Effect of Parenthood on Attitudes toward Policies Affecting Transgender Children

• In Event: Exploring Public Opinion and Public Policy Surrounding LGBTQ Interests in the US

Abstract

Policies related to transgender rights have become increasingly contentious in U.S. politics as political actors at different levels of government have put these issues on policy and campaign agendas. The specific policies at stake vary widely. While some of these issues are national in scope and likely abstract to many Americans, local governments around the country have begun to create policies that directly address transgender children, often in the context of local public schools--bathroom access in schools, sports team selection, or pronoun usage in the classroom, for example. These policies have the potential to affect Americans more directly given their local scope, but also implicate children and parenthood in a way that other issues like military service or employment non-discrimination laws do not. In this study, we drawn on three original nationally representative surveys of American adults to examine the effect of parenthood on attitudes towards transgender rights policies and social sentiments about transgender children. We first show that parenthood is relevant primarily to policies and attitudes that directly concern transgender children, and generally not those that pertain to transgender adults. Second, we show that parenthood polarizes the attitudes of mothers and fathers on these matters, primarily by shifting the attitudes of fathers toward more conservative preferences. Third, we assess the nature of this attitude shift among parents, and find that it is primarily related to protective and sheltering attitudes toward children and their upbringings rather than anti-transgender animus per se. We also explore the attitudinal effects of number of children in the household, gender of children, and how child sex matches parent sex. Our findings make an important contribution to the growing literature on transgender rights attitudes because that literature to date does not explore policies or attitudes that are directly relevant to transgender children, nor does it apply the growing literature on the political effects of parenthood to those attitudes.

Authors

• Patrick R. Miller, University of Kansas

• Andrew R. Flores, American University

• Donald P. Haider-Markel, University of Kansas

• Daniel C. Lewis, Siena College

• Barry L. Tadlock, Ohio University

• Jami K. Taylor, University of Toledo