President Joe Biden has done more to promote transgender ideology than any president, ever. A scroll through the White House archives shows statement after statement, proclamation after proclamation, speech after speech, in which the president praises what he calls the "extraordinary courage and contributions" of transgender Americans.
Last year, the White House, as part of its observation of Transgender Day of Visibility -- an event that included the White House Roundtable on Affirming Transgender Kids -- the Biden administration released a list of 42 actions and policy initiative it has undertaken to support transgender Americans. The list included Justice Department civil rights enforcement actions, "intervening legally when states violate the rights of transgender youth and their families," signing a "historic executive order to advance equality for LGBTQI+ people," expanding access to "gender-affirming care," and much, much more. On that last subject, the Biden White House has gone all-out even at a time when doctors in Europe have expressed growing concern about the lasting damage caused by the irreversible medical treatments known in some circles as "gender-affirming care."
So there is no doubt that Biden has put the power of the presidency behind transgender ideology. And yet now there is new evidence that Americans are increasingly rejecting the fundamental tenet of transgenderism: that a man can become a woman and a woman can become a man.
The data is in a new poll by the Pew Research Center. For seven years now, Pew has been asking American voters this question: "Which statement comes closer to your views, even if neither is exactly right? A) Whether someone is a man or a woman is determined by the sex they were assigned at birth, or B) Someone can be a man or a woman even if that is different from the sex they were assigned at birth."
Put aside the use of the loaded term "assigned at birth," which suggests a baby's sex is an arbitrary assignment rather than a biological reality. When the question was asked in 2017, 54% of those surveyed said that whether someone is a man at woman is determined at birth, while 44% said it can be different. In 2021, the number saying sex is determined at birth ticked upward to 56%. In 2022, it grew to 60%. And this year, 65% of those surveyed said whether someone is a man or woman is determined at birth, while 33% said it can be different.
That is a serious change. Seven years ago, just over half of those surveyed said sex is determined at birth. Now, that number is nearly two-thirds. After all the White House proclamations, all the media talk, all the change in language to "gender neutral" pronouns -- after it all, the number of Americans rejecting the foundation of transgenderism has increased.
Pew found huge political differences in opinion on the subject. Among Republicans, 91% said sex is determined at birth, with just 8% saying it can be different from birth. Among Democrats, just 39% said sex is determined at birth, while 59% said it can be different. But even among Democrats, the number who say sex is determined at birth has grown over the last seven years, while the number who say it can be different has shrunk.
The differences stand apart from some of the conventional divides in recent politics. For example, among people with college degrees, 92% of Trump supporters said sex is determined at birth, while just 30% of college-educated Biden supporters said the same thing. Among voters 18 to 34 years old, 83% of Trump supporters said sex is determined at birth, while 29% of Biden supporters said the same thing.
The contrast is extraordinary. And so is the change. For a time, the number of Americans who said that a person's sex can be changed, that it can be different from birth, approached a majority. Now, it is receding. If that trend continues, the ideology which the Biden administration has so energetically promoted might no longer be the political benefit the president thinks it is.