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This is the second annual poll from The 19th and SurveyMonkey, designed to shed light on what women, particularly women of color, and LGBTQ+ people think about the issues animating our politics. This year, in addition to questions about democracy, abortion and other issues, we added questions on gender-affirming care and guns. In a little more than a year, Americans will start voting for who they want representing them all the way up to the presidency. Here’s where they stand now.

Explore the data in more detail:
Interactive toplines Full cross-tabs Methodology 2022 Poll
Gender-affirming care
Most Americans would prefer politicians to protect trans people or not focus on trans issues — rather than restrict care
Republican legislators across the country have moved to restrict access to gender-affirming care or discussion of trans issues in schools, but it’s not a key focus for most Americans. Overall, just 17 percent of Americans, and 29 percent of Republicans, say politicians should focus on restricting gender-affirming care. Almost 6 in 10 Democrats (59 percent) prefer politicians to protect trans people, compared with a third of the general public.
Read more: Personal relationships influence views on gender-affirming care
Most Americans — again, regardless of party identification — do not think politicians are informed enough about gender-affirming care for minors to make fair policy. There is a divide, however, when people are asked about the rights of adults vs. minors to access gender-affirming care: Most Americans favor the right of adults to access such care but over half oppose the right for minors. The majority of LGBTQ+ Americans support gender-affirming care for both adults (84 percent) and minors (70 percent).
Abortion
More women than men want abortion to be legal in all cases
More than 6 in 10 Americans think abortion should be legal in all or most cases; that figure is higher for women and nonbinary people, and the difference comes mainly from those who want abortion legal in all cases. While roughly the same percentage of Democratic men and women think abortion should be always or mostly legal, Republican women (42 percent) are more likely than men in their party (35 percent) to say the same.
Read more: Total abortion bans are not at all popular
Guns
An overwhelming majority of Americans support a federal ban on gun purchases by those convicted of domestic violence
The Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments in United States v. Rahimi, a case dealing with the constitutionality of banning the possession of firearms by someone under a domestic violence restraining order. While the case deals with a civil action, an overwhelming majority of Americans say they support a federal ban on gun purchases for those who are convicted of domestic violence (82 percent) or of any violent crime (83 percent).
Read more: Americans from both parties want stricter gun laws
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Health
Women, people of color and LGBTQ+ Americans are more likely to report discrimination by a health-care provider
The reasons vary: Black adults are most likely to say they faced discrimination based on their race. Twice as many women as men report discrimination based on their weight; the number is far higher for nonbinary Americans. A quarter of LGBTQ+ adults report facing discrimination based on their gender or sexual orientation, including 48 percent of trans adults.
Read more: Women, nonbinary people report weight discrimination
Workplace
10 percent of women and 20 percent of nonbinary people have experienced sexual assault or harassment at work over the past three years
The figure is even higher for women with disabilities and LGBTQ+ women. Remote work does seem to reduce the threat: 5 percent of those who have been working mostly or fully remotely over the last three years say they have experienced sexual assault or harassment at work, compared with 9 percent of those who are mostly or fully in person.
Read more: Poll sheds light on harassment, disability
Who says they have experienced sexual assault or harassment at work in their lifetime
48% of women with disabilities have experienced sexual assault or harassment at work
33% of women without disabilities have experienced sexual assault or harassment at work
53% of LGBTQ+ women have experienced sexual assault or harassment at work
33% of non-LGBTQ+ women have experienced sexual assault or harassment at work
Democracy
More Americans say the country’s democracy and its economic and financial systems are working well for them
Both numbers are up since 2022, and the change is being driven by Democrats: The percentage who say democracy is working very or somewhat well for them is 14 points higher than last year, while it’s down one point for Republicans. More Asian, Black and White women say that America’s system of democracy is working for them compared with last year.
Read more: The Amendment: Democracy is a kitchen table issue

We’ll be publishing more stories in the days to come using the data we found in our poll. Sign up for our daily newsletter to read future poll stories first, or donate today to support future projects like this.

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Methodology

This SurveyMonkey poll was conducted online from August 24-31, 2023, among a national sample of 20,191 adults. Respondents for this survey were selected from the more than 2 million people who take surveys on the SurveyMonkey platform each day. The modeled error estimate for this survey is plus or minus 1.0 percentage points. Data have been weighted for age, race, sex, education, and geography using the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey to reflect the demographic composition of the United States age 18 and over. In addition, data for transgender respondents have been weighted for political party identification and gender using the KFF/The Washington Post Trans Survey to reflect the demographic composition of that subgroup. Read more about the choices we made when creating this poll here.

Team

The following people contributed to this project: Abby Blachman, product engineer; Alexandra Smith, audience director; Annelise McGough, newsletter editor; Clarice Bajkowski, creative director; Emily Swelgin, chief product officer; Jasmine Mithani, data visuals reporter; Julie Bogen, audience engagement editor; Lance Dixon, audience engagement producer; Lydia Chebbine, photo editor; Megan Kearney, digital producer; Myrka Moreno, audience engagement producer; Rena Li, brand designer; Sereena Henderson, membership manager; Terri Rupar, political editor; Vanessa Gregorchik, product designer; Wynton Wong, multimedia events producer