Leading Democrats offered a slow trickle of critical reaction last week to the Supreme Court’s decision upholding a state ban on some transgender care for youths, underscoring the new discomfort on the issue from a party that has long seen itself as a champion of LGBTQ+ Americans.

Hours after the ruling arrived, some top Democrats like Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader, had denounced the decision as part of a “cruel crusade against trans Americans.”

But many others, including key players in the 2028 shadow primary race, had yet to weigh in.

Gov. Gavin Newsom of California was posting on social media about the National Guard. Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania had thoughts about housing. Gov. Wes Moore of Maryland shared a celebration of Pride — but said nothing about the new court ruling. Asked for comment, representatives for all three governors said they were not issuing any statements on the decision for now.

Even Democrats who condemned the ruling tried to turn the focus to other issues.

Schumer suggested on the social platform X that Republicans were using the topic “to divert attention from ripping health care away from millions of Americans.”

The careful calculus reflected how the fraught topic of transgender issues has tormented Democrats for months, with Republicans putting them firmly on the back foot. Many party leaders now believe that liberal politicians took positions in recent years that deviated too far from the beliefs of the average voter.

Last year, Donald Trump painted Vice President Kamala Harris as too far to the left by pointing to her past positions on transgender care, including support for taxpayer-funded transition operations for prisoners and migrants, which she expressed on a questionnaire in 2019. (Trump omitted that appointees in his first administration provided gender-affirming care for a group of inmates.)

“Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for you,” declared a Trump ad. The line of attack was considered by some Democrats to be one of the most effective against Harris.

Since her loss, Democrats have made some efforts to pivot, conscious of polling like a New York Times survey in February that found that nearly 80% of Americans — including 67% of Democrats — believed that transgender female athletes should not be allowed to participate in women’s sports. A survey from SCOTUSPoll in April found that 64% of Americans, including 38% of Democrats, supported states’ being able to ban certain treatments for transgender minors.

But many elected Democrats still see themselves as important defenders of transgender Americans, and plenty of rank-and-file lawmakers had full-throated condemnations of the ruling Wednesday.

“Trans youth and their health care are under attack — and now our highest court has joined in on the assault,” Rep. Summer Lee of Pennsylvania wrote on social media.

Rep. Brittany Pettersen of Colorado added: “As a mom, I can’t imagine the pain these families navigate as they’re denied the care their children need. Trans kids, like all kids, deserve the freedom to reach their greatest potential.”

Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois, who has a transgender cousin, appeared to be the most forthcoming of the party’s potential 2028 contenders, saying that “in a time of increasing overreach and hateful rhetoric, it’s more important than ever to reaffirm our commitment to the rights and dignity of the LGBTQ+ community. You have a home here always.”

In recent months, other Democrats have sounded a different tune, with Newsom making headlines in March when he suggested that transgender athletes’ participation in women’s sports was “deeply unfair.”

Pete Buttigieg, who ran for president in 2020 and later served as transportation secretary, offered a nuanced answer at a town hall in Iowa last month when asked about transgender rights. “While I think we do need to revisit some of the things that we have had to say policy-wise that haven’t kept up with the times as a party, that doesn’t mean, ever, throwing vulnerable people under the bus,” said Buttigieg, who is gay.

Even Democrats without evident presidential aspirations have shifted on transgender issues this year.

As Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada voted against a bill barring transgender women and girls from participating on girls’ sports teams, she said she supported “fair play and safety” but not “transgender athletes competing in girls’ and women’s sports when it compromises those principles.”

And Rep. Seth Moulton of Massachusetts, one of the first to break with his party on transgender athletes, faced a backlash in November when he said: “I have two little girls. I don’t want them getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete.”

Rep. Sarah McBride of Delaware, the first openly transgender member of Congress, has focused less on her identity and more on issues like paid family leave and the minimum wage. In a statement Wednesday, she said that the Supreme Court ruling “undermines doctors” and that “politicians and judges are inserting themselves in exam rooms.”

In a podcast interview last week, McBride also suggested that activists took their feet off the gas after gay marriage was legalized and public perception shifted in favor of LGBTQ+ rights. That has allowed, she added, “for the misinformation, the disinformation — that well-coordinated, well-funded campaign — to really take advantage of that lack of understanding.”

Jay Brown, chief of staff for the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ+ advocacy group, said several hundred people, including Sens. Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Edward Markey of Massachusetts, had shown up at a rally Wednesday near the Supreme Court building in Washington.

But he acknowledged that his group had also had plenty of conversations with Democrats this spring who had expressed hesitancy on various aspects of transgender rights.

Brown compared the current challenge to the movement to legalize gay marriage, which confronted setbacks for years as it worked to change hearts and minds before eventually breaking through.

“The question there that was facing the movement was, ‘Are you pushing too hard for marriage equality?’ We didn’t give up,” he said. “We’ve got to do the work, and we’ve got real champions that are going to stand with us — and for those who aren’t there yet, we’ll get there.”

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor was perhaps the most prominent voice defending transgender people Wednesday. In her dissent, Sotomayor wrote that “the court abandons transgender children and their families to political whims.”