New York Attorney General Letitia James has directed a Manhattan hospital to resume gender-affirming treatments to youth after it ended the activity amid threats by the Trump administration.
Last month, the hospital, NYU Langone, announced that it ended its “sex reassignment procedures” for minors. A spokesperson said at the time, “Given the recent departure of our medical director, coupled with the current regulatory environment, we made the difficult decision to discontinue our Transgender Youth Health Program.”
In a letter sent to the hospital, Darsana Srinivasan, the head of the attorney general’s health care bureau, said that NUY Langone’s “change in policy is self-imposed; there has been no change in federal law to require the cessation of medically necessary transgender healthcare,” CBS News reports.
“In sum, no federal action has changed the law; medically necessary healthcare for transgender adolescents remains legal and covered by federal programs. Without a formal change in the law, meaning an action from which legal consequences will flow, such as a published final rule upheld by the courts, NYU Langone’s legal obligations to its patients are unchanged,” the letter adds.
James’ office previously sent a letter to hospitals warning that discontinuing transgender treatments for minors violates state law. According to the letter, anti-discrimination laws require the services to continue despite the risk of federal funding changes.
James also filed a lawsuit against the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in December after it took action to prohibit hospitals from receiving Medicare and Medicaid funding if they engage in transgender surgeries for children.
The filing asserted that Kennedy and HHS “cannot circumvent statutorily mandated notice and comment requirements by changing substantive legal standards by executive fiat.” It stated, “The Kennedy Declaration has immediate, significant, and harmful impacts on the Plaintiff States as administrators of state Medicaid programs and as regulators of the practice of medicine” and “directly harms Plaintiff States’ abilities to administer approved state Medicaid plans in accordance with state laws that protect and guarantee medically necessary gender-affirming care.”
