Paired-statement battery: respondents chose which of two statements they agreed with and how strongly.
1. Transgender athletes should be able to play on sports teams that match their current gender identity / 2. Transgender athletes should only be allowed to play on sports teams that match their birth gender
Wording notes: paired-statement forced choice with no middle option, so respondents who would restrict some levels of competition but not others must pick a side | 'birth gender' rather than 'birth sex' - contested, but symmetric with 'current gender identity' | no age, sport or level of competition specified | embedded in a long ideological paired-statement battery covering abortion, guns, immigration, hate speech and policing, which invites answering by ideological identity rather than by considering the specific case
neutral — both alternatives are stated in full and in parallel and an Unsure option is offered, which is a fair design; the item's main distortion is contextual - it is one row of an ideological sorting battery, so it measures ideological placement as much as considered opinion on athletics