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FIGHTING THE TRANS CARE SCARE  
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Eva Moschitto
March 17, 2025
Indypendent
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_ “Withholding the availability of services from transgender
individuals based on their gender identity or their diagnosis of
gender dysphoria, while offering such services to cisgender
individuals, is discrimination under New York law." _

,

 

Less than 48 hours after NYU ­Langone canceled
[[link removed]] gender-affirming
care appointments for two trans children, over one
thousand protesters
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including doctors, parents, students and teachers, showed up at the
Upper East Side hospital for an action organized by the Democratic
Socialists of America.

Five days later, several thousand people gathered in Union Square for
a “Rise Up for Trans Youth
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rally organized by Transformative Schools, Act Up NY and the Gender
Liberation Movement. 

Attorney General Letitia James sent a letter
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health care providers of their obligation to comply with state
anti-discrimination laws, “regardless of the availability of federal
funding.” 

The letter references a Jan. 28 executive order
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titled Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation,
which threatens to withhold Medicare and Medicaid funding for
hospitals that provide gender-affirming care to people under age 19. 

However, due to a temporary restraining order blocking the freeze of
federal funds, “funding to institutions that provide
gender-affirming care continues to be available, irrespective of
President Trump’s recent Executive Order,” according to an amicus
brief
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on Feb. 21 by 18 attorneys general, including James.

The executive order “rescinds funding only where the
gender-affirming care is offered to an individual whose ‘identity
… differs from his or her sex.’ People who are cisgender remain
free to receive the exact same treatments, including to better
‘align [their] physical appearance’ with their gender identity,”
the brief states. 

Gender-affirming care includes providing puberty blockers, hormones
and, in rare instances, surgery — most commonly breast reductions. A
2024 Harvard study
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“little to no utilization of gender-affirming surgeries by
transgender and gender-diverse” minors in the United States.

“Withholding the availability of services from transgender
individuals based on their gender identity or their diagnosis of
gender dysphoria, while offering such services to cisgender
individuals, is discrimination under New York law,” James writes in
her letter
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Delaying or suspending gender-affirming care can be dangerous.
“Adolescents who begin gender-affirming treatment at later stages of
puberty are five times more likely to be diagnosed with depression and
four times more likely to have anxiety disorders than adolescents who
seek treatment in early puberty,” according to a 2020 study
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the American Academy of ­Pediatrics (AAP). Odds of “severe
psychological distress [were reduced] by 222%, 153% and 81% for those
who began hormones in early adolescence, late adolescence and
adulthood, respectively,” a 2022 Stanford study
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AAP’s gender-affirming care model
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that “variations in gender identity and expression are normal
aspects of human diversity … If a mental health issue exists, it
most often stems from stigma and negative experiences rather than
being intrinsic to the child.” 

Following Trump’s inauguration, The Trevor Project saw a 46% rise
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demand for its crisis counseling services, and a 700% overall increase
since the election. Purporting to “End Reliance on Junk Science,”
the Jan. 28 executive order dismisses research by the AAP and numerous
other leading medical associations
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gender-affirming care. 

“Expanding support and offering the very best care for our LGBTQ+
patients and families has remained a top priority,” said Michelle
Lloyd, vice president of children’s services at the Sala Institute
for Child and Family Centered Care, in a 2022 press release
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NYU Langone. The press release’s title advertised NYU Langone as a
10-time “National LGBTQ+ Healthcare Equality Leader,” recognized
by the Human Rights Campaign. 

The press release is posted on the Hassenfeld Children’s Hospital
Transgender Youth Health Program website, above a different link to an
article titled “CBS News: Gender-Affirming Care Is Lifesaving
Care.” 

“Hospital CEOs know just as we all do that this decision [to suspend
care] is not based on what’s best for patients,” remarked Daniel
Goulden, a Brooklyn teacher and organizer who spoke during a Feb. 18
mass call for trans rights organized by the New York DSA. 

