Americans who strongly endorsed positions drawn from major medical groups’ “gender-affirming” guidance also showed higher levels of left-wing authoritarianism and greater willingness to justify political violence, according to a new HHS-commissioned study.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released the preregistered report Wednesday. Researchers affiliated with Rutgers University, the Manhattan Institute and the Network Contagion Research Institute surveyed 1,208 U.S. adults recruited through CloudResearch Connect.
The report found associations, not proof that the beliefs caused authoritarianism or violence. It measured whether respondents considered six acts justified, not whether they committed or intended to commit violence. It also did not examine whether people who identify as “transgender” commit violence.
Study tested six violent scenarios
Researchers built a five-item Clinical Gender Affirmation Scale from positions in guidance issued by the American Psychological Association, American Psychiatric Association, World Professional Association for “Transgender” Health and American Academy of Pediatrics.
Respondents rated statements about asserted identities, names, pronouns and parental support, including “Parents should support their children’s transgender exploration.”
The study separately used a 13-item Brief Left-Wing Authoritarianism Scale. It includes statements favoring top-down censorship and rejecting conventional values, along with, “We need to replace the established order by any means necessary,” and a statement about enjoying seeing perceived oppressors suffer violence.
Respondents then rated how justified they considered six acts: killing Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, killing President Donald Trump, killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, setting fire to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement buildings, damaging wealthy people’s property and committing violence against police.
Those scenarios overlap with recent political violence and property attacks previously covered by The Dallas Express, including Kirk’s assassination, attempts on Trump’s life, Thompson’s killing and the Antifa ambush at an ICE facility near Fort Worth.
DX covered attacks, plots and property damage
The report did not analyze individual crimes or determine whether people who identify as “transgender” commit violence at higher rates. Its release nevertheless follows several cases previously covered by The Dallas Express involving defendants or assailants who identified as “transgender,” including political attacks and plots.
Federal prosecutors charged Lucy Grace Nelson, also known as Justin Thomas Nelson, over a series of alleged attacks at a Tesla dealership in Loveland, Colorado. Authorities reported finding a Molotov cocktail near a Cybertruck, graffiti and broken bottles consistent with incendiary devices. At Nelson’s arrest, investigators said a vehicle contained gasoline, bottles and wick material. DX previously identified Nelson as a “trans” woman.
In Buffalo Grove, Illinois, prosecutors charged Erin L. White with felony criminal damage to property and misdemeanor trespass after graffiti opposing Trump and Musk and supporting “transgender” rights caused about $9,000 in damage at a Tesla center. DX previously reported that White identifies as “transgender.” DX also covered a separate Molotov cocktail and gunfire case at a Tesla dealership in Salem, Oregon, while noting that authorities had not confirmed online claims that the defendant identified as “transgender.”
The North Texas case produced nine convictions. Eight defendants later received a combined 450 years in federal prison for the July 4, 2025, attack at the Prairieland ICE Detention Center in Alvarado. DX previously identified two of those defendants, Cameron Arnold, also known as Autumn Hill, and Bradford Morris, also known as Meagan Morris, as “transgender.” Each was convicted of riot, providing material support to terrorists and explosives offenses and received 50 years. Benjamin Song, a separate defendant, was the only person convicted of attempted murder and firing the shots that wounded an Alvarado police officer.
Other DX reporting has examined the bombing of the Alabama attorney general’s office, an alleged knife attack on ICE agents in Portland, the 2023 Covenant School killings, the 2025 Annunciation Catholic Church shooting, the attempted assassination of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, an attack on Turning Point USA students at UT Dallas, thwarted school shooting plots, the Zizian network and a 2026 school shooting in British Columbia. The cases differ substantially in facts, motives and legal posture. They do not establish a population-level rate of violence, and the HHS study did not use them as evidence.
Associations remained after political controls
Endorsement of the clinical scale correlated at 0.56 with left-wing authoritarianism, and the full set of gender-belief measures produced correlations ranging from 0.44 to 0.59. The clinical scale accounted for 31.5% of the variation in authoritarianism scores.
Support for the clinical positions also correlated with justification of all six violent acts, with coefficients ranging from 0.23 to 0.35. Left-wing authoritarianism produced stronger correlations, ranging from 0.47 to 0.54. The relationships remained statistically significant when researchers controlled for respondents’ left-right political identity.
When researchers modeled left-wing authoritarianism and political identity together, authoritarianism predicted willingness to justify all six acts. Political identity predicted four. When researchers modeled the clinical scale and political identity together, both predicted all six.
The sample leaned Democratic: 55% identified with or leaned toward the Democratic Party, 27.2% identified with or leaned toward the Republican Party, 15.1% were independents without a lean and 2.7% reported another or no affiliation.
“This study raises important questions about what happens when ideology is given the authority of medicine,” Assistant Secretary for Health Adm. Brian Christine said in an HHS release. He said the associations among sex-rejecting clinical beliefs, authoritarian attitudes and justification of political violence warrant serious scientific scrutiny.
Study does not establish causation
The authors wrote that gender ideology “may function as an ideological accelerant” for people already disposed toward force. However, they said the cross-sectional design could not determine whether gender beliefs influence authoritarianism, whether authoritarians gravitate toward those beliefs or whether another factor drives both.
Researchers are designing a second preregistered experiment to test causation.
The Human Rights Campaign called the report “junk” in a Thursday statement and accused HHS and the researchers of beginning with a predetermined result. It described the Manhattan Institute and NCRI as aligned with right-wing positions but did not identify a specific statistical calculation it disputed. “Political violence is not, and must never become, acceptable in our society,” HRC President Kelley Robinson said.
The findings also follow separate 2026 research published in Archives of Sexual Behavior. Two preregistered studies of 1,431 U.S. adults and 1,390 adults in the United Kingdom found that nonbinary or changeable sex/gender beliefs were strongly associated with left-wing authoritarian anti-conventionalism.
Provided by Dallas Express
