Public Attitudes on Transgender Military Service: The Role of Gender

Policy regarding the inclusion of transgender soldiers in the U.S. military has shifted back and forth in recent years, with public opinion likely a significant factor shaping the eventual policy outcome. As such, this study examines the factors that shape public attitudes toward military service by transgender people. In particular, we examine the influence of sex, social gender roles, and attitudes toward gender in shaping transgender military service attitudes. Further, we hypothesize that personal experiences with the military and with transgender people, along with values, personality predispositions, and religion, are likely to influence individual attitudes. We test these hypotheses using data from a unique October 2015 national survey of American adults. The results suggest that personal experiences, attitudes toward gender roles, and religion have substantial, but sometimes conditional effects on attitudes towards military service by transgender people.University of toledoUniversity of KansasUCLA school of lawOhio Universit

Transgender prejudice reduction and opinions on transgender rights: Results from a mediation analysis on experimental data

Fears, phobias, and dislikes about minorities should be strong determinants of whether Americans support policies protecting such minorities. Studies suggest that discussions and information about transgender people can reduce transphobia. However, these studies also indicate that experimental treatments do not necessarily affect individual attitudes on policies concerning transgender rights. Scholars contend that durably reducing prejudice should increase public support for minority rights. In this study, we examine this causal mechanism utilizing an experiment. We find that reducing transphobia is a reliable mechanism to increase public support for transgender rights. These results are robust to causal identification assumptions, suggesting that this mechanism provides a clear avenue for stigmatized groups to increase public support of rights for those groups