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Recently, California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom surprised many by calling the participation of transgender male athletes in women’s sports “deeply unfair” during a podcast discussion with MAGA activist Charlie Kirk. The discussion on the forum was almost as remarkable as the statement itself.

Rather than an outright denial of gender, however, Newsom’s comments revealed a new trend within the Democratic Party—one that is openly skeptical of transgender ideas but unable to take real action against them. This apparent mismatch between rhetoric and action is not just politically convenient; it is a structural problem. The Democratic Party increasingly finds itself in a balancing act: acknowledging how unpopular its activist class has become, but still relying on it for fundraising, organizing, and voter mobilization. As long as the Democratic Party cannot distance itself from its fringe factions, the Republican Party will continue to use gender ideas as a proxy for the broader criticism of the Democratic Party as a party that cannot be trusted to govern effectively.

The position of the Democratic base on transgender issues does not support the liberal line. Indeed, a January New York Times poll found that more than two-thirds of Democrats and 79% of Americans oppose allowing biological males to compete in women’s sports. The political stakes in opposing this view should be clear.

Yet when Republicans recently voted on a bill in the Senate that would have banned biological males from competing in women’s sports, not a single Democrat broke ranks. Not even Pennsylvania’s John Fetterman, the so-called blue-collar truther of the left, swayed. Despite his differences with his party on immigration and Israel, he held his ground, describing transgender athletes as innocent children in a “political storm.” Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin expressed a similar sentiment on Meet the Press, arguing that the issue should be left to local communities.

Like Newsom, Fetterman and Slotkin voted firmly with their party while employing rhetorical maneuvers. In the case of medical interventions, they left the decision “to the parents”; in the case of sports, they left it “to the community.” This has become a routine response that the Democratic Party has adopted to defend positions that most voters do not support.