The United States Department of Justice released a statement on Sept. 4 detailing that Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, one of America’s largest respected teaching hospitals, is ceasing transgender gender-affirming healthcare for all under the age of 18 across the nation.
The statement followed the DOJ’s recent investigation of Mount Sinai Hospital under the Trump administration, with a press release that said the practices “cause irreversible harm to impressionable and vulnerable youth.”
Mount Sinai Hospital, historically received as a progressive and liberal-leaning institution, is now abandoning its progressivism, according to activists. The hospital is only the latest to do so, with many hospitals, such as Texas Children’s Hospital, the Cleveland Clinic Foundation and the Connecticut Children’s Hospital, having cracked similarly under the pressure of the Trump administration and come to deals in accordance with the administration’s newly instated “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation” order.
Under the specific terms of the deal, Mount Sinai Hospital will no longer administer puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones or perform surgical procedures on pediatric patients. The hospital will also implement an internal operation as a means to further prevent youth from receiving gender-affirming treatment.
The agreement also requires the hospital to allocate $2 million in immediate compensation to provide specialized medical and psychological care for individuals who underwent these procedures as minors at Mount Sinai, as per the United States Department of Human Services.
While the DOJ proclaimed the settlement as a major victory for the rights of children, hospital administration maintains that the decision was critical and a last resort to ensure the safety of current patients, as well as to ensure the confidentiality of patient records from grand jury subpoenas and the sweeping of internal records to obtain personally identifiable information such as billing address, age or patient name.
Mount Sinai officials have stated the only definite way to ensure patient confidentiality and the definite seal of records would be to promptly close the clinic, protecting both patients, past and present, as well as its clinicians.
LGBTQ+ advocates have criticized the hospital for seemingly abiding by the Trump administration’s anti-trans agenda, yet the hospital system has defended itself, evading wrongdoing and stating the settlement was the “best-case scenario” for all parties involved.
They said, “Some have misrepresented our position and implied that the settlement means that we believe we did something wrong by providing gender-affirming care,” and “In fact, the settlement contains an express denial of any wrongdoing on Mount Sinai’s part.”
The decision incited protests across NYC, with approximately 250 demonstrators acting in front of the hospital’s largest site. Demonstrators condemned the hospital’s actions, with many giving their personal testimony.
Quincy May Cavanagh, a 21-year-old college student, shared a statement of her own detailing how the access and availability to take hormonal estrogen as a treatment for her gender dysphoria tremendously helped her gain confidence in her own skin.
“Gender-affirming care helps people live as their authentic selves, and can be lifesaving,” Allie Bohm, senior policy counsel at the New York Civil Liberties Union said in a statement to the Gothamist. “Our state’s hospitals and providers have both a moral and legal obligation to provide needed healthcare to all patients, including trans youth.”
LGBTQ+ advocates are fighting to reinstate the Mount Sinai Hospital gender-affirming clinic and have expressed an incredible amount of urgency to do so, as New York statistically has a significant number of transgender youth, with approximately 4% of those ages 13 to 17 in the state identifying as transgender or gender non-conforming, almost double the national average.
