Polls: Support for Gay Marriage drops. Was the Trans Issue the Poison Pill?

Polls: Support for Gay Marriage drops. Was the Trans Issue the Poison Pill? By Scott Pinsker at PJ Media.

An eye-opening new Gallup poll: …

Between 1996 and 2022, the percentage of U.S. adults in favor of legalizing same-sex marriage increased by 44 points, from 27% to 71%. In 2024, the figure dipped to 69%, and it has shown a marginal decline each year since.

Gallup first asked about the morality of same-sex relations in 2001, when 40% said they were morally acceptable. By 2022, 71% held that view, before a sharp drop to 64% in 2023, holding at about that level during the past three years.

When Gallup first asked about changing one’s gender in 2021, 46% found it morally acceptable, and 51% found it morally wrong. Today, those numbers stand at 38% and 57%, respectively. …

In 2022, 87% of Dems supported same-sex marriages; today it’s still 87%. As for the morality of same-sex relationships, in Gallup’s analysis, there was “no meaningful change among Democrats (now at 81%).”

The one issue where the Democrats changed the most was on trans rights, where support dropped by 7 points!

Dylan Mulvaney was the turning point for trans:

The tide began to turn against the LGBTQ movement in early 2023. Before then, it was nothing but gains; all the momentum was theirs.

And not-so-coincidentally, 2023 was also the year when — among (many) other things — Bud Light showcased transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney in its ill-fated ad campaign.

 

The reason for accepting LGB:

The secret to LGBTQ’s earlier acceptance was a very clever, two-prong PR campaign: Bigotry is wrong (“Love is love!”) and gay people are no different than anyone else.

Opposing racism, sexism, and bigotry is drilled into our heads at a very young age, so the first half was an easy sell. … And with gay people so ubiquitous — they’re in your family, my family, and the rest of society — we didn’t want to hurt the people we cared about. We want the best for ALL our friends and family. …

Trans too?

At first, the trans movement piggybacked on gay marriage’s PR messaging: Trans people are just like you and me. Your children could be trans. Anyone could be trans! Don’t you want the best for your children?

This messaging was synthesized into the snappy soundbite, “Would you rather have a living son or a dead daughter?” (And vice-versa, of course.) It gave audiences a binary, Patrick Henry-inspired choice: Transition or death. …

We heard the media’s messaging and saw a slew of warm, glowing, positive portrayals of trans people — especially children. Trans children were everywhere!

Megyn Kelly went on national TV and said, “it is possible to transition [children] socially, with love and support and acceptance within a family and a community.” …

From 2010 through 2022, most Americans gave the trans movement the benefit of the doubt: If this is what it takes to prevent kids from committing suicide, well, being trans is certainly better than the alternative.

But then:

The trans movement overreached.

We saw male-to-female MMA fighter Fallon Fox shatter the orbital bone of “her” female opponent — and was heralded by OutSports as “the bravest athlete in history.” We heard countless accounts of scared little girls who didn’t want to share their locker rooms, bathrooms, and school showers with biological males — and were promptly derided as bigots and bullies. Young men were told they were “transphobic” if they didn’t want to date a “girl” with testicles and a penis.

Instead of “protecting children,” the trans movement did the opposite, displaying a callous indifference to the safety, traditions, and integrity of all other groups and institutions.

Trans people were given carte blanche to do whatever the hell they wanted, and anyone who disagreed was blackballed from polite society.

This wasn’t equality; it was supremacy — with the trans movement at the top.

It grew increasingly creepy and Orwellian, with the satire site Babylon Bee banned from Twitter (now X) for “misgendering” trans political appointee Rachel Levine. And the Babylon Bee was far from alone.

Disagreeing with someone’s choice of pronouns could, quite literally, get you demonetized and barred for life from social media!

Unhappy, nihilistic, and dangerous:

Then a weird connection between trans and gun violence began to emerge. There was the Tumbler Ridge school shooting in February 2026. The Annunciation Catholic School mass shooting in August 2025. The 2023 Nashville school shooting. And, of course, the assassination of Charlie Kirk by Tyler Robinson, who was (allegedly) motivated by his trans lover.

Instead of perceiving trans people as victims, they were increasingly seen as perpetrators. For a group that’s less than 1% of the population, they certainly seemed overrepresented in shocking acts of violence. …

The scam dissolved as people noticed:

Little by little, Americans noticed that we didn’t see too many trans kids in our own families or neighborhoods — but among Hollywood celebrities, they were practically everywhere. And they often appeared in clusters that were statistically improbable, such as Oscar-winning movie star Marcia Gay Harden’s three children, one of whom is gay, the other is non-binary, and the third is “gender fluid.” And Harden wasn’t the only celeb with trans kids …

The trans movement seemed less based on a rigid, immovable biological reality about gender, and more a byproduct of peer pressure, mental vulnerabilities, and “social contagions.” …

An extremely harmful social contagion, as explained by Chloe Cole:

The American people have woken up from the obvious lie of transgenderism.

There is no excuse for the mutilation of young people. Members of Congress who still defend it should have to look parents in the eye and explain why their child’s healthy body is now a commodity.

 

Why LGB is accepted, but trans is not:

The “social contagion” association was a PR killer because gay and lesbian people gained public acceptance AFTER we decided that sexual orientation wasn’t a choice; it’s hardwired into our personalities. Therefore, it’s not something that can be “willed away.”

Like it or not, this is how gay and straight people are born.

But what if it’s not? What if a large percentage of the trans community was comprised of confused, lost souls who are desperate for a sense of belonging?

The trans movement tried to have it both ways: Gender was a “social construct” that didn’t matter anyway — yet so intrinsic to our identity, why, preventing a boy from identifying as a girl would drive him/her to suicide.

Eventually, the American people had enough: The cognitive dissonance was simply too great. …

The collapse of support for trans is pulling down LGB as well:

And because the LGBTQ movement bundled itself under a unified banner rainbow — it literally stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, TRANSGENDER, and queer — when one pillar collapsed, there was an inevitable ripple effect. It undermined public acceptance of the entire LGBTQ community.

And now, according to Gallup, LGBTQ acceptance is at its lowest level since 2016.

History will show that the trans movement was a PR poison pill that set the LGBTQ movement back at least a decade. All that goodwill — and a generation of positive PR — was squandered at the altar of transitioning children.

If the trendlines continue, same-sex marriage will probably be on the chopping block by 2030.

Maybe, but I doubt it.