The United States needs a strong military that stands ready to confront any threat, so should people who openly identify as transgender be permitted to serve?
Common sense dictates that the answer to this question should be a resounding “no.” But according to a recent Gallup survey, a majority of American adults (71 percent) answered that they favor permitting openly transgender individuals to serve in the military, while just 26 percent oppose that idea. A small percentage (2 percent) had no opinion.
Gallup’s poll results show 88 percent of Democrats, 78 percent of independents and 43 percent of Republicans favor allowing openly transgender people to participate in military service, while 11 percent of Democrats, 20 percent of independents and 53 percent of Republicans oppose it.
According to The Hill, President Trump’s transgender service ban “took effect in April,” but transgender people can still “serve under their biological sex or if they were grandfathered in under the 2016 open service policy.”
A 2017 Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll found that “58 percent of adults agreed with the statement, ‘Transgender people should be allowed to serve in the military.’ Twenty-seven percent said they should not while the rest answered ‘don’t know.’”
The results of a January 2019 Rasmussen Reports survey found “43% of Likely U.S. Voters favor allowing transgender people to serve openly in the military,” while 44 percent opposed the idea and 13 percent were undecided. The wording of the survey question said, “The U.S. Supreme Court will allow the Trump administration to ban most transgender people from serving openly in the military. Do you favor or oppose allowing transgender people to serve openly in the military?”
A January 2019 Quinnipiac University National Poll found that 70 percent supported permitting transgender military service, while 22 percent did not support it and 8 percent were “DK/NA.”
On the question of transgender people’s public bathroom usage, the recent Gallup survey found that a bare majority (51 percent) thought that policies should require transgender people to use the facility matching their birth gender, while 44 percent thought that the rules should permit transgender people to use the bathroom congruent with their gender identity. Five percent had no opinion.
Given the choice between whether there should be sex-segregated bathrooms or “unisex bathrooms that can be used by all genders” at “large public places such as malls, stadiums and airports,” a majority of people (68 percent) said different bathrooms for men and women, while nearly a third (30 percent) said unisex bathrooms.