By Matt Delaney (The Washington Times)
A White House-commissioned study found that people who more strongly believe in gender ideology, such as transgenderism, were more likely to think political violence was justified.
The study, funded by the Department of Health and Human Services, also found that this same group was more likely to support left-wing authoritarianism, which researchers outlined as “aggression toward perceived oppressors,” “enthusiasm for top-down censorship paired with institutional enforcement” and hostility toward “conventional sex and family norms.”
Researchers from Rutgers University, the Network Contagion Research Institute and conservative think tank the Manhattan Institute said the correlation between gender ideology and political violence was established by how 1,208 adults responded to a survey about real or hypothetical events.
Those situations included the killings of former Turning Point USA CEO Charlie Kirk and former UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, a successful assassination of President Trump, arson attacks on Immigration and Customs Enforcement buildings, the destruction of wealthy people’s property and violence against police.
People who more often endorsed “gender-affirming” views, or the idea that someone can self-identify as a different sex than what they were born as, frequently supported the violent incidents or scenarios presented in the survey.
“This study raises important questions about what happens when ideology is given the authority of medicine,” Adm. Brian Christine, the assistant secretary for HHS, said when the study was published last week. “The association between sex-rejecting clinical beliefs, authoritarian attitudes and the justification of political violence warrants serious scientific scrutiny. HHS will continue to pursue rigorous research that examines these relationships and gives the American people the evidence they deserve.”
Several high-profile crimes in recent years show an overlap with transgenderism and violent behavior.
Tyler Robinson, who has been charged in Kirk’s death, was in a relationship with a transgender woman at the time of the fatal shooting in September 2025. Kirk, a conservative activist, was an outspoken critic of transgenderism.
Last summer, police said transgender woman Robin Westman was responsible for the mass shooting at the Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis that killed two and wounded more than two dozen.
In 2023, police said transgender man Audrey Hale carried out a mass shooting at The Covenant School in Nashville that left six dead. A manifesto linked to Hale showed how tortured the suspect was about not being born as a man.
And the man who pleaded guilty to trying to assassinate Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh in 2022, Nicholas John Roske, began identifying himself as a woman while in federal prison last year. Legal filings said his new name is “Sophie Roske.”
Researchers said they first asked respondents about the importance of affirming a person’s gender identity, how real the threats to transgender people are from certain groups — such as “White supremacists, men and the Supreme Court” — how firmly they believe in an ongoing “trans genocide” and their support for “anti-democratic behaviors unrelated to gender ideology issues.”
The study authors said their questions were based on the positions promoted by the American Psychological Association, American Psychiatric Association and the World Professional Association for Transgender Health.
“These are not fringe organizations — they represent the official scientific and clinical establishment on care for individuals who identify as transgender,” the researchers wrote.
The study said it created a “Clinical Gender Affirmation Scale,” or CGAS, to determine how much a respondent supported gender ideology.
“People who strongly endorse gender ideology positions score dramatically higher on left-wing authoritarianism than their political identity alone would predict. Furthermore, both left-wing authoritarianism and CGAS predicted support for political violence,” the study reads.
The researchers concluded that “gender ideology may function as an ideological accelerant, telling left-wing authoritarian psychology who the enemy is, why the situation is urgent and — in those already disposed toward force — that violence is legitimate.”
This article was made available to WMAL via The Washington Times.
