Attitudes about transgender issues vary widely among Christians, religious ‘nones’ in U.S.

Growing shares of Americans believe that a person’s gender is determined by their sex assigned at birth, according to a new Pew Research Center survey, which finds major differences by religion on this question and others about transgender issues.

For example, a majority of White evangelical Protestants say society has gone too far in accepting people who are transgender, while religiously unaffiliated Americans are far more likely to say society has not gone far enough.

Among U.S. adults overall, six-in-ten now say that whether a person is a man or a woman is determined by their sex assigned at birth. This figure is even higher among White evangelicals (87%) and Black Protestants (70%). Among Catholics, the share who say a person’s gender cannot differ from sex at birth has risen from 52% in 2021 to 62% this year.

By contrast, a majority of religiously unaffiliated Americans (58%) say a person’s gender can be different from their sex assigned at birth, with atheists (76%) and agnostics (67%) especially likely to hold this view. The survey was conducted among Americans of all religious backgrounds, including Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus. But it did not obtain enough respondents from non-Christian religious groups to report separately on their responses.