A majority of Americans say bathrooms, locker rooms and showers should be regulated on the basis of biological sex rather than gender identity, a new poll finds.
When asked whether someone “who is transitioning to become the opposite sex should be legally allowed to use whichever bathroom they want to,” 56 percent of Americans disagree and 38 percent agree, the Marist/Crux survey released Monday shows.
Even fewer respondents, 27 percent, say they are in favor of allowing people to use the showers and locker rooms of their professed gender identity. A full two-thirds oppose the idea.
Whether transgender people should be allowed to use the intimate facilities of the opposite sex has become a highly charged political debate.
The Trump administration reversed an Obama-era order earlier this month compelling public schools nationwide to permit access to intimate facilities on the basis of gender identity.
And the Supreme Court is set to hear a case next month brought by a transgender student who sued a Virginia school board over the right to use the boys’ bathroom.
The Marist/Crux poll also finds the public is against forcing medical professionals to violate their religious beliefs by participating in sex-reassignment surgeries.
Eighty percent said doctors with religious objections to the procedures should not be forced to perform them, and 62 percent said religious employers should not have to cover the operations.
The poll surveyed 545 adults from Dec. 12 to 13 and has a margin of error of 4.2 percent.
