Increasing Public Support for Transgender Rights through Superordinate LGBT+ Rights Framing: Evidence from a US Survey Experiment on Transgender Participation in Sports

Abstract

We consider how LGBT+ legal rights frameworks, broadly construed, can be used to bolster support within the general public for transgender subgroup rights. Our research is informed by theoretical perspectives on appeals to superordinate identities to reduce prejudice. Based on a survey experiment in the United States, we find that framing a salient transgender advocacy issue—transgender participation in sports—within a broader LGBT+ legal rights framework increases public support for transgender inclusion in sports. There is a nearly 10 percentage-point increase in support, including among partisan Republicans, when transgender rights in sports are preceded by priming and framing around the more general LGBT+ rights struggle. Our results underscore the importance of broader LGBT+ rights advocacy to public acceptance of the transgender community.