Results of YouGov Survey Dec 24 (for Sex Matters)

[Justme56]

https://sex-matters.org/posts/updates/poll-shows-support-for-sex-meaning-sex-in-equality-act/

@Helleofabore It looks to me that not only have some people who were positive are now saying 'no' but some of the 'don't knows' have become 'no thank yous'.

I think this is really significant and encouraging. 'Don't knows', having given the issues some thought, are tending towards disagreement.

Wish they had done the Green Party too

I think that would have been fascinating.

Yes. I thought so.

It could be said that as people learn more they are tending towards rejecting male people when sex matters. It cannot be said generally that it is going the other way, that as people find out more that they accept these male people when sex matters.

Agreed. All of the YouGov tracking shows disagreement growing consistently from 2018 to '20 then to '22 and now to '24. As the sunlight increases the support fades

I'd hazard a guess that part of the change is the loosening grip of 'no debate'.

Slowly, people are overcoming the chilling effect and starting to say what they really think. There was a terrible fear of wrongthink, let alone wrong speak, over the past few years. But that is starting to change.

Because these surveys are as much about what people are willing to say as what they believe. The two things aren't necessarily congruent.

Use women's refuges? 2022 in brackets vs 2024

Should be allowed 47 [39] 31%. 2018 - 2024 this is decrease by 16%
Should not be allowed 27 [36] 47%. 2018 - 2024 this is increase by 20%
Don't know 26 [25] 22%. 2018 - 2024 this is decrease by 4%

I wondered about this overnight. While changing rooms has a much stronger reaction, why has refuges resulted in this weaker rejection. And to me, this is where the harm from misinformation impacts the most. Misinformation about the violence experienced by male people with transgender identities. When the public keep hearing the high rates of murders, heavily skewed by South American prostitutes while being very safe from being murdered in the UK, they retain this vision and therefore are still in the don’t know category.

Or they believe the ‘we (male people with trans identities) are beaten up by men so can never be with the men’ line and believe these male people most certainly should not be with men.

Maybe also because they have not put it all together. They know that these male people should not be competing in female sport, and should not be using female changing rooms, because there has been lots of discussion about this and influential women discussing it. Women’s shelters are not being discussed as much and so they may not have thought about it.

They may not yet have put together the understanding about why male people shouldn’t be competing in sport and be in changing rooms to apply to refuges. So they switch back to ‘be kind’ when being kind to male people is increasing the harm to female people. It is clear that women need to be discussing this topic more so that the instinctive nurturing male people reaction based on emotional stories is weaker than the knowledge that a declaration from a male that they are a female person changes nothing of relevance for accessing women’s refuges.

I also think that maybe people answering are thinking if a male person has lost their power to the degree they are seeking access to women’s refuges, they must only be the ones without penises and who are ‘as weak as female people’. Whereas it includes people like Dolatowski between jail stints, and the reported male person masturbating in shared accommodation bedrooms in a shelter housing abused and traumatised women. But the public being polled don’t think of this as top of mind examples of why make people should not be in female single sex provisions.

@Helleofabore there is also the bloated hate crime reporting or mention of 'violence' which may be around misgendering etc?

Absolutely. It all feeds into that emotive top of mind reaction - that poor male person at their lowest needs to be treated as they want rot be - forgetting the knowledge about the female people needing that service. That the female people needing the service have likely had sexual trauma, domestic abuse and more over a lifetime caused by male people.

@Helleofabore I wonder if the difference is that for sports, prisons, changing rooms and loos, everybody knows there is a men's version that transwomen could use instead. Whereas they might think of domestic violence as so much a "women's problem" that the picture in most people's minds when it comes to refuges may be "Women's refuge or nothing".
Either that or it's simply that they can't see someone who is seeking access to a refuge as anything but a victim and haven't thought through the implications beyond that.

“they can't see someone who is seeking access to a refuge as anything but a victim and haven't thought through the implications beyond that.”

I expect that this plays a large instinctive part. As I said too, if they think a male person is seeking access to a refuge they must be in dire need and a victim so that image over rides any further thought. They are not thinking about the women in that service.

Yes that's why I think they are less sure, they don't want a rape victim to go without support. I think if you asked them if MTFs should be employed as rape counsellors in a female only refuge you'd get a very different answer.

Yes. I'm afraid abused women are still given little thought or empathy, too. Almost everyone can see themselves using changing rooms or toilets, for example, but most don't think they will ever need a refuge so maybe can't see the problem as it's 'someone else's'. In that shadowy other world that you don't think about until/unless you have to.

I hate to be a cynic, but a very deep and underlying sexism sees male victims as being more in need of help.

This works partly because of stereotypes that say men are expected to be stoic and not complain, so any male actually asking for help must really mean it, and partly because women are just expected to put up with suffering as part of their lot.

Discrimination, marginalisation, victimisation all are seen as having a greater impact on men than women.

These stereotypes damage both men and women, including transwomen.

