probability ABS mail
Pew Research Center
2023-24 Religious Landscape Study (RLS-III) · Jul 17, 2023 – Mar 4, 2024 · US national
Data flag. re-sourced: Pew's own final Religious Landscape Study topline, fielded July 17 2023 - March 4 2024, N=36,908; the CHNG acceptance item and the GENDER item both match verbatim
Methodology
- Pollster
- Pew Research Center independent
- Sponsor
- Pew Research Center
- Commissioned by
- Pew Research Center (Pew Charitable Trusts / Lilly Endowment funding)
- Fielded
- Jul 17, 2023 – Mar 4, 2024
- Population
- adults
- Sample size
- 36,908
- Sample frame
- probability ABS mail
- Mode
- self-administered online and paper questionnaire, address-based recruitment, with a small telephone component; a separate telephone 'bridge study' was fielded alongside for mode-comparability testing only
- Margin of error
- not disclosed in the topline header (varies by subgroup; the full-sample error is well under 1 point at n=36,908)
- Weighting
- weighted to national benchmarks for demographics and, at the state level, to account for the stratified address-based design
- Geography
- US national
- Base notes
- CHNG battery asked of all respondents; the transgender item (CHNGc) was new in 2023-24 and has no 2007 or 2014 trend.
Sources
Verification note. Total percentages read directly from the RLS-III final topline PDF (item CHNGc). Religion-group breakdowns come from Pew's Feb. 26, 2025 report chapter 'Religion and views on LGBTQ issues and abortion'; some group figures in that chapter could not be captured in full. This is the only transgender-specific item in the RLS-III topline. || Question wording and full-sample distribution read verbatim from the RLS-III final topline PDF (CHNG item c). Religious-group breaks taken from the Pew report chapter 'Religion and views on LGBTQ issues and abortion'; that chapter reports only better/worse shares for most groups, so 'hasn't made much difference' is recorded only for the total.
Figures below are transcribed from these documents. Where they disagree with the source, the source governs.
Questions asked (2)
whether greater social acceptance of transgender people has been a change for the better
Thinking about changes in our society over the last 50 years, all in all, do you think each of the following has been a change for the better, a change for the worse, or hasn't made much difference? ... Greater social acceptance of people who are transgender (that is, people who identify as a gender that is different from the sex they were assigned at birth)
Change for the better
39%
Change for the worse
38%
Hasn't made much difference
21%
No answer
2%
Wording notes: items CHNGa-c randomized and displayed on one page | 'over the last 50 years' framing | asked for the first time in the 2023-24 RLS, so no 2007/2014 comparison
neutral — balanced better/worse pair with an explicit no-difference option; definition of transgender supplied inline
Subgroup figures (21)
respondent self-description of gender, including a non-binary 'some other way' option
Do you describe yourself as a man, a woman or in some other way?
A woman
51%
A man
46%
In some other way
2%
No answer
1%
Wording notes: measurement approach changed from prior waves: 2007 used interviewer observation and 2014 asked 'Are you male or female?', so the 'in some other way' share has no comparable trend | does not separately identify transgender men or transgender women, only a residual 'some other way' category
neutral — standard three-option self-description; the residual category undercounts binary-identified transgender respondents, which is a measurement limitation rather than a slant