New York takes the field to protect its citizens from the consequences of Donald Trump’s executive orders. At risk is not only the sanctuary city status, defended by Mayor Eric Adams before the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday, March 5, but also the right to receive hormone therapies for gender transition for those under the age of 19 and federal funding for education and research on the subject. At the state and city level, some lawmakers have proposed bills to safeguard access to treatment.
In Albany, Congresswoman Linda Rosenthal proposed integrating hormone therapies into the Medicaid package, funded by the government but administered by individual states, and expanding initiatives to protect LGBTQ+ rights. “I was anticipating some attack on people who are transgender. So once we found out, we drafted something to ensure that people who are transgender – or a gender identity different from what Trump considers allowable in this country – we worked fast,” the representative from Manhattan’s Upper West Side commented to Gothamist.
A bill has been referred to the New York City Council to strengthen legal protections for healthcare providers who offer hormone therapies to children under 19 and increase awareness campaigns around the city. If the rule goes into effect, penalties would be imposed on those who prohibit access to this service and the victim could sue them.
A month ago, there were protests in front of the Stonewall National Monument in Greenwich Village because the words “transgender” and “queer” were removed from the federal website. As a result of executive orders signed on inauguration day, two New York hospitals, NYU Langone and Mount Sinai, stopped hormone therapies for longtime patients because they were not within the allowable age range and canceled appointments for new ones, The Cut reported.
