Texas Politics Project (UT-Austin)

the sex listed on a person's original birth certificate should be the only way to define gender

Wording notes: agree/disagree format is subject to acquiescence bias | states the restrictive position as the proposition

tilts_restrictive — An agree/disagree item states only the restrictive proposition, which both invites acquiescence and makes the restrictive answer the default 'agree' response; a forced-choice pairing would be more balanced.

Please tell us whether you would support or oppose each of the following proposals for new laws:

Requiring athletic participation to be based on biological sex in K-12 and higher education institutions in Texas

Wording notes: uses 'biological sex' | does not name transgender people explicitly

neutral — Symmetric 4-point support/oppose with no argument attached; 'biological sex' is the restrictive side's preferred term but is used descriptively rather than argumentatively.

Please tell us whether you would support or oppose each of the following proposals for new laws:

Prohibiting doctors from providing gender-affirming care to minors

Wording notes: uses the affirming-side term 'gender-affirming care' | no description of what the care consists of

neutral — Symmetric 4-point support/oppose with no attached argument; the policy is described in its own terms without an appeal to safety or harm on either side.

Please tell us whether you would support or oppose each of the following proposals for new laws:

Prohibiting 'drag' performances, in which one gender presents as another, in public places in the presence of a minor

Wording notes: supplies a definition of drag ('in which one gender presents as another') | scare quotes around 'drag'

neutral — Symmetric support/oppose scale; the embedded definition is descriptive rather than evaluative, though the scare-quoted 'drag' and the 'presence of a minor' clause both foreground the restrictive frame.

Limiting the extent to which public school teachers can talk about gender identity and/or sexual orientation

Wording notes: asks about perceived policy impact rather than support/oppose | double-barreled: bundles gender identity and sexual orientation

double_barreled — The item combines gender identity and sexual orientation with an 'and/or', so a respondent who distinguishes between the two has no way to register that; the improve/hurt response set is otherwise symmetric.

Please tell us whether you would support or oppose each of the following proposals for new laws:

Please tell us whether you would support or oppose each of the following proposals for new laws: Prohibiting doctors from providing gender-affirming care to minors.

Wording notes: BAN framing (support = restrict) | uses the umbrella term 'gender-affirming care' with no treatment named | targets doctors as the regulated party, which imports a criminal/professional-penalty flavour | no age threshold | four-point scale with an explicit don't-know | asked inside a battery of pending Texas legislative proposals

neutral — Symmetric four-point support/oppose with a don't-know, and the treatment description is the neutral umbrella term. Naming doctors as the target is the one directional cue, and it plausibly cuts both ways. Useful as the state-level baseline for the umbrella-term wording: 58% support the ban here versus 34-36% favor on Gallup's national umbrella-term ban wording two months later, which is largely a Texas-versus-national electorate difference rather than a wording one.