The City Council passed a slate of bills on Thursday to bolster legal protections for people seeking gender-affirming services.
The legislation comes months after local hospitals – including NYU Langone and Mount Sinai – abruptly halted care for patients under 19 following an executive order that threatened to pull federal funding from facilities providing services including puberty blockers, hormone therapies or gender-affirming surgeries to minors.
The sudden cancellations sparked outrage among health care providers and LGBTQ advocates, who warned that the disruptions sowed fear and undermined the city’s long-standing reputation as a safe haven for gender-affirming care. Although hospital oversight falls to the state, city lawmakers say the new bills strengthen legal protections for trans and gender-nonconforming individuals within the five boroughs and aim to preserve access amid ongoing threats.
One of the new bills, sponsored by Brooklyn Councilwoman Shahana Hanif, shields people who seek gender-affirming care in the city from out-of-state lawsuits by allowing them to countersue – a right that was previously exclusively held by city agencies. The legislation marks an attempt to prevent frivolous lawsuits against people who seek gender-affirming services, as well as give patients the ability to defend their right to care, said Diana Adams, executive director of the Chosen Family Law Center, which supported the legislation.
“We are telling trans people to keep accessing their care, we are telling women to come here and get abortions, we’re telling doctors to keep providing care,” Adams said. “How are you going to protect access when we do that?”
Other new legislation passed by the council orders the Mayor’s Office of Equity and Racial Justice to launch an awareness campaign to ensure that trans and gender-nonconforming people understand their rights under anti-discrimination laws. Another bill also requires city agencies to collect gender information on forms that include an “X” category for people who do not identify as male or female.
The council also passed resolutions calling on Gov. Kathy Hochul to pass a bill protecting patients’ data privacy and ordering the Department of Health to ensure hospitals continue to provide gender-affirming care as outlined by the World Professional Association of Transgender Health, the medical association that promotes standards of care.
It’s not clear whether hospitals that cancelled gender-affirming appointments resumed care for minors. Federal judges have partially blocked Trump’s executive order, and state officials including Attorney General Letitia James and the Department of Health issued guidance stating that hospitals that failed to provide services based on gender identity or sexual orientation were in violation of state anti-discrimination laws.
Representatives from NYU Langone and Mount Sinai did not respond to requests for comment on Thursday about whether they have resumed services on Thursday.
Councilwoman Tiffany Cabán, co-chair of the LGBTQ caucus and sponsor of one of the bills, called on NYU Langone and Mount Sinai to continue providing gender-affirming services.
“It is the law to provide gender-affirming care,” Cabán said, noting that an executive order does not supersede existing city and state legislation.
