What Drives Support for Transgender Rights? Assessing the Effects of Biological Attribution on US Public Opinion of Transgender Rights

Scholars have a limited understanding of what drives opinion on transgender rights. The present study begins to fill this gap by applying attribution theory to data from a national quota-based (U.S. Census approximation) online survey of 1000 U.S. citizens to evaluate how individuals' beliefs about the biological origin of a person's transgender status influence support for transgender rights, including employment, housing, healthcare, and bathroom protections. Across all models, we find that believing transgender status is biological is correlated with increased support for transgender rights. Importantly, our results suggest that although political conservatives appear to be less likely to believe in biological attribution, when they do, the belief has a more dramatic impact on support for rights than it does among liberals. Our analysis builds on existing research demonstrating the importance of biological attribution for support of lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) rights and extends our understanding of public opinion on transgender rights. Our findings have important implications for policy experts interested in approaches to addressing transgender rights as well as scholars and practitioners interested in better understanding opinion formation regarding transgender rights because they suggest that providing a biological basis for transgender status may be a way to increase support for protections, particularly among more conservative individuals.