(LifeSiteNews) — Public opinion in Scotland, which was already against the radical transgender agenda, has entrenched further due to what the publication UnHerd is calling “the polarising effect of the transgender debate.” UnHerd Britain commissioned a poll of 5,000 people across Great Britain in February and posed four statements, asking respondents to indicate their agreement or disagreement:
- People should be able to identify as being of a different gender to the one they had recorded at birth.
- It should be made easier for transgender people to change their legal gender.
- Transgender women should be allowed to use spaces reserved for women, such as women’s toilets or changing rooms.
- Transgender women should be allowed to take part in women’s sporting events.
Note here that the framing of the questions accepts fundamental tenets of transgender ideology as fact—biological men identifying as women are referred to not as “men who identify as women” or even “biological men,” but as “transgender women.” Thus, it cannot be claimed that the poll is skewed in favor of what Unherd calls “trans-sceptical” people—if anything, the framing is deliberately friendly to the transgender agenda. Once you accept a biological man as a woman, you’ve ceded much of the ground necessary to defend sex-segregated changerooms and sports teams.
After having the results of the poll analyzed by FocalData, UnHerd found that the constituencies with the highest percentage of “trans-sceptical” people were all found in Scotland, making Scottish people, overall, “more trans-sceptical than English people, meaning that a higher proportion of them disagree and disagree strongly with the statements we put in front of them.” Indeed, these results indicate that Scottish people are both more likely to identify as left-wing than English people, yet more opposed to gender ideology. Opposition to the transgender agenda is not necessarily a conservative endeavour (as the leadership of many UK feminists has already illustrated).
READ: Transgender activists in Britain are learning they are not unopposed, even by politicians
According to the poll, 52% of British people agreed that people should be able to choose their own gender, including a plurality of voters over the age of 65 and Tory voters. However, terminology often proves confusing here. According to UnHerd:
When, in a separate poll for UnHerd Britain, respondents were presented with the more philosophical claim that “transwomen are women”, it resulted in an unusually high degree of confusion: 33% agreed, 33% disagreed and 34% were unsure. And when asked if they agreed with the statement that “it should be made easier for transgender people to change their legal gender,” voters are also undecided. Overall, 37% agree, 33% disagree, and 30% don’t know.
The map of constituencies across the country on this last question reveals a broad rural-urban divide, with urban areas, along with historically liberal rural areas such as the South West of England, agreeing with the statement. More than any other demographic factor it is age that drives opinion on this issue, with 50% of 18-24-year-olds agreeing compared to only 28% of those aged 65 or older.
READ: British Prime Minister shocks liberal media by affirming that a woman is ‘an adult human female’
But once the questions moved from abstract theory into real-world policy, the results change. Only 33% agreed that “transgender women should be allowed to use spaces reserved for women, such as women’s toilets or changing rooms,” with 42% disagreeing; all but one of the constituencies most opposed to this are Scottish. In the aggregate, 45% of polled Scottish voters oppose the idea, with only 32% supporting it. Indeed, 57% of people disagree that biological males should be allowed to participate in women’s sports (22% thing they should be permitted), with, significantly, the only two constituencies most in agreement being the largely student constituencies of Manchester Central and Liverpool Riverside.
In conclusion, UnHerd noted, “there seems to be a majority of voters coming to a nuanced position on this issue: supportive of people who wish to identify as a different gender, but sharply defensive of women-only spaces and sports. And on the evidence of Scotland, the more they are exposed to the arguments the clearer that view becomes.” In other words, people are generally fine with folks behaving and identifying however they like—as long as it does not violate sex-segregated spaces and destroy female-only sports teams. The trans agenda has the sympathy of the people—but not their votes.