Americans aren’t as accepting of trans people as they are of gay people

Acceptance of gay and lesbian people has greatly increased since 1985, according to a new poll from The LA Times, but the acceptance of transgender people lags behind.

The poll, released during Pride Month, found that only 28% of American adults believe that same-sex relations are always or almost always wrong, down from 72% the last time the poll was conducted in 1985. Additionally, 14% said they would be very upset if their child came out as gay or lesbian, down from 64% in 1985. And 77% of people now favor job anti-discrimination protections for gays and lesbians, up from 51%.

Related: 5.6% of American adults say they are LGBTQ. Over half identify as bisexual.

The number of LGBTQ Americans coming out and claiming their identity just keeps growing.

Those findings track with other surveys on attitudes towards gay people, like Gallup’s polling which shows that acceptance has increased greatly over the last several decades.

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However, that support dropped when people were asked about transgender people. For example, one-quarter of American adults say they’d be very upset if their child came out as transgender, double the percentage for gay people today.

When asked about LGBTQ+ adults just living their lives, 29% said that they strongly or somewhat disapprove of trans and nonbinary people doing so, over the 17% and 20% who said the same about gay and bi people, respectively.

The attitudes got more harsh when respondents were asked about kids. Two-thirds of Americans believe that laws should protect trans people’s access to gender-affirming care when asked about adults, but only half said the same for kids.

Also, 42% said they believed that it’s almost always or always “just a phase” when a child identifies as transgender, and 38% said that it’s sometimes a kid’s true identity and sometimes a phase. Only 19% said that it’s almost always or always their real identity. When asked about trans adults, 52% said that it’s always or almost always their true identity and only 19% said that it’s almost always or always just a phase.

One person who talked to The LA Times said that she is worried that “many people are influencing these younger people to be [transgender].” It’s unclear who these influential people are or how they’re influencing kids to be trans, and it’s noteworthy that the pressure put on kids to be cisgender, which is much more common, is apparently not as worrisome.

Most people, 77%, said that trans policy issues are a distraction from more important issues, although people who agreed with that statement could have meant that attacks on trans rights or protections for trans rights are a distraction. Among Republicans, 86% thought trans issues were a distraction, and 71% of Democrats agreed.

LGBTQ+ people, no matter their sexual orientation, gender identity, or transgender status, were overwhelmingly more likely to be supportive of transgender people. About 64% of LGBTQ+ people supported letting trans girls participate in school sports, over twice the 28% of non-queer people who said the same.

Among LGBTQ+ people, 78% believed that LGBTQ+ people have had a positive influence on society, while less than half – 47% – of non-LGBTQ+ people said the same.

Additionally, 15% of LGBTQ+ people said that they were less likely to support a political candidate if they found out they were transgender, while twice as many – 34% – of non-LGBTQ+ people said the same.

Only 17% of LGBTQ+ people supported schools outing transgender students to their parents, but almost half, 45%, of non-LGBTQ+ people wanted schools to out trans students.

And 93% of LGBTQ+ people approved of same-sex couples raising children, but only 65% of non-LGBTQ+ people said the same.

The poll was conducted by the University of Chicago and used a sample of 1,624 adults, including 313 LGBTQ+ people, this past January. The full results are available on the NORC website.

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