NY Attorney General Letitia James tells hospitals to continue trans care for minors after Trump order

Joseph Wilkinson, New York Daily News on Feb 3, 2025

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NEW YORK — New York hospitals should continue providing gender-affirming treatments to transgender minors despite an executive order from President Donald Trump, New York Attorney General Letitia James said Monday.

In an order last week, Trump threatened to freeze federal funding to hospitals across the country if they provided gender-affirming care to anyone under age 19.

The order had a chilling effect across the nation, with even hospitals in Democrat-led states announcing they would pause gender-affirming care while evaluating the order. The White House even celebrated the move Monday morning, saying it was “already having its intended effect.”

But James said New York hospitals should make no such move, unless they wanted to risk running afoul of the state’s anti-discrimination laws.

“Regardless of the availability of federal funding, we write to further remind you of your obligations to comply with New York State laws, including those that prohibit discrimination against individuals based on their membership in a protected class,” James wrote in an open letter, noting that gender identity was one such class.

Gender-affirming treatment for transgender children is very rare in the U.S., with a recent study reporting only about 1 in 1,000 adolescents received puberty blockers or hormones.

Nevertheless, Republicans have turned it into a major political issue in the past decade, with conservative legislatures across the country passing bans on gender-affirming care in their states. Trump promised to do the same after taking office.

“Electing to refuse services to a class of individuals based on their protected status, such as 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 wrote Monday.

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