“Everyone who is on this call and feeling really freaked out … I
feel you … but we have literally thousands of people standing with
us … if we mobilize that power, and if we concentrate it
strategically, we can win,” Goulden continued.

Since the Feb. 3 protest, volunteers have sent approximately 100,000
letters to board members, trustees and executive leadership at NYU
­Langone, Mount Sinai and New York Presbyterian hospitals, Goulden
shared. The letters urged hospitals to immediately resume
gender-affirming care for minors, and reminded that executive orders
“do not have the authority to override the U.S. Constitution,
federal statutes and established legal precedent.”

“We expect [providers] to go to the Supreme Court … first, before
violating our laws and values, before throwing children out of care
that they deserve and need,” said Michael Kinnucan, senior health
policy advisor at the Fiscal Policy Institute, who also spoke on the
call. 

State Senator Kristen Gonzalez (D-Queens/Brooklyn/Manhattan) explained
the letter writing as part of an “inside-outside” organizing
strategy. While activists use protests to build public awareness about
anti-trans discrimination, letters, including a letter
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by Gonzalez and ­Assemblymember Harvey Epstein to NYU Langone on Feb.
6, can apply pressure to members inside organizations. 

The statements remind private hospitals that “they do not have the
support of elected officials, [and] they do not have the support of
the community,” Gonzalez said. The letter requested a meeting with
NYU Langone and a response by Feb. 17. As _The Indypendent_ goes to
press on March 13, NYU Langone has not responded to the letter.

Private hospitals rely on what Kinnocan deems an “unholy alliance of
public money and private power in the U.S. healthcare system.”
Hospitals with nonprofit status, like NYU, are required to report
their charitable spending to the IRS. (For more, see sidebar.)

Medicaid plus property and sales tax exemptions are just some of the
ways New York State funds private hospitals. Private hospitals rely on
students trained at public hospitals as well as members of nurses and
doctors unions. NYU Langone has been “accused of literally sending
people out of its ER and down the street,” Kinnucan stated,
referencing a 2022 _New York Times_ article
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“That’s a subsidy we [the public] are giving it. We’re caring
where it doesn’t wanna care.”

Leveraging these pressure points will require a sustained, strategic
response. “The federal government is asking a question of New
Yorkers: Who are we willing to give up? And our answer is no one,”
said mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani on the call. 

Hospitals “depend on our tax dollars, our insurance premiums, our
labor as caregivers,” Kinnucan states. “Who are they accountable
to?” 

Ken Langone, Home Depot co-founder with a $9.7 billion net worth,
donated $200 million
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NYU Medical Center in 2008 in an unrestricted gift. Langone donated
another $200 million
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provide full-tuition scholarships for students at the NYU Grossman
School of Medicine in 2018 — the same year he released his
memoir, _I Love Capitalism!_ Despite donating to Trump’s 2016
presidential campaign, the Take Back the House 2020 PAC
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republican super-PAC Senate Leadership Fund
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Langone reported feeling “betrayed
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by Trump after the January 6th attacks.

Listeners on the DSA call commented that providers at Callen-Lorde and
Planned Parenthood advised saving up extra hormones in the wake of
Trump’s executive orders in the event of possible supply
disruptions. These claims have not been verified by providers. 

On March 3, New York Health + Hospitals Press secretary Stephanie
Buhle confirmed in an email to _The Indypendent_ that “We continue
to provide gender-affirming care, including to patients under 19.”

 

_Welcome to The Indypendent!  We are a free, progressive monthly
newspaper, online news site and weekly radio show. Founded in
2000, The Indy has become a New York City institution
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a unique fixture
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the city’s mediascape.  We cover social justice movements here in
New York and beyond and the issues they are concerned about because it
is movements of organized people that make change happen._

* trans rights
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* Healthcare
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* gender affirming care
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* NYU Langone
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* DSA
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* Private healthcare
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