More Americans personally know a transgender person or someone who goes by gender-neutral pronouns, according to new data from the non-partisan Pew Research Center.
A survey found 42% of Americans know someone who’s transgender, which is up from 37% who said so in 2017. Although most Americans, 57%, still say they don’t know anyone who’s transgender, that’s down from 63% five years ago.
Similarly, 26% of Americans say they know someone who uses nonbinary gender pronouns compared to the 18% in 2018 who said they knew someone uses pronouns such as “they” as opposed to “he” or “she.”
At the same time, comfort levels with using gender-neutral pronouns – as well as their opinions on whether someone’s gender can differ from the sex they were assigned at birth – has remained about the same. Half of Americans say they would be either very or somewhat comfortable using a gender-neutral pronoun to refer to someone if asked to do so, compared to 48% who say they would not be comfortable. The numbers, according to Pew Research, are basically unchanged since 2018.
The survey found profound differences by age, party, and education in knowing a transgender person or someone who goes by gender-neutral pronouns, although in both parties growing shares of Americans report knowing a person who’s transgender.
For Americans under age 30, 53% say they know a transgender person, up from 44% in 2017. In the same age group, 46% of younger U.S. adults know someone who goes by gender-neutral pronouns, compared to 32% in 2018.
The Pew Research Center conducted the survey of 10,606 U.S. adults between June 14-17. The survey is weighted to reflect the U.S. adult population in terms of gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories, according to Pew Research.
