People are waking up to the reality of gender

June 30, 2022

By Tom Joyce

Reprinted from The Washington Examiner

Is woke gender ideology taking hold in the United States?

Liberals continue to push it, but the people have become less accepting of this progressive dogma in recent years. The public is more likely to support the biological perspective of sex and gender than the alternative.

It’s a positive sign. Hopefully, the trend continues.

A Pew Research poll conducted in May found that 60% of Americans think that one’s biological sex, which the poll calls “sex assigned at birth,” determines one’s gender. Pew’s phrasing is poor, because that should say biological sex or sex observed at birth. Regardless, just 38% of respondents said, “Whether a person is a man or a woman can be different from sex assigned at birth.”

That’s a 22-point gap between those who are right and those who are wrong on the issue of whether biological sex matters. Over the past five years, people have gotten better. In September 2017, there was only a 10-point gap on this issue: 54% said that “sex assigned at birth” determined whether someone is a man or a woman, and 44% said that it can be different. Last year, the split was slightly better, at 56% to 41%. Now, even more people are waking up to reality.

Transgenderism is an issue on which conservatives are enjoying success in the battle of public opinion for a few reasons. The biggest one is that they have biology on their side. If someone is a man, he is a man. Putting on lipstick or makeup, taking hormones, wearing a wig, and undergoing cosmetic surgeries cannot change that biological fact.

Additionally, the people have seen some of the problems the transgender ideology causes. For example, we saw a male University of Pennsylvania student dominate Division 1 women’s college swimming this past winter and win national championships. It was hard to deny that Lia Thomas was a man standing next to women on the podium next to actual women.

Parents also don’t like seeing this woke gender ideology seep into their children’s schools, especially in the lower grade levels. Parents want a safe place for their children to learn — not a place for some stranger to inject them with a liberal worldview.

Not to mention, 44% of respondents told Pew that they oppose requiring health insurance companies to cover gender transitions; only 27% support that idea. So while people might not necessarily care if someone is transgender, they don’t want to pay for the gender transition.

If this trend continues, we may see the end of woke gender ideology’s dominance in popular culture.

Tom Joyce is a political reporter for the New Boston Post in Massachusetts.