Most Americans Agree: You Can’t Change Your Sex | Jonathan Butcher
American Thought Leaders
The Epoch Times
4.9 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 18 February 2026
⏱️ 47 minutes
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Summary
How polarized are Americans really? Are we really on the “brink of civil war” as some suggest?
That’s what I wanted to find out when I sat down with Jonathan Butcher, author of the recently released book “The Polarization Myth: America’s Surprising Consensus on Race, Schools, and Sex.”
“When we hear the term polarization, it makes us think that there’s 50% on one side and 50% on the other side. But that’s not what’s going on,” says Butcher, who is acting director of The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Education Policy.
Butcher conducted a survey of more than 2,000 Americans and asked participants for their opinions on contentious cultural and political issues.
What did he find? Contrary to what Americans are constantly told on social media and in legacy media, there is no deep divide on the issues that drive the so-called culture wars, he says. His survey found the following:
-Biological sex: A majority of respondents maintain that sex is unchanging -Gender and schools: 61% oppose teaching young children that they can change their “gender” -Sexual content in schools: 69% do not support access in schools to books that depict sexual activity -College admissions: 52% oppose the use of racial preferences in college admissions, which are central to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs
The culture war, Butcher concludes from his survey findings, is a narrative propagated by a small faction of radical activists and amplified by the media to instill fear.
“It’s really like a majority of Americans and … a small minority of activists on the other [side] that just have a very loud voice,” he says.
The survey responses, he told me, also show a surprising degree of consensus among Americans on basic principles and core beliefs.
For example, he found that a large majority of survey respondents want their children to be taught about virtue and character at school. More than half favor increased civics education.
“The important thing to remind Americans is that on the issues, they’re not alone. If [you] think that individuals should be judged, promoted, accepted to school based on their merit instead of their skin color, right, you’re not alone. You’re not alone if you think that we should be protecting women from men accessing their bathrooms or locker rooms,” he says.
Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | We don't allow young people to diagnose themselves with a sprained ankle or with pneumonia, |
| 0:05.0 | but when they say they're born in the wrong body, we say they need to be socially affirmed, |
| 0:10.0 | and we should move them along the process of pursuing counseling and then ultimately physical changes that will last with them forever. |
| 0:17.0 | In this episode, I sit down with Jonathan Butcher, acting director of the Heritage Foundation's Center for Education Policy, |
| 0:23.6 | and author of The Polarization Myth, America's surprising consensus on race, schools, and sex. |
| 0:30.6 | He uncovers what his new survey of more than 2,000 Americans tells us about who is really driving the culture war and who |
| 0:39.0 | quietly disagrees. |
| 0:41.0 | There are clear majorities in the survey that I conducted for my book and the idea that |
| 0:46.7 | you can change your gender is not popular with the American public. |
| 0:51.3 | There's a shared sense of national identity on this question. |
| 0:55.0 | Butcher argues it's a loud minority amplified by media narratives, while a quiet majority |
| 1:00.7 | shares common sense beliefs about merit, family, and community. |
| 1:05.0 | If you start with the family, then you can build the community, then you build a city, then |
| 1:08.8 | you build a state, then you build the nation. Are Americans actually more united than we think? This is American Thought Leaders, and I'm |
| 1:16.1 | Janja Kellick. John Butcher, such a pleasure to have you on American Thought Leaders. |
| 1:22.8 | Thank you. It's great to be with you. So there was a landmark court case in New York court recently. |
| 1:29.3 | Fox Varian won a $2 million award for malpractice, liability for malpractice of a psychologist |
| 1:39.3 | and a surgeon who took her breasts when she was 16 years old. |
| 1:46.1 | What's your reaction to this? |
| 1:48.0 | Well, according to the details of the case, |
| 1:50.1 | the doctors involved pressured both the young lady |
| 1:53.9 | and her parents to her mom in particular |
... |
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