American Psychologist, Vol 81(6), Sep 2026, 754-770; doi:10.1037/amp0001670
Policies restricting transgender rights have proliferated across the United States in recent years, yet little research has examined attitudes toward different types of policies affecting transgender people or the psychological mechanisms underlying these attitudes. Across four studies (N = 1,148), we fill this gap. Factor analyses based on attitudes toward a range of hypothetical and real-world transgender-related policies were used to group policies into four categories, which we label “attitude-based policy types.” These categories were policies related to (a) discrimination, (b) physical spaces, (c) degendering, and (d) gender-affirming care for adults (Studies 1–2). An analysis of real-world transgender-related policies proposed in 2022 (Study 3) identified two important additional policy types: (e) sports and (f) gender-affirming care for minors. We largely found that the same psychological constructs predicted support across policy types, with the belief that people with different gender identities form distinct groups predicting more support for antitransgender policies and including transgender people in their superordinate gender category predicting less support. Important work has been done in recent years examining predictors of attitudes toward transgender people, but much less research has been conducted on attitudes toward transgender-related legislation or how those attitudes might differ based on the type of legislation. Here we add to this literature, aiding both a theoretical understanding of attitudes toward different types of transgender policies and illuminating potential avenues for intervention for policymakers and activists looking to decrease support for antitransgender policies and increase support for pro-transgender policies. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
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