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 The issue is polarizing much of the United States, notably in
North Carolina, where big businesses and rock stars are boycotting
the state over a new law requiring people to use the public restroom
matching their birth certificate.
Americans aged 18 to 29 favor letting transgender people use the
restroom of their identity by a 2-to-1 ratio. Among Americans aged
60 or more, the ratio was 2-to-1 in reverse with people saying
restroom use should be mandated by the gender on one's birth
certificate.
Forty-four percent of women favor letting a man who is in transition
from male to female into their public toilets, compared to 39
percent who say they must use the facilities matching their gender
assigned at birth.
"As long as they're not harming anyone, not harming children, and
are dressed as male or female according to the bathroom where they
are going, they have the same rights as everybody else," said Debbie
Dellera, 65, a Republican and Donald Trump supporter from central
New Jersey who participated in the poll.
 Overall, the public is roughly split, with 43 percent saying they
are closer to the view that people should use public restrooms
"according to the biological sex on their birth certificate"
compared to 41 percent who opt for "according to the gender with
which they identify."
The poll of 2,039 people was taken April 12-18, amid running
controversies on the issue in several states, and has a credibility
interval of 2.5 percentage points. The credibility interval is 5.5
points for the 18-to-29 subgroup.
CHANGING OPINIONS
The results should be encouraging for advocates of transgender
rights, who might also take heart from how rapidly public opinion
shifted on the issue of same-sex marriage, said Paisley Currah, an
author on transgender issues and a political science professor at
Brooklyn College.
"Gender identity is a pretty new term for a lot of people so having
effectively an even split on the bathroom question is a very good
result," Currah said. "I was pleasantly surprised.
"The gay rights movement in the last few years moved very quickly
and I feel like the transgender movement is moving at even greater
speed."
The poll found 92 percent of respondents have heard of the term
transgender, which refers to a range of people who do not conform to
the sex assigned to them at birth, regardless of whether they have
undergone any medical procedures toward gender reassignment.
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Democrats, by 57 percent to 29 percent, and people in large
metropolitan areas are more likely to allow transgender people to
use the restroom corresponding to their gender identity. Republicans
side with the birth certificate criteria by 64 percent to 23
percent.
New England and the Northeast were the regions most accepting of
transgender people choosing restrooms by identity while the
Southwest, Southeast and South were most inclined to side with the
birth certificate standard.
People who frequently attend church are more than twice as likely to
agree with the North Carolina law, although Roman Catholics are
evenly split.
Support for transgender rights on the bathroom issues was strongest
among those aged 18 to 29, who supported gender identity over birth
certificate gender by 62 percent to 29 percent.
For those age 60 or older, 53 percent say transgender people should
use the bathroom matching their birth certificate compared to 27
percent who sided with gender identity.
One of the respondents in that majority was Dale Garvey, 76, of
Washington state, who raised concerns about "peeping Toms."
He also said he preferred the birth certificate standard in part
based on an experience in the late 1980s when a co-worker was in
transition from man to woman and made other women uncomfortable when
he used their restroom.
"Quite seriously, sometimes we would get a rental car (for work) and
people didn't want to ride with him. It gave us an uneasy feeling,"
Garvey said. "I guess I'm still somewhat biased and still back in
the 1900s."
(Reporting by Daniel Trotta)
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reserved.]
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