New York’s Democrat Attorney General Letitia James has ordered hospitals in her state to defy President Donald Trump’s executive order banning irreversible gender surgeries and other life-altering procedures being performed on children.
AG James has issued a warning to hospitals in the state against canceling appointments for transgender procedures.
James issued the directive in a letter sent to New York healthcare providers on Monday.
The state’s top prosecutor warned that hospitals have “obligations to comply with New York state laws.”
She added that refusing service to “transgender individuals” goes against anti-discrimination laws.
“Electing to refuse services to a class of individuals based on their protected status, such as withholding the availability of services from transgender individuals based on their gender identity or their diagnosis of gender dysphoria, while offering such services to cisgender individuals, is discrimination under New York law,” James warned in the letter.
Trump signed an order on “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation.”
In response, hospitals across the U.S. began canceling appointments for life-altering gender procedures on children.
“It’s already having its intended effect — preventing children from being maimed and sterilized by adults perpetuating a radical, false claim that they can somehow change a child’s sex,” the White House said.
“Hospitals around the country are taking action to downsize or eliminate their so-called ‘gender-affirming care’ programs.”
Trump’s order threatens to withhold federal funding from any hospital that continues to conduct gender procedures on children.
Within days of Trump’s order, NYU Langone, one of the top hospitals in NYC, canceled appointments for transgender procedures on minors, according to The New York Times.
Reports of the cancellations led to a leftist protest outside of NYU Langone on Monday evening.
The protest was attended by hundreds of people.
Some of the protesters waved transgender pride flags.
Others carried signs that called on the hospital to defy Trump’s order and continue the irreversible procedures on children.
One father who attended the demonstration said:
“This is the last thing that we need to be worried about, a political system attacking our family.”
The man told the Times that his 12-year-old child “identifies” as “gender-fluid.”
He said his family was seeking doctors’ opinions on whether to have the child undergo hormone therapy.
Dozens of states have taken action to protect children from gender procedures.
Meanwhile, more federal action could be on the horizon with a Republican-controlled House and Senate.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt revealed last week that the president would also support congressional action to shield gender-confused minors from “barbaric” transgender surgeries, puberty blockers, and hormone therapy.
Leavitt told reporters:
“As for congressional legislation to support the president’s agenda in this space, and certainly ending the mutilation of young children, the chemical castration of young children, which is a barbaric practice that the vast majority of Americans do not support, for young, minor children, certainly, the president would support Congress’s efforts.
“He has already made that very clear this week.”