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Morning Consult
Morning Consult National Tracking Poll #210496 (Sports / Transgender Athlete study) · Apr 16–19, 2021 · US national
Methodology
- Pollster
- Morning Consult commercial
- Sponsor
- Morning Consult
- Commissioned by
- Morning Consult
- Fielded
- Apr 16–19, 2021
- Population
- adults
- Sample size
- 2,200
- Sample frame
- online opt-in
- Panel
- Morning Consult online panel
- Mode
- online - self-administered web survey of the Morning Consult online panel
- Margin of error
- plus or minus 2 percentage points (full sample)
- Weighting
- weighted to approximate a target sample of adults based on age, gender, educational attainment, race, and region
- Geography
- US national
- Base notes
- Split-half design: the transgender girls/women batteries (MCSP1, MCSP3, MCSP5, MCSP6) were asked of n=1119 and the mirrored transgender boys/men batteries (MCSP2, MCSP4, MCSP7, MCSP8) of n=1081. MCSP9 and MCSP11 were asked of the full 2200.
Sources
Verification note. A dedicated Morning Consult study on transgender athletes: 31 tables, of which 25 are trans-related. All wording, toplines and PID (no lean) crosstabs read directly from the crosstabulation PDF. Three companion items (MCSP10_1-3, on whether men or women are physically stronger and whether sex determines strength) are omitted because they do not name transgender people or gender identity, though they sit inside this battery and prime it. The sports-fandom demographic tables (MCSPdem1_1-6) are also omitted. Morning Consult's own release page is gone from the migrated corporate site and web.archive.org was unreachable from this network, so no companion topline PDF or article URL could be recovered. || Percentages and field dates read from Morning Consult's own 'Instant Intel' write-up. The crosstab PDF named in that write-up (assets.morningconsult.com/.../210496_crosstabs_MC_SPORTS_TRANSGENDER_ATHLETE_Adults_v1_NP.pdf) returns HTTP 403 to automated fetching, so verbatim wording, n and MOE are unconfirmed. Poll project number 210496 comes from the crosstab filename. || FULLY RESOLVED, AND ONE STORED FIGURE WAS WRONG. The 134-page crosstabulation PDF was located by fetching the Morning Consult Instant Intel page via curl (the fetch tool gets 403 on assets.morningconsult.com; curl with a browser user agent works, and the working URL differs from the one recorded in the previous note by its upload timestamp directory, 22080159). Methodology now verbatim from the PDF: 'This poll was conducted between April 16-April 19, 2021 among a national sample of 2200 Adults. The interviews were conducted online and the data were weighted to approximate a target sample of Adults based on age, gender, educational attainment, race, and region. Results from the full survey have a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.' CORRECTION: the stored 'Strongly oppose 29' on the college-sports item is WRONG - the crosstab shows 31 percent strongly oppose (22 strongly support, 18 somewhat support, 11 somewhat oppose, 31 strongly oppose, 18 don't know), which still nets to the stored 40 support / 42 oppose. The stored party breaks (57/35/18) are confirmed. NEWLY CAPTURED: this was a SPLIT SAMPLE, which the previous record did not record - the transgender girls/women battery and the female-advantage item went to 1,119 respondents and the transgender boys/men battery and the male-advantage item to 1,081. Six support/oppose items (three competition levels for transgender women and three for transgender men) plus both advantage items are now recorded with full five-category distributions and party breaks, where the previous record had two partial items. The male-advantage item, which the previous record did not have, is the interpretively important one: only 32 percent agree transgender male athletes have an advantage against 38 percent who disagree, versus 56-21 for transgender female athletes.
Figures below are transcribed from these documents. Where they disagree with the source, the source governs.
