athletes are generally in line with U.S. public opinion on the issue,” Gallup reports, noting that at least twenty states now have laws banning biological male athletes from choosing to compete against biological females.
“It appears that Americans view transgender sports participation more through a lens of competitive fairness than transgender civil rights,” according to Gallup’s analysis of the results.
As biological males have continued to rob biological female athletes of awards and scholarship opportunities, the issue of competitive fairness has increasing drawn national attention.
On Saturday, a biological male cyclist, racing and competing as a self-identified woman, easily won a $5,000 first prize – beating the biologically-female runner-up by five minutes.
In March of last year, biological male Lia Thomas helped stoke the national debate over fairness by becoming the first transgender “woman” to win a women’s NCAA swimming championship.
And, on Friday, the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals heard the case of four biologically female former high school track athletes who are suing the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference (CIAC) for forcing them to compete against biologically male transgender athletes when they were in school. Because of their losses to male athletes who had unfair physical advantages, they were denied both victories and opportunities, the women’s lawsuit contends.