New poll finds voters want to make the Equality Act clear

As reported in the Telegraph, Daily Mail, Express and Sun today, voters across the political spectrum are more supportive of making the Equality Act clear than making it easier for people to change their birth certificates. 

Sex Matters commissioned a representative survey from an independent polling company to find out what people think of the main policy pledges on sex and the law: 

• There is widespread support for clarifying the Equality Act. Overall, 57% of the population support the proposal to clarify that “male” and “female” in the Equality Act mean biological sex, with just 10% opposing. 
• There is very little support for making it easier for people to change their sex on their birth certificate. 53% of the population oppose and just 20% support.
• Non-binary recognition is more popular, though still with more opposition than support. 44% oppose and 29% support. 

Attitudes to sex and gender policies, June 2024

The poll found that 48% of those who voted Labour in the 2019 election support amending the Equality Act to protect single-sex services, while just 19% oppose it. 

Attitudes to clarifying the Equality Act, by previous voting

More Labour voters reject than support Labour’s manifesto proposal to amend the law to make it easier for people to change the sex on their birth certificates, with 40% opposing and 35% in support.

Attitudes to making it easier to change birth certificates, by previous voting

The results also revealed that Gen Z (age 18–24) are more supportive of sex-based policies than Millennials (age 25–44), suggesting that support for gender-identity ideology among young people has passed its peak.

Attitudes to clarifying the Equality Act by age group

Attitudes to making it easier to change birth certificates, by age group

Both women and men are more supportive of the proposal to clarify the Equality Act than to make it easier to change sex on birth certificates, but men are more supportive of protection for sex-based rights than women overall. 

These findings concur with the results from the National Centre for Social Research, which found that levels of support for allowing people to change the sex on their birth certificates had fallen from 58% in 2016 to just 24% in 2023. 

Support for people being able to change the sex on their birth certificates

At the same time as public support has plummeted, the rate at which gender-recognition certificates are given out has soared.

Number of gender-recognition certificates issued

Whichever party forms the next government needs to understand that the public strongly supports protections for sex-based rights, and is increasingly concerned about the legal falsification of records about people’s sex.

The survey commissioned by Sex Matters was undertaken by PeoplePolling on 26th June 2024 with a sample size of 2,146 people.  For more information on methodology, see the introduction to the poll results or contact [email protected]. PeoplePolling is a member of the British Polling Council. All the data is available to download from https://sex-matters.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/PeoplePolling-poll_29_20240627.xlsx.pdf