Gallup’s’ latest survey results are affirmatively strange, but then the topic is strange: American attitudes towards transgender issues. I believe the survey intersects with the one EA discussed yesterday, indicating that conservative self-identification was ticking up. It would have been stunning it it didn’t tick up, considering that the political and social Left has thrown all caution and moderation to the four winds and is openly advocating the most extreme and viscerally (as well as ethically) disgusting policies and beliefs imaginable, from 9 month abortions to legalizing theft. The unexpected Woke World obsession with transsexual “transitioning” is another example, though most Americans haven’t thought about it very carefully or thoroughly yet as Gallup’s polling makes clear.
The above survey, for example, is bizarre. I don’t see what morality has to do with an adult individual’s decision regarding transsexual surgery, non-surgical treatment, or “identification,” unless one is a Christian Scientist who opposes medical intervention, or someone who still subscribes to ancient religious taboos on all non-conforming sexuality and relationships. Obviously most American aren’t in either group. Those polled, and apparently those doing the polling, were seemingly using “moral” as a synonym for “ethical,” because most American are no longer taught what ethics is. They don’t know what “moral” means either.
There are medical ethics issues when doctors agree to do radical surgery or proscribe hormone therapy to a patient claiming to be one gender trapped in the body of another. There are obviously serious ethical issues when children are involved, and adults are engaging in efforts to impose their ideology or social goals on children too young to give meaningful consent. The question of whether post-puberty males should ever be allowed to compete as females in sports competitions is also an ethical one (and it is unethical to treat it as a political one.)
It seems clear to me that Democrats and Republicans are allowing peer group pressures and partisan loyalties to guide their positions on a matter that shouldn’t involve either. Taking religious cant out of the equation, how can an adult’s decision to do whatever he or he feels is warranted to make them feel comfortable in their own skin and identities be anyone’s business but their own? If such conduct doesn’t hurt anyone, at worst it’s an “Ick!” problem, not an ethical one. Gallup needed to examine this aspect of the issue if it was going to begin the inquiry.
The effect of knowing someone who is a transsexual is interesting.
If that experience has any influence at all on so many people’s views, it means that a lot of people would benefit from knowing something about what they are opining about, but that’s usually the case, isn’t it? I know at least two individuals who changed their gender, and one who is still trying to work it all out. I also—and I know this sounds strange—did a research project that covered the topic in high school. My class all picked a human organ to do a half-year-long project on, and I was sick on choice day, so my teacher said, “Well, Marshall, the only subject left is the penis and testicles. Go to it.” He was smiling when he said it.
I spent every Saturday for months at the Harvard Medical Library reading about intersex, pseudo-hermaphroditism, and horrible tropical diseases (“Why is that Indian man sitting on that sand bag…OH MY GOD!!!!) as well as other cock-and-ball-related matters, and I must say, it demystified the topic for me (I got an A+ on the paper, but the oral presentation was tricky). How many of the people surveyed by Gallup have been following the issue over the past couple of years? Do they know about Lia Thomas? I like to know what female athletes think, as a group. How about the parents of female athletes? This is an ethics issue, and Gallup is headlining about “morality.”
My guess, or perhaps my hope, is that as the issues involved with transsexuals become more familiar and people start paying attention, it will be seen increasingly as a question of what’s right and fair rather than one requiring mandatory acceptance of woke virtue-signaling in defiance of common sense and fairness.
Ethics Alarms 
At the bottom of the top picture is a little notation that says “Those who volunteered that it depends on the situation or that it is not a moral issue and those who had no opinion are not shown”. I’m curious what percentage of people volunteered the first two of those 3 answers.
That was exactly what I was going to say… There’s a difference between using someone’s preferred pronouns to be polite and actually believing that they’ve managed to change sex. The way questions are formed on surveys is important, and I think we can all, with very little effort, think of a dozen ways that the question could be asked that would generate vastly different results.
The questions they ask are deliberately designed to produce useless answers. Is changing your gender moral? How are people supposed to answer that unless they have some religious belief that explicitly claims it isn’t? There are a thousand different factors that could affect the way you answer the question! Are we talking about an adult or a child? Is the individual currently experiencing a psychotic break? Is this a long term condition or a short term impulse? How far do they intend to transition? Are we talking wearing new clothes or chopping off body parts? Has the person been provided with the information necessary to provide informed consent to any surgeries? These are not simple, straightforward issues.
The only time I have ever been polled was at the age of 18. What was supposed to be a 10 minute conversation turned into an hour and half long argument over whether or not I could answer the questions without further clarifications. No one has ever attempted to poll me again. I don’t think that the poor pollster appreciated being lectured by a teenager about his profession’s incompetency.
Using the term “fad” to describe the transgender phenomenon is apt; it seems to me to be another manifestation of the psycho-social epidemic, or mass hysteria incidents, that periodically arise, run their course, and leave most people thinking, “What the hell was that all about?” The Salem witch trials are a good example, but in my own memory we have the widespread accounts of (1) Satanists in the suburbs committing animal sacrifices and conducting unholy rituals in the dead of night. (In the early 1980s, I personally investigated a number of these claims and found them all factually baseless.) (2) All the day-care-child abuse scandals that turned out to be based on fantasy. There are many other historical examples of many people acting similarly though irrationally to social phenomena and psychological stress.
I have a news flash for anyone who isn’t “comfortable in their own skin”: the skin is not the problem.
Whatever floats your boat as an adult is fine with me. My issue is with those who are pushing children to examine their own sexuality. I don’t care if these adults are helping little girls perform acts of gratification on little boys or with someone of their own biological sex; it is just improper. Whether such practices occur in a school setting or in an after school program such discussions are no different than what would be treated as sexual harassment in the workplace. Moreover, some consistency should be demanded if a 6 year old can make decisions about their preferred sexuality or gender then why are the same people pushing the idea that parents do not need notification on this issue not demanding that 6 year old who shot his teacher is not charged as an adult or that those convicted of child sexual abuse not be allowed to claim consensual relationship as a defense.
I also believe there should be some modicum of modesty in public. People need to confine those sexual behaviors that most would find appropriate only in the bedroom in the bedroom and not parade around in public in BDSM gear or lingerie. Decorum should be the rule
I want to be clear, I am not advocating that children should have agency in these decisions. Kids are easily manipulated and far too often want to do whatever is necessary to please the adults in their lives.
According to Statista, the share of people identifying as transgender, gender fluid, non-binary, or other ways worldwide as of 2021, by country is 2% worldwide and 1% in the USA.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1269778/gender-identity-worldwide-country/
Pew Research claims the number can be 5% of young adults in the USA. Mark Twain’s “Figures Don’t lie but liars figure” comes to mind.
Regarding the reporting of the Gallop without the detail regarding question text, sample size, and political faction distribution; the summary results are meaningless.
The advocacy is a recent phenomenon with a sharp uptick since Biden took office. It seems to me it is a good wedge issue to keep the discussion away from things that truly matter. Say open borders, Fentanyl smuggling, and deaths, government spending fueled inflation.
Caramba. One percent of 330 million people is 3,300,000? Finally, an explanation for this entire obsession: we’re dealing with a voting block! This is all being driven by political consultants who want their candidates to get these votes that are out there just hanging off trees within easy reaching distance. Sacre bleu!
And the more transsexuals that are created among the young, the more Democrat voters! They are advocating these policies in order to literally create more Democrat voters. It’s even easier than bringing them in from other countries.
I’m fairly certain that 1% is now, and will continue to be, dependably concentrated in areas that the Dems already control.