Does backing the radical medical and institutional playbook around transgender identity come with a greater willingness to justify political violence? A new HHS-commissioned study finds a statistical link showing such a correlation but stops well short of calling it cause and effect.
The paper is titled “Where the Clinic Meets the Movement: Does Gender Ideology Arm LeftWing Authoritarian Psychology?” Researchers from Rutgers University, the Manhattan Institute and the Network Contagion Research Institute ran a preregistered survey of 1,208 U.S. adults.
They built a Clinical Gender Affirmation Scale (CGAS) from official positions issued by the American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, and the American Academy of Pediatrics—all well-known for holding to progressive ideology. Higher scores meant stronger agreement with statements affirming identity, backing parental support for a child’s “transgender exploration,” and related institutional norms. That scale is how the study measured “gender ideology.”
Researchers then set it against left-wing authoritarianism (LWA), which, according to the researchers, “describes a psychological profile characterized by aggression toward perceived oppressors, enthusiasm for top-down censorship and institutional enforcement, and hostility toward conventional social institutions—in short, an authoritarian disposition organized around left rather than right political content.”
The association between transgender ideology and authoritarian beliefs wasn’t small, and the pattern showed up when people were asked whether political violence could be justified.
The survey used six scenarios: the assassination of Christian and conservative commentator Charlie Kirk, the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, attempts to assassinate President Donald Trump, arson attacks on Immigration and Customs Enforcement buildings, property destruction and violence against police.
Both LWA and CGAS were positively associated with justifying violence across all six targets. Both independently predicted those answers after controlling for left-wing political identity.
Historically, the researchers wrote, “it was assumed that authoritarianism was primarily a right-wing phenomenon.” Yet the findings “suggest that gender ideology is associated with LWA and willingness to justify political violence. Experimental research is needed to determine causality.”
The authors didn’t treat high-profile crimes as proof of the theory, but the correlations remain: Kirk’s accused killer is Tyler Robinson, a 22-year-old with a trans-identifying boyfriend. The UnitedHealthcare CEO’s death and the suspected killer have been celebrated by many on the Left, as have assassination attempts and hostility against the president and ICE officials.
Notably, those cases sit in the background of the survey item; they aren’t the survey itself.
“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 stated. Correlation, they stressed, isn’t the same as cause. A separate experimental study is set to happen to test whether the ideology itself actually moves people toward authoritarian or violent justifications, or simply travels with them.
The authors present the result as a gap in how officials look for radicalization. The report noted that “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.”
“This study,” they continued, “suggests that the same psychological machinery operates on the extreme left, and that it may be running through institutional channels—clinical guidelines, professional standards, credentialed expertise—that current threat-detection frameworks are not designed to recognize.”
“Violence connected to gender ideology remains largely undocumented in the academic literature,” the researchers concluded. “This study provides a first systematic empirical look at the psychological infrastructure that makes such violence conceivable.”
Relevant Bible passages to ponder: Psalm 11:5, Proverbs 3:31, Genesis 6:11
Sarah Holliday is an Assistant Editor for (Harbinger’s Daily Contributing Publisher) Decision Magazine. She is also a Family Research Council (FRC) contributor.
