A new study commissioned by the Department of Health and Human Services has found a correlation between people who believe in radical gender ideology and a greater willingness to justify political violence.
The preregistered survey of 1,208 U.S. adults, obtained by the Daily Signal, found that stronger endorsement of so-called “gender-affirming care” was substantially associated with higher levels of left-wing authoritarianism, even after researchers accounted for political identity and age.
The report found a positive association between justification of political violence and endorsement of the gender-affirmation scale across all six scenarios studied, including the assassination of Charlie Kirk, the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, attempts against the life of President Donald Trump, arson at Immigration and Customs Enforcement buildings, property destruction, and violence against police.
Conservative activist and Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk was assassinated last September, with many leftists celebrating his death. Kirk’s accused killer is Tyler Robinson, a 22-year-old with a trans-identifying boyfriend.
Researchers from Rutgers University, the Manhattan Institute and the Network Contagion Research Institute conducted the study. They developed a Clinical Gender Affirmation Scale based on positions drawn from guidance issued by the American Psychological Association, American Psychiatric Association, World Professional Association for Transgender Health, and American Academy of Pediatrics.
Endorsement of the Clinical Gender-Affirmation Scale was strongly associated with left-wing authoritarianism.
The authors say the study is correlational and cannot establish causation. They are designing a second, preregistered experimental study to further test the relationship.
“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,” the report says.
The relationship remained significant after accounting for political identity and age. According to the authors, that finding suggests the association cannot be explained solely by respondents’ identification with the political left.
The associations between the study’s two measures and justification of political violence also persisted in regression models controlling for political identity, according to the report.
While past research on authoritarianism has focused largely on the political right, potential left-wing pathways have received less attention until this report, according to the researchers.
“Yet federal agencies and public safety officials are concerned not only with ideology in the abstract, but with radicalization pathways: the content that tells people who to fear, why the situation is urgent, and when force becomes acceptable,” the report says. “This study suggests that the same psychological machinery operates.”
Current threat detection frameworks are not prepared to recognize the channels through which these ideas spread, the researchers wrote.
“Violence connected to gender ideology remains largely undocumented in the academic literature,” the researchers wrote. “This study provides a first systematic empirical look at the psychological infrastructure that makes such violence conceivable.”