Questions asked (20)
trans girls/women competing against female athletes - high school sports
Do you support or oppose allowing transgender girls or women to compete against other female athletes at each of the following levels? High school sports
Wording notes: battery asks the same stem across high school, college and professional levels | 'allowing' frames participation as a permission granted rather than a right held
neutral — plain support/oppose wording with a symmetric four-point scale and an explicit no-opinion option; the 'allowing' construction is the notable framing choice
Subgroup figures (30)
trans girls/women competing against female athletes - college sports
Do you support or oppose allowing transgender girls or women to compete against other female athletes at each of the following levels? College sports
Wording notes: battery asks the same stem across high school, college and professional levels | 'allowing' frames participation as a permission granted rather than a right held
neutral — plain support/oppose wording with a symmetric four-point scale and an explicit no-opinion option; the 'allowing' construction is the notable framing choice
Subgroup figures (30)
trans girls/women competing against female athletes - professional sports
Do you support or oppose allowing transgender girls or women to compete against other female athletes at each of the following levels? Professional sports
Wording notes: battery asks the same stem across high school, college and professional levels | 'allowing' frames participation as a permission granted rather than a right held
neutral — plain support/oppose wording with a symmetric four-point scale and an explicit no-opinion option; the 'allowing' construction is the notable framing choice
Subgroup figures (30)
trans boys/men competing against male athletes - high school sports
Do you support or oppose allowing transgender boys or men to compete against other male athletes at each of the following levels? High school sports
Wording notes: battery asks the same stem across high school, college and professional levels | 'allowing' frames participation as a permission granted rather than a right held
neutral — identical construction to the MCSP1 battery with the direction of transition reversed; the pairing is the design's analytic point, isolating whether opposition tracks the direction of transition rather than trans participation as such
Subgroup figures (30)
trans boys/men competing against male athletes - college sports
Do you support or oppose allowing transgender boys or men to compete against other male athletes at each of the following levels? College sports
Wording notes: battery asks the same stem across high school, college and professional levels | 'allowing' frames participation as a permission granted rather than a right held
neutral — identical construction to the MCSP1 battery with the direction of transition reversed; the pairing is the design's analytic point, isolating whether opposition tracks the direction of transition rather than trans participation as such
Subgroup figures (30)
trans boys/men competing against male athletes - professional sports
Do you support or oppose allowing transgender boys or men to compete against other male athletes at each of the following levels? Professional sports
Wording notes: battery asks the same stem across high school, college and professional levels | 'allowing' frames participation as a permission granted rather than a right held
neutral — identical construction to the MCSP1 battery with the direction of transition reversed; the pairing is the design's analytic point, isolating whether opposition tracks the direction of transition rather than trans participation as such
Subgroup figures (30)
whether trans women have a competitive advantage over cis women
Generally speaking, do you agree or disagree that transgender female athletes have a competitive advantage over non-transgender (aka cisgendered) female athletes?
Wording notes: 'competitive advantage' is asserted as the proposition to be agreed with, an agree/disagree format known to attract acquiescence | glosses cisgender as 'non-transgender (aka cisgendered)' | no time-on-hormones, age or sport-specific qualifier is offered
tilts_restrictive — an agree/disagree item states the advantage claim affirmatively and asks for assent, a format that inflates agreement; no counter-statement is offered
Subgroup figures (30)
whether trans men have a competitive advantage over cis men
Generally speaking, do you agree or disagree that transgender male athletes have a competitive advantage over non-transgender (aka cisgendered) male athletes?
Wording notes: 'competitive advantage' is asserted as the proposition to be agreed with, an agree/disagree format known to attract acquiescence | glosses cisgender as 'non-transgender (aka cisgendered)' | no time-on-hormones, age or sport-specific qualifier is offered
tilts_restrictive — same acquiescence-prone construction as MCSP3; the very high don't-know share (31%) suggests many respondents had no prior view on the reversed case
Subgroup figures (30)
trans women competitive advantage by sport type - team sports
Generally speaking, do you agree or disagree that transgender female athletes have a competitive advantage over non-transgender (aka cisgendered) female athletes in each of the following types of sports? Team sports such as basketball, soccer, softball and field hockey
Wording notes: 'competitive advantage' is asserted as the proposition to be agreed with, an agree/disagree format known to attract acquiescence | glosses cisgender as 'non-transgender (aka cisgendered)' | no time-on-hormones, age or sport-specific qualifier is offered
tilts_restrictive — same affirmative-claim agree/disagree construction as MCSP3, repeated across sport types
Subgroup figures (15)
trans men competitive advantage by sport type - team sports
Generally speaking, do you agree or disagree that transgender male athletes have a competitive advantage over non-transgender (aka cisgendered) male athletes in each of the following types of sports? Team sports such as basketball, soccer, softball and field hockey
Wording notes: 'competitive advantage' is asserted as the proposition to be agreed with, an agree/disagree format known to attract acquiescence | glosses cisgender as 'non-transgender (aka cisgendered)' | no time-on-hormones, age or sport-specific qualifier is offered
tilts_restrictive — same construction as MCSP5 with the direction reversed; agreement collapses, which is the comparison the split-half design was built to produce
Subgroup figures (15)
trans girls/women competing against female athletes by sport type - team sports
And do you support or oppose allowing transgender girls or women to compete against other female athletes in each of the following types of sports? Team sports such as basketball, soccer, softball and field hockey
