Americans split on transgender Olympians: poll

A new Axios-Momentive poll released on Monday found that Americans are fairly divided over what teams transgender athletes should be allowed to compete on in the Olympics, or if they should be allowed to compete at all.

The poll found that 39 percent of respondents said transgender athletes should compete on teams that match with the gender on their birth certificate, while 20 percent said they should compete on the team that aligns with their gender identity.

Of the remaining respondents, 14 percent said they should not be allowed to compete at all and 23 percent said they “don’t know.”

When broken down by political party, over half of Republicans surveyed said transgender athletes should compete on the team matching the gender on their birth certificate and nearly a quarter said they should not be permitted to compete at all.

Among Democrats, 35 percent said transgender athletes should compete on teams matching their gender identity while 25 percent said they should compete on the team matching their gender assigned at birth.

As Axios noted, the 2021 Tokyo Olympics feature the largest number of athletes who are publicly part of the LGBTQ community.

Chelsea Wolfe, who traveled to Tokyo with Team USA as an alternate on the women’s BMX freestyle team, became the first out transgender U.S. Olympian this year.

The Axios-Momentive poll was conducted from July 14-18 and included a sample size of 5,169.