Exclusive: Women, young more open on transgender issue in U.S. - Reuters/Ipsos poll

By Daniel Trotta

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Transgender Americans may find greater acceptance in the future, according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll that shows young adults and women more open to people using public bathrooms matching their gender identity.

The issue is polarizing much of the United States, notably in North Carolina, whe-re big businesses and rock stars are boycotting the state over a new law requiring people to use the public restroom matching their birth certificate.

Americans aged 18 to 29 favor letting transgender people use the restroom of their identity by a 2-to-1 ratio. Among Americans aged 60 or more, the ratio was 2-to-1 in reverse with people saying restroom use should be mandated by the gender on one's birth certificate.

Forty-four percent of women favor letting a man who is in transition f-rom male to female into their public toilets, compared to 39 percent who say they must use the facilities matching their gender assigned at birth.

"As long as they're not harming anyone, not harming children, and are dressed as male or female according to the bathroom whe-re they are going, they have the same rights as everybody else," said Debbie Dellera, 65, a Republican and Donald Trump supporter f-rom central New Jersey who participated in the poll.

Overall, the public is roughly split, with 43 percent saying they are closer to the view that people should use public restrooms "according to the biological sex on their birth certificate" compared to 41 percent who opt for "according to the gender with which they identify."

The poll of 2,039 people was taken April 12-18, amid running controversies on the issue in several states, and has a credibility interval of 2.5 percentage points. The credibility interval is 5.5 points for the 18-to-29 subgroup.

CHANGING OPINIONS

The results should be encouraging for advocates of transgender rights, who might also take heart f-rom how rapidly public opinion shifted on the issue of same-sex marriage, said Paisley Currah, an author on transgender issues and a political science professor at Brooklyn College.

"Gender identity is a pretty new term for a lot of people so having effectively an even split on the bathroom question is a very good result," Currah said. "I was pleasantly surprised.

"The gay rights movement in the last few years moved very quickly and I feel like the transgender movement is moving at even greater speed."

The poll found 92 percent of respondents have heard of the term transgender, which refers to a range of people who do not conform to the sex assigned to them at birth, regardless of whether they have undergone any medical procedures toward gender reassignment.