A new poll of registered voters in the swing state of Florida shows near-majority support for excluding men who claim to be women from women’s single-sex bathrooms and locker rooms.

The new Gravis poll released on May 21 asked 2,542 registered Sunshine State voters if they favor or oppose laws that require transgender individuals to use bathrooms that correspond to their sex at birth rather than their “gender identity.”

Forty-six percent of the respondents support single-sex bathrooms, while 38 percent oppose a law preserving single-sex bathrooms.

More importantly, 32 percent of the registered voters strongly favor the law, compared to only 25 percent who strongly disfavor the law. Twenty-seven percent weakly favor one or the other position, and 16 percent didn’t know how they felt about the idea.

A similar result was discovered when the words “locker rooms” replaced “bathrooms” in the question above. Forty-five percent support a law requiring single-sex locker rooms, (30 percent strongly and 15 percent somewhat in favor) while 40 percent thought transgender people should be allowed to chose their own locker rooms (26 strongly and 14 percent somewhat opposed traditional gender locker rooms).

The results in swing-state Florida are somewhat more pro-transgender than a mid-May national survey by Rasmussen, which showed strong support among Democratic groups for single-sex facilities. The survey also showed that 65 percent of Americans want the bathroom and locker room debate to be decided by state and local governments, not by the federal government.

The transgender vs. sex debate comes amidst the continuing controversy over North Carolina’s HB2 bathroom law, a law which makes it illegal for men who claim to be women to use women’s bathrooms, changing areas, or showers in public facilities throughout the state. The North Carolina law, however, does allow transgender people to use opposite-sex bathrooms once they’ve undergone medical procedures.

The Tar Heel state has taken much criticism for the law from activist leftist groups, competing stars in the Hollywood entertainment industry, as well as the many business groups that cater to the aforementioned sectors. The progressive groups wish to elevate the idea that people should be allowed to freely choose their gender, which they say should override existing civic rules about the two sexes.

Those normal civic rules allow single-sex bathrooms for both sexes, different sports leagues for both sexes and allow a civic culture where the two different but complementary sexes can create a mixture of separate and shared spaces for their mutual benefit. Those rules and the civic culture, however, would be swept away if the law allows people to repeatedly change their legal sex by simply declaring their gender is either male or female.

That “gender fluid” ideology is now being promoted by President Barack Obama who has ordered that all K-12 bathrooms and locker rooms be opened to both sexes. Likely Democratic 2016 candidate Hillary Clinton is backing the plan, while likely GOP 2016 candidate Donald Trump says the issue should be decided by state and local governments.

The self-identification of party affiliation in the Gravis poll was 37 percent Democrat, 35 percent Republican and 28 percent who claimed to be independent or other.

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com