5 hours Ago By Tom Ozimek
New York Attorney General Letitia James warned hospitals Monday that discontinuing transgender procedures for minors in response to President Donald Trump’s executive order restricting federal funding for such services would violate state law. “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 wrote. “Across the country today, medical professionals are maiming and sterilizing a growing number of impressionable children under the radical and false claim that adults can change a child’s sex through a series of irreversible medical interventions,” Trump’s order reads.
“This dangerous trend will be a stain on our Nation’s history, and it must end.” Trump’s directive prohibits federally run insurance programs like TRICARE and Medicaid from covering such treatments, orders the Department of Justice (DOJ) to pursue legal action against the practice, and restricts funding for hospitals and universities providing “gender-affirming care,” which the order describes as “chemical and surgical mutilation.” James’s letter to health providers repeatedly references the restraining order, asserting that federal agencies cannot take actions that would block or terminate funding outside the limits of existing law or grant agreements.
“This includes prohibiting actions to implement a now-rescinded memorandum from the Office of Management and Budget, or to implement the President’s recently signed Executive Orders directing that funding be frozen,” James wrote..
