AG James tells NY hospitals refusing gender-affirming care could violate state Human Rights Law

New York Attorney General Letitia James notified health care providers in a letter Monday that they could run afoul of state anti-discrimination laws for refusing gender-affirming care to patients.

Withholding services such as hormone therapy to trans people, while offering those services to other patients, is considered illegal discrimination under state law, the letter said.

The threat of losing federal funding is no legal justification for refusing to provide such services, the letter stated. Gender identity and expression are among the protected characteristics under New York’s Human Rights Law.

The letter comes after NYU Langone Health began canceling appointments for gender-affirming care for patients under 19 last week. The cancellations followed the release of an executive order from President Donald Trump that threatened to withhold federal funding from organizations that continued to offer the services.

Parents of two 12-year-olds said they were told by NYU Langone that their children could no longer come in to receive puberty blockers, the New York Times reported.

James’ letter also went out to other recipients of federal funding. She advised that a temporary restraining order issued by a Rhode Island judge Friday blocks federal agencies from taking steps to terminate existing funding without legislative action.

That ruling came in a lawsuit that James and attorneys general for 22 other states filed last week in response to a since-rescinded Trump administration memo and multiple executive orders that threatened federal funding for a wide variety of programs and services.

Still, the controversy left some health care providers and advocates serving trans New Yorkers hesitant to talk openly about the state of gender-affirming care Monday.

NYC Health and Hospitals said in a brief statement that the public health system “continues to offer gender-affirming care.”

Mount Sinai Health System, which operates the Keith Haring Youth Gender Center, did not return a request for comment.