NYU Langone Resumes Care Appointments for Trans Youth, Senator Says, but Questions Remain
The New York City hospital was one of the best known in the nation to acquiesce to Trump’s discriminatory anti-trans decree.
by Lana Leonard
NYU Langone is resuming health care appointments for transgender youths after a weeks-long halt, State Sen. Kristen Gonzalez said in an interview with Assigned Media.
Langone was among the major New York City hospitals to acquiesce to President Trump’s discriminatory Jan. 28 executive order by pausing or canceling care for transgender youth patients, despite the legality of his decree being challenged in the courts.
Gonzalez, city politicians and LGBTQ+ political activists stepped into the void. For the senator, who represents a New York City district that stretches from Queens to Brooklyn to the East Side of Manhattan, contesting NYU Langone’s stance was about keeping a promise to consituents to fight the Trump administration’s anti-trans bias.
“NYU Langone made the decision to follow the executive order by canceling appointments for trans youth, so when we heard that, we were incredibly upset, we tried to reach out to the hospitals,” Gonzalez told Assigned Media on Tuesday.
But Gonzalez and her colleagues weren’t getting a response. What followed offers a lesson in the power of grass-roots activism and how it can prod institutions to push back on Trump.
Gonzalez, a Democratic-Socialist, and partymates organized a protest outside NYU Langone Health on Feb. 3, drawing thousands of people and notable speakers like the LGBTQ activist Qween Jean and the actress Cynthia Nixon. They collected 10,000 letters from New Yorkers demanding NYU Langone resume care to trans youth. Soon after, Gonzalez hand-delivered those letters to the front desk of NYU Langone, but they were rejected at the time.
New York Attorney General Letitia James backed up the local demands by issuing a letter to hospitals the next day stating that refusing care to trans individuals, while continuing care to cisgender people, would constitute discrimination under state law.
Gonzalez and other elected officials kept going, organizing a press conference in a public plaza outside of NYU Langone on Thursday, Feb. 6. Participants demanded the continuance of gender affirming health care in addition to standing up for New Yorkers under the tyranny of the Trump administration.
“So since then, I've reached out to the hospital,” Gonzalez said, to get a formal response. Though Langone grew more receptive to her constituents’ message, she said, its long silence was “symptomatic of the lack of accountability that the hospital has taken for their initial decision.
Eventually, NYU Langone started calling Gonzalez. An NYU Langone representative told Gonzalez’s office that they were “rescheduling all those appointments,” and that if their constituents were still struggling to get care “to let them know they were happy to work together.”
While NYU-Langone may be resuming certain gender-affirming care for young trans patients after a weeks-long pause, at least some patients are still being blocked from advancing their care beyond its current stage, three parents told Assigned Media on Wednesday.
Gonzalez said Langone should issue a clear public statement in support of its patients, declaring that care was resuming and clarifying the protocol. Langone has not responded to repeated inquiries from Assigned Media as to the status of care or its intentions to make any public announcement.
The lingering uncertainty reflects how young trans patients have become ensnared in a highly charged political environment in which the White House has blatantly promoted anti-trans bigotry, and institutions are fearful of crossing him. Universities, hospitals and even states have faced threats from Trump that federal funding would be unilaterally pulled if they did not bend to his will, and many have shied from directly challenging him in public.
A number of hospitals throughout the country had halted health care for trans youth after Trump threatened to pull federal funding from those who won’t go along. While an executive order is a written directive signed by the president, it is not the law of the land. Rather, it's an order to "the government to take specific actions to ensure the law be faithfully executed." In New York City, Mt. Sinai and New York Presbyterian Hospitals had also reportedly halted care in response to Trump’s executive order, which has led to at least one lawsuit.
“My goal is always to make sure that every constituent in my district is cared for, and just broadly, as a state elected [official], that New Yorkers are being treated with dignity and respect,” Gonzalez said.
“I think it's important to connect to the broader struggle and really paint the picture for a lot of New Yorkers, to remind them that even though you may not identify as trans… the very precedent of ending care, or hospitals making decisions in coordination [with governments], is a threat to you directly,” she said.
Local political leaders are being put in a precarious situation, she says. More and more, Gonzalez and others are actively protecting democracy from an “increasingly fascist” administration.
“At this point, it almost seems like being in accordance with the law is resistance against the Trump administration,” Gonzalez said with an exasperated chuckle.
To her, this is a sign that democracy is crumbling, and why it’s important to hold institutions that comply in advance of illegal executive orders accountable.
Hospitals like NYU Langone have heard and seen the people fight back, but “again, it's not enough,” Gonzalez said. “It's always important for them to hear, to see directly, the scale of the response, because I think it's an issue that's really united a lot of New Yorkers who believe deeply that our trans community deserves to be cared for.”
For the last two years, Lana Leonard has reported on New Jersey school board politics and the implications for Policy 5756 for Out in Jersey Magazine. Leonard is also the associate of education & advocacy at the GLAAD Media Institute, the organization’s training, research and consulting division. Read more about their work here.