The Mamdani administration will spend $15 million on a trio of new initiatives to bolster access to gender-affirming care for young people in New York City as some major hospital systems retreat from providing those services to minors, the mayor’s office announced Friday.
The money will be used to establish a fund for healthcare institutions that provide gender-affirming care to young people in order to ensure they can keep services readily available, the mayor’s office said.
The funds will also be used to create a hotline New Yorkers can call or text to get connected to gender-affirming care services and to support research to identify gaps in healthcare outcomes and access for trans and gender-nonconforming New Yorkers.
“Every New Yorker should have the freedom to live as themselves and access the healthcare they need,” Mayor Zohran Mamdani said in a statement. “As the federal government attacks transgender people and attempts to intimidate patients, families and providers, New York City is stepping up.”
The new funding comes as the Trump administration has sought to restrict access to gender-affirming care for adolescents, in the process eroding New York City’s status as a safe haven for LGBTQ+ people seeking such care.
NYU Langone Health and Mount Sinai Health System both stopped providing services such as puberty blockers and hormone therapy to minors earlier this year after the Trump administration proposed rules that would pull federal funding from institutions that offered such that care to patients under 18.
Those rules were never finalized, however, and the hospitals have since faced backlash from some LGBTQ+ advocates who say they acceded to the pressure too easily.
More recently, NYU Langone and Mount Sinai received federal grand jury subpoenas demanding sensitive health information about pediatric patients they provided gender-affirming care to over the past six years. A federal judge temporarily blocked those subpoenas earlier this week in a class-action lawsuit brought by trans New Yorkers.
The Mamdani administration has sought to establish itself as an ally to those affected and filed an amicus brief in the case that emphasizes that the city is home to “one of the largest transgender populations in the country.”
“These residents face a wide range of healthcare challenges that uniquely affect their community. The City has a strong interest in ensuring they have access to appropriate medical care,” the amicus brief states.
Mamdani initially vowed to invest in gender-affirming care on the campaign trail last year, pledging $65 million for the cause. Earlier this month he scaled that investment back significantly, saying the city would invest $15 million over two years.
The city is stopping short of using the funds to launch new gender-affirming care services for minors through its own providers.
City Health Commissioner Alister Martin said during a recent City Council hearing that, for the first time, the city would be adding hormone therapy services for trans adults at a city-run sexual health clinic in Queens — but that it would be holding off on serving minors for now.
