Republicans Out Of Step With Majority On Transgender Bathroom Laws

Texas is considering following North Carolina in passing conservative legislation regarding transgender bathroom use, but Republicans remain out of step with the majority of the country in caring about which bathroom people use. Reuters reports:

Fifty-three percent of the Americans surveyed oppose laws requiring transgender people to use bathrooms that correspond to their sex at birth, according to the national poll by the Public Religion Research Institute.

The survey showed that 39 percent of respondents favored such laws, and almost one in 10 of the 2,031 adults surveyed in February by telephone had no opinion.

The issue of transgender bathroom rights has become the latest flashpoint in the long U.S. battle over lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights.

Significant partisan divisions remain, the survey found. While 65 percent of Democrats and 57 percent of independents oppose laws limiting transgender bathroom rights, 59 percent of Republicans support the laws, according to the poll. Thirty-six percent of Republicans oppose them.

“This is a case where it really is Republicans kind of pulling away and being more of an outlier to the rest of the country,” said Robert P. Jones, chief executive of the Washington-based group.

Public opinion also has gone heavily against conservative Republicans on same sex marriage with  63 percent in support, increased from 52 percent in a 2013 poll. Even a majority of Republicans under the age of 50 support legal same-sex marriage.