Wording notes: battery asks the same stem across high school, college and professional levels | 'allowing' frames participation as a permission granted rather than a right held
tilts_restrictive — the item itself is symmetric, but it follows three agree/disagree items asserting that trans women hold a competitive advantage, so the order primes opposition; support here runs 4-5 points below the equivalent MCSP1 items asked before that priming
Subgroup figures (15)
trans girls/women competing against female athletes by sport type - individual sports
And do you support or oppose allowing transgender girls or women to compete against other female athletes in each of the following types of sports? Individual sports such as golf, tennis or track and field
Wording notes: battery asks the same stem across high school, college and professional levels | 'allowing' frames participation as a permission granted rather than a right held
tilts_restrictive — the item itself is symmetric, but it follows three agree/disagree items asserting that trans women hold a competitive advantage, so the order primes opposition; support here runs 4-5 points below the equivalent MCSP1 items asked before that priming
Subgroup figures (15)
trans girls/women competing against female athletes by sport type - combat sports
And do you support or oppose allowing transgender girls or women to compete against other female athletes in each of the following types of sports? Combat sports such as boxing or mixed martial arts
Wording notes: battery asks the same stem across high school, college and professional levels | 'allowing' frames participation as a permission granted rather than a right held
tilts_restrictive — the item itself is symmetric, but it follows three agree/disagree items asserting that trans women hold a competitive advantage, so the order primes opposition; support here runs 4-5 points below the equivalent MCSP1 items asked before that priming
Subgroup figures (15)
trans boys/men competing against male athletes by sport type - team sports
And do you support or oppose allowing transgender boys or men to compete against other male athletes in each of the following types of sports? Team sports such as basketball, soccer, softball and field hockey
Wording notes: battery asks the same stem across high school, college and professional levels | 'allowing' frames participation as a permission granted rather than a right held
neutral — symmetric support/oppose wording; opposition is roughly half that recorded for the mirrored trans-women items in the same survey
Subgroup figures (15)
trans boys/men competing against male athletes by sport type - individual sports
And do you support or oppose allowing transgender boys or men to compete against other male athletes in each of the following types of sports? Individual sports such as golf, tennis or track and field
Wording notes: battery asks the same stem across high school, college and professional levels | 'allowing' frames participation as a permission granted rather than a right held
neutral — symmetric support/oppose wording; opposition is roughly half that recorded for the mirrored trans-women items in the same survey
Subgroup figures (15)
trans boys/men competing against male athletes by sport type - combat sports
And do you support or oppose allowing transgender boys or men to compete against other male athletes in each of the following types of sports? Combat sports such as boxing or mixed martial arts
Wording notes: battery asks the same stem across high school, college and professional levels | 'allowing' frames participation as a permission granted rather than a right held
neutral — symmetric support/oppose wording; opposition is roughly half that recorded for the mirrored trans-women items in the same survey
Subgroup figures (15)
whether gender is determined by sex assigned at birth
Which of the following comes closest to your view, even if neither is exactly right? [A person's gender is determined by the sex they were assigned at birth / A person's gender can be different from the sex they were assigned at birth / Don't know / No opinion]
A person's gender is determined by the sex they were assigned at birth
49%
A person's gender can be different from the sex they were assigned at birth
34%
Don't know / No opinion
17%
Wording notes: uses 'the sex they were assigned at birth' in both alternatives, which is itself a contested formulation | 'even if neither is exactly right' explicitly licenses a forced choice | asked full sample, unlike the split-half sports batteries
neutral — the two statements are close to logical complements, are similar in length, and use identical terminology; the preamble acknowledges the forced choice
Subgroup figures (9)
knowing a transgender or nonbinary person
As you may know, a transgender person is someone who identifies with a different gender than the sex they were assigned at birth. A nonbinary person, also known as genderqueer, does not identify as exclusively masculine or feminine, but expresses multiple genders at the same time.
As you may know, a transgender person is someone who identifies with a different gender than the sex they were assigned at birth. A nonbinary person, also known as genderqueer, does not identify as exclusively masculine or feminine, but expresses multiple genders at the same time. Do you know any transgender or nonbinary individuals in your own life?
Wording notes: supplies definitions of transgender and nonbinary before asking, which may raise reported contact | no 'not sure' option offered - forced yes/no | bundles transgender and nonbinary acquaintance into a single measure
neutral — a factual contact item with neutral definitional preamble; the absence of a don't-know option is the main design constraint
Subgroup figures (6)
transgender women in collegiate women's sports
Do you support or oppose allowing transgender women to compete in women's sports at the collegiate level?
Wording reconstructed from: reconstructed from Morning Consult's article description; the release text was not printed verbatim and the crosstab PDF is 403
Total support (NET) 40%Total oppose (NET) 42%
Wording notes: level of competition specified (collegiate)
neutral — symmetric support/oppose framing with the policy object stated plainly
Subgroup figures (4)
belief that transgender women have a competitive advantage
Transgender women have a competitive advantage over cisgender women in sports
Wording reconstructed from: reconstructed from Morning Consult's article description; crosstab PDF is 403
Wording notes: asserts a contested empirical claim for agreement
unclear — agree/disagree format on a contested empirical claim invites acquiescence; exact stem unavailable
Subgroup figures (1)