Majority Of Brits Say Trans People Still Face Discrimination
New research conducted online by Ipsos MORI among British adults aged 18-75 has found that 70% of Brits believe that trans people still face discrimination.
The poll also revealed that around half of Britons, 56 percent, would feel comfortable if a friend or relative was trans, 51% would be comfortable if their GP was trans, 47% if a future Prime Minister was trans with around one in five saying they would feel uncomfortable, 18%, 22% and 21% respectively.
However, political orientation, gender identity and age play a significant role in acceptance. Labour voters, women and Gen Z were more likely to be comfortable with trans people in different scenarios. For example, about 68% of Gen Z say they would be comfortable if a close friend or relative was transgender compared with 62% of Millennials, 55% of Gen X and just 49% of Baby Boomers.
The research also asked the question which has been in the centre of trans rights debates, whether gender identity is separate from biological sex. 54% of the public think gender identity doesn’t have to be directly linked to biological sex. This is compared with 30% who think gender and biological sex are always linked, while 14% don’t know. Women are more likely to think that gender can be separate from biological sex – with 59% thinking this compared with just 49% of men.
As for the progression of trans rights, 33% believe trans rights haven’t gone far enough. Yet, 19% think trans rights have gone too far in Britain, and another 21% say they have gone as far as they should, (a quarter say they don’t know).
38% support the rights of trans people to use public facilities that match their gender identity (e.g. toilets or changing rooms), while 25% oppose this. Women are more supportive of trans rights to use public facilities that match their gender identity compared with men (43% vs 33%).
Support for trans rights differs significantly with age – over half of Gen Z (56%) say trans rights have not gone far enough compared with 39% of Millennials, 33% of Gen X and just 20% of Baby Boomers. In addition, half of Gen Z (51%) and Millennials (50%) support trans people using public facilities that match their gender identity compared with a third of Gen X (35%) and just a quarter of Baby Boomers (26%).
Commenting on the findings, Hannah Shrimpton, Associate Director at Ipsos MORI, said:
“These findings show a divided public on transgender rights and varying levels of acceptance of transgender issues. Although the majority feel transgender people face discrimination, only a minority (a third) feel that transgender rights should go further. Generally, people feel that gender identity is not intrinsically lined to biological sex, but on a topic that is coming under increasingly heated and contentious debate – only four in ten support transgender people’s rights to access public facilities that match their gender identity. However, this is a changing landscape – the wider societal trend has been one of growing liberality on a number of issues including gender, gender identity and LGBTQ+. These shifts are partly driven by generational differences and we can see in this survey that there is greater support and acceptance of transgender people among the young.”
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