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Harvard CAPS/Harris
Monthly Harvard-Harris Poll: May 2019 · May 29–30, 2019 · US national
Methodology
- Pollster
- Harvard CAPS/Harris commercial
- Sponsor
- Harvard University Center for American Political Studies (Harvard CAPS) and The Harris Poll
- Fielded
- May 29–30, 2019
- Population
- registered voters
- Sample size
- 1,295
- Sample frame
- online opt-in
- Panel
- The Harris Poll online panel
- Mode
- online survey, Harris Poll online panel
- Margin of error
- not disclosed
- Weighting
- weighted for age within gender, region, race/ethnicity, marital status, household size, income, employment, political party, political ideology, and education
- Geography
- US national
- Base notes
- Unweighted base 1,295; weighted base 1,328 (topline is filtered on registered voters but weighted to the U.S. general adult population)
Sources
Verification note. All wording and percentages read directly from the Harvard CAPS-Harris May 2019 registered-voter topline PDF (Tables 184-195). This is the largest single trans battery HHP has fielded. Note the topline offers NO 'not sure' option on most items, which is unusual and inflates both sides.
Figures below are transcribed from these documents. Where they disagree with the source, the source governs.
Questions asked (12)
Bathrooms & facilitiesforced choice
workplace restroom policy for trans employees
How should workplaces deal with trans-gender and gender-neutral employees when it comes to the use of restrooms?
Provide gender-neutral restrooms
43%
Do nothing. This is not an issue for employers to solve
35%
Allow trans-gender and gender-neutral employees choose the restroom associate with
22%
Wording notes: response option text is garbled in the published topline ('choose the restroom associate with') | no 'not sure' option
neutral — three substantive options offered without an evaluative frame; the omission of a don't-know option forces choice but does not favor a side
birth-sex vs gender-identity restroom use
Do you think that transgender people should be required to use the bathroom of their sex at birth or allowed to use the bathroom that best aligns with their gender identity and stated sex?
Use the bathroom of their sex at birth
50%
Use the bathroom that best aligns with their stated sex
50%
Wording notes: no 'not sure' option | uses 'sex at birth' and 'stated sex' symmetrically
neutral — balanced two-sided construction; both alternatives given in the stem
Bathrooms & facilitiesfavor/oppose
constitutional right to bathroom of stated sex
Would you favor the Supreme Court finding that transgender people have a constitutional right to use the bathroom of their stated sex or oppose such a finding?
Wording notes: no 'not sure' option
neutral — explicit two-sided stem ('or oppose such a finding')
Bathrooms & facilitiesforced choice
whether birth-sex bathroom laws are discriminatory
In general, do you think laws that require transgender people to use the bathroom of their sex at birth are discriminatory to them or not?
Not discriminatory
56%
Discriminatory
44%
Wording notes: no 'not sure' option
neutral — 'or not' construction is symmetric; asks respondent to characterize the law rather than endorse it
Bathrooms & facilitiesfavor/oppose
law requiring birth-sex bathroom use
Do you favor or oppose a law to require public institutions and accommodations to require transgender people to use bathrooms of their sex at birth?
Wording notes: no 'not sure' option | paired split-half style with GC0508, which asks the mirror-image policy
neutral — neutral favor/oppose stem; the research interest is that the same respondents favored the restrictive law (50%) and the permissive law (54%), an acquiescence pattern
Bathrooms & facilitiesfavor/oppose
law allowing gender-identity bathroom use
Do you favor or oppose a law to require public institutions and accommodations to allow transgender people to use bathrooms that best aligns with their gender identity and stated sex?
Wording notes: no 'not sure' option | mirror image of GC0507 asked of the same respondents
neutral — neutral favor/oppose stem; see GC0507 note on the acquiescence pattern across the pair
Bathrooms & facilitiesforced choice
which body should decide bathroom policy
Do you think the issue of public bathroom use by transgender people should be decided by each state, by Congress or the Supreme Court?
Supreme Court
45%
State
34%
Congress
20%
Wording notes: no 'not sure' option
neutral — institutional-venue question with three symmetric options
Military servicefavor/oppose
trans military service
Do you favor or oppose allowing transgender to serve in the military?
Wording notes: grammatically truncated - 'allowing transgender to serve' omits the noun ('transgender people'), a published wording error | no 'not sure' option
neutral — standard favor/oppose framing; the dropped noun is sloppy but not directional
Legal documents & IDsforced choice
self-specified gender in government and school treatment
Do you think that in general people should be able to specify their gender identity and stated sex to be used in how people are treated by the government and public institutions like schools or should stated sex not be used?
Should be able to specify their stated sex
51%
Stated sex should not be used
49%
Wording notes: convoluted double-clause stem | no 'not sure' option
unclear — the stem is hard to parse - 'should stated sex not be used' is ambiguous between 'do not honor self-ID' and 'do not record sex at all', so the 49% figure cannot be read cleanly in either direction
high school and college team eligibility
Should competitive athletic teams in high schools and college allow transgender to play on the team of their stated sex or require them to play on the teams of their birth sex?
Require them to play on the teams of their birth sex
51%
Allow to play on the team of their stated sex
49%
Wording notes: grammatically truncated ('allow transgender to play') | no 'not sure' option
neutral — both alternatives stated symmetrically; notably this 2019 wording does not invoke 'biological males' or 'girls' sports', and produces a near-even split (49/51) far more favorable to inclusion than later HHP and Rasmussen wordings
Sportsforced choice
gender-neutral sports
Should we make all sports gender-neutral, allowing athletes of both sexes to compete with one another as they chose?
No
47%
Yes
29%
Unsure/ Don't Know
24%
Wording notes: one-sided stem ('Should we make...') with no stated alternative | typo 'as they chose'
unclear — asks about abolishing sex-segregated sports entirely, a policy essentially nobody advocates; the item functions as a strawman anchor within the battery rather than a measure of any live policy debate
Sportsforced choice
fairness of competing against trans athletes
Do you consider it fair or unfair for athletes of one sex to compete against gender-neutral or trans-gender athletes who were born as members of the either sex?
Unfair
45%
Fair
23%
Unsure / Don't Know
32%
Wording notes: garbled stem ('who were born as members of the either sex') | conflates 'gender-neutral' and 'trans-gender' athletes
unclear — the stem is grammatically broken and the referent group is ambiguous, so the 45% 'unfair' result cannot be attributed to a clean stimulus; this is the item The Hill reported in 2019