In May, federal prosecutors in Texas subpoenaed six years of private medical records from transgender minors treated at NYU Langone and New York-Presbyterian.
On Wednesday — the deadline to hand them over — parents, activists, and members of Gender Liberation Movement and ACT UP NY rallied outside the three hospitals, demanding that the records be protected and that the hospitals restore the gender-affirming care they had abandoned.
They came out partially victorious that day, when U.S. District Judge Katherine Polk Failla blocked the subpoenas, ruling them unconstitutional.
But the subpoena was only part of why they came.
Since returning to office, President Trump has waged a sweeping campaign against transgender rights, signing executive orders directing federal agencies to recognize only two sexes, moving to strip funding from hospitals that provide gender-affirming care, and pursuing medical records of trans patients at institutions across the country.
In June 2025, the Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Skrmetti that states may ban gender-affirming care for minors, and to date, 27 states have done so. Facing threats to their federal funding, these three New York City hospital systems decided to get ahead of the pressure and cut care before they were forced to.
The demonstrations fell during Pride Month—no accident for a coalition that included ACT UP, the direct-action organization born out of the AIDS crisis in 1987, whose members know better than most that Pride has always been a protest.
While walking in circles bearing banners that read “Do No Harm,” they chanted, “Wake up, wake up. This is your fight, too. When they’re done with us, they’re coming for you.”
The pickets outside NYU Langone, Mount Sinai, and New York-Presbyterian, drew about 35 protesters at NYU Langone, 27 at Mount Sinai, and 16 at New York-Presbyterian. They demanded the hospitals restore care immediately, refuse to turn over private medical records to the federal government, meet with impacted families, and issue public apologies.
“We decided to do this today because we knew today was the deadline,” Eliel Cruz, co-founder of the Gender Liberation Movement, told Courier New York. “Folks are really focused on the subpoena, and that’s really important. We don’t want medical records turned over. We need these hospitals to restart care for trans youth.”
Christen Clifford, a mother of two transgender children, had spent the day at NYU Langone for a medical appointment. Her child was denied medication—not because it was medically inappropriate, but because providers feared the prescription might be flagged to the Trump administration as gender-affirming care.
This was not the first time NYU Langone had blindsided her. Earlier this year, Clifford traveled to Washington, DC, with the Gender Liberation Movement to protest at the Department of Health and Human Services. When she was discharged from jail, a text from her doctor was waiting: Her children’s care at NYU Langone had been discontinued.
“NYU’s capitulating in advance to the Trump regime,” Clifford said. “Our elected officials need to hold these people and these hospitals accountable to families and people and parents—not the people that have the money, not the board members, not the politicians.”
While NYU Langone and Mount Sinai continue to offer such care to adults, both hospitals preemptively discontinued gender-affirming care for trans minors earlier this year after the Trump administration proposed new rules threatening federal funding for hospitals offering “sex-rejecting” procedures to patients under 18.
When asked for comment, the hospital told Courier New York only that it “continues to comply with applicable state and federal laws and regulations” and that its “priority is to serve all our patients in a compassionate and responsible way”—declining to state whether it still provides gender-affirming care for trans youth.
In March, Attorney General Letitia James called on NYU Langone directly to resume gender-affirming care for trans youth, warning that halting such services could violate state anti-discrimination law.
Neither NYU Langone nor Mount Sinai responded to Courier New York’s requests for comment.
While the city’s major hospital systems retreated, Mayor Zohran Mamdani this week announced his administration will spend $15 million on three new initiatives to expand access to gender-affirming care for young people in New York City, vowing to make the city an LGBTQ+ sanctuary even as its hospitals bow to federal pressure.
Cruz said the hospitals’ decisions were driven by fear of Trump’s threats to cut federal funding, rather than any medical rationale. “They did not do this because they don’t believe the medical care is necessary,” Cruz told Courier New York. “They’ve been providing the medical care for decades.”
Rachel Joy, an organizer, social worker, and member of ACT UP’s trans working group, offered a pointed illustration of that contradiction. As a child, Joy received puberty blockers at NYU Langone—not as a trans kid, but because of precocious puberty.
“Cisgender children are still receiving puberty blockers because hospitals know the truth,” Joy said. “They know that these medications are safe and necessary. Trans kids are getting their care abruptly taken from them, not because their care is different, but because these institutions care more about their pockets than their patients.”
Cruz warned that the targeting of one group’s medical care sets a precedent with no natural stopping point.