The Advocate
As the Trump administration seeks to limit access to gender-affirming care for minors and public insurance enrollees, New York City officials now plan to launch and run a trans gender health clinic themselves. On Friday, the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene announced plans to open a gender-affirming care clinic in the Corona neighborhood of Queens, Crain’s New York Business first reported . The department has not officially announced when the clinic will launch. Opening the new clinic marks “one of the first times that the public health department has ever taken that step,” City Health Commissioner Alister Martin said at a New York City Council budget hearing on Friday. Related : NYC’s most powerful transgender official is fighting intensifying anti-LGBTQ+ federal pressure The city health department did not immediately return The Advocate's request for comment. But plans for the clinic come as the federal government has become increasingly hostile toward gender-affirming care, and as medical providers across the country have closed trans health services to youth, fearing financial and legal penalties from the federal government. In New York City, two major health networks, NYU Langone Health and the Mount Sinai Hospital System , have closed their gender-affirming care programs to minors, and have not publicly disclosed when they plan to reopen them. The health department has not announced whether its new clinic will serve minors, which means it won’t yet solve the shrinking pool of gender-affirming care providers for the city’s trans youth. In his city council testimony Friday, Martin said limits on the clinic’s reach would likewise stem from the federal government’s hostility toward youth gender-affirming care providers. Related : New York opens America's first city-funded shelter specifically for trans people “We are committed to this issue and want to make sure we provide the services and resources for youth,” Martin said. Still, “we don’t [want to] expose ourselves to clawbacks from the federal government, which disrupt the rest of the care that we can give.” The Trump administration has subpoenaed hospitals across the country for access to private medical records for trans youth who received gender-affirming care at their facilities. NYU Langone was issued a subpoena last month and was later sued by patients to stop the possible release of their records. Last week, local news blog Gothamist reported that Mount Sinai told patients it would share their records with the Trump administration, but the hospital declined to comment on the allegations. Related : Mayor Mamdani appoints trans woman to run first-ever NYC Office of LGBTQIA+ Affairs Given the threats of a tense regulatory environment around gender-affirming care and the limited options available to the city’s youth, New York City Councilmember Tiffany Cabán, a Democrat representing the neighborhood of Astoria, told the city’s health department that helping trans youth access gender-affirming services has become urgent. “I’m talking to parents all the time, and they don’t know where to take their children,” she said during Friday’s city council hearing.
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