(LifeSiteNews) – Rank-and-file Democrats continue to lose support for their party leaders’ position on letting males compete in women’s sports, according to a new Gallup poll.

The poll, released June 10, finds that 45% of Democrats “think transgender people should be able to play on sports teams that match their gender identity,” with another 14% “unsure.”

More significantly, Democrat support for the position has fallen by 10% just since 2021, correlating with LGBT activists’ aggression on the issue and Republican-led states passing laws to keep girls’ school athletics for actual girls, suggesting that the push for “inclusion” has had the opposite effect.

Mandatory inclusion of gender-confused individuals in opposite-sex sports is promoted as a matter of “inclusivity,” but critics note that indulging “transgender” athletes undermines the original rational basis for having sex-specific athletics in the first place, thereby depriving female athletes of recognition and professional or academic opportunities.

There have been numerous high-profile examples in recent years of men winning women’s competitions, and research affirms that physiology gives males distinct athletic advantages that cannot be fully negated by hormone suppression.

In a 2019 paper published by the Journal of Medical Ethics, New Zealand researchers found that “healthy young men (do) not lose significant muscle mass (or power) when their circulating testosterone levels were reduced to (below International Olympic Committee guidelines) for 20 weeks,” and “indirect effects of testosterone” on factors such as bone structure, lung volume, and heart size “will not be altered by hormone therapy;” therefore, “the advantage to transwomen (biological men) afforded by the (International Olympic Committee) guidelines is an intolerable unfairness.”

Critics also argue that forcing girls to share intimate facilities such as bathrooms, showers, or changing areas with members of the opposite sex violates their privacy rights, subjects them to needless emotional stress, and gives potential male predators a viable pretext to enter female bathrooms or lockers by simply claiming transgender status. 

Even the left-wing United Nations has acknowledged as much, via an October 2024 report by Special Rapporteur Reem Alsalem, that found more than 600 female athletes around the world have lost more than 890 medals to men in 29 sports as of March 2024. “To avoid the loss of a fair opportunity, males must not compete in the female categories of sport,” the report concluded.

Dismissal of these concerns appears to have cost Democrats dearly. Exit polls show that President Donald Trump won the 2024 election primarily due to widespread discontent with the state of the economy and the southern U.S.-Mexico border under Biden, which former Vice President and eventual Democrat nominee Kamala Harris signaled her policies would not change. 

Of particular note, exit polling by the pro-Democrat firm Blueprint found that the statement “Kamala Harris is focused more on cultural issues like transgender issues rather than helping the middle class” was the third-biggest reason for why overall voters chose not to vote for her, and the number one reason why swing voters rejected her and voted for Trump instead.