And if we think about what discrimination transwomen undoubtedly do suffer, a woman's refuge again doesn't make any sense for them as their needs will be different. But women are being used as the support humans, again. Secondary to men and there to look after any men who are not deemed part of the masculine 'gender'.

Discrimination, marginalisation, victimisation all are seen as having a greater impact on men than women.

These stereotypes damage both men and women, including transwomen.

And if we think about what discrimination transwomen undoubtedly do suffer, a woman's refuge again doesn't make any sense for them as their needs will be different. But women are being used as the support humans, again. Secondary to men and there to look after any men who are not deemed part of the masculine 'gender'.

YY @ArabellaScott

Thank you!

As brilliant as the Sex Matters work is, I was disappointed that they hadn't done this. They said they had used the same questions as 2022 for comparison... and then missed a trick on laying out the trend in this way.

Fully agree re the significance of the swing. It's much easier to appreciate this in the way that you've laid it out.

Exactly this.

It puts a whole new spin on the TRA suggestion to "educate yourself".... presumably they'll now be asking us not to do so.

And I've now seen your 2018 analysis too. Thank you! I'm amazed they didn't do this, with Helen Joyce having a maths background. Maybe that analysis from them will follow.

Great analysis.

Once people start to educate themselves, all that is left is the emotional heartstring angle. It's what allows the cognitive dissonance to remain in place. It used to also include children but I suspect now that there would be a significant swing towards rejecting child medical transition, if that question were to have been asked. I also suspect that the trend would show a similar ignorance (lack of dot-joining) if the question was asked about social transition. Despite what it says in the Cass Report, I think too many people still see it as innocuous.

A trans-identified child (female who identifies as male) joined my daughter's autism unit at school this week - a new entry to the school as well as to the unit. It's going to be interesting, and potentially concerning, seeing how this could shift the dynamic within the autism unit. For starters, everyone is using the preferred pronouns of this child. Well, I'm not - I've already told my daughter that I won't be using any pronouns at all. By coincidence, the child is in my other daughter's year group.

I would love to see a similar survey focused on children to see what kind of trends towards affirmation (e.g. preferred pronouns) and medical interventions are being seen. A breakdown of professions would be good as well as political leaning e.g. are attitudes of teachers, or others who work with children, changing?

Edited for typos

I would love to see a similar survey focused on children to see what kind of trends towards affirmation (e.g. preferred pronouns) and medical interventions are been seen. A breakdown of professions would be good as well as political leaning e.g. are attitudes of teachers, or others who work with children, changing?

Yes definitely. Nothing like this has been done before to my knowledge.

It's also an opportunity to explore understanding of LGB without the T.

The current schools' safeguarding guidance separates this out, highlighting risks associated with being gender questioning (the term it now uses for T) that don't apply to being L, G or B. That same separation doesn't exist elsewhere but ideally should e.g. if youth counsellors have a child who is gender questioning, it would help them to understand how they could approach supporting that child differently from if the child wonders of they are same-sex attracted. Asking this type of question regarding how it applies to children would be a good way to understand if public knowledge is changing on the difference between LGB and T.

I also look at the lower swing for those who had answered 'should be allowed' for changing rooms and toilets when they were pressed on the surgery issue. I think that slight stickiness compared to the greater swing for those 'don't knows' shows a stickiness to the idealism that underlines the belief that TWAW.

Although, again, the general trend is a clear decrease in support and it is really clear.

Sample size for 2018 was 1660 respondents, 2020 was 1688, 2022 was 1751 and for 2024 was 2533. I wonder if yougov are waiting to hygenise the data before they release it.

I also suspect that Sex Matters may have to wait for yougov to give them either permission to release more in-depth analysis or for the data with the segmented details to be fully checked before release.

The difference in the data size has certainly not shown any positive swing towards these issues. I would think that looking at the trend that they are solid indicators of public views.

I also look at the lower swing for those who had answered 'should be allowed' for changing rooms and toilets when they were pressed on the surgery issue. I think that slight stickiness compared to the greater swing for those 'don't knows' shows a stickiness to the idealism that underlines the belief that TWAW.

Yes, great point.

I'm not sure that YouGov themselves will publish the survey results on their site at all. I think the previous polls may have been part of their 'public data offering' whereas this poll was presumably paid for by Sex Matters ie a commercial arrangement.

It is YouGov’s social mission to make people’s opinions heard for the benefit of our local, national, and international communities......This mission encompasses our public data offering (the data we provide to the world for free), our ongoing efforts to ensure our panel is as representative as possible, and our socially-oriented work with clients, partners, and suppliers.

https://corporate.yougov.com/esg/our-esg-approach/

Thanks for the summaries of the trends, @ellenback21 and @Helleofabore . Lovely to see the steadiness of the shift as well as the size.

Enjoy the Reddit coping:

www.reddit.com/r/transgenderUK/s/4Q4sOgW27C