A new opinion poll has suggested that Americans may be starting to return to belief in biological reality, however a strong political divide still seems to be present.
Gallup asked around a thousand people a number of questions relating to sex and gender.
The poll showed that 69 per cent of Americans believe that transgender athletes should compete according to their birth sex, rather than what they believe themselves to be.
This figure rose to 90 per cent among Republicans and to 72 per cent among independents. By contrast, the majority of Democrats (58 per cent) believe that biological men should be allowed to compete in women’s sport.
These figures differ from similar research in 2021. In the last four years belief that athletes be allowed to compete based on self identification has fallen by 10% among both independents and Democrats. Republicans were broadly unchanged in their views.
The shift back to the traditional view of sex and gender mirrors changes at the political level.
One of President Trump's first actions upon being re-elected was to issue an executive order affirming that there are only two genders.
In Britain, the Supreme Court has ruled that biological reality must be the basis for public policy and services in Britain.
The Gallup poll also found a slight drop in the number of people who think it’s acceptable to change gender. In 2021 46 per cent of Americans believed changing gender to be “morally acceptable”. That figure now stands at 40 per cent.
Again, this varied wildly depending on political affiliation, with 71 per cent of Democrats believing changing gender to be morally acceptable, falling to 45 per cent among independents and just nine per cent among Republicans.
Republicans are also much more likely to believe that becoming transgender is a result of outside influences (76 per cent), while a majority of Democrats (57 per cent) believe transgender people are just born that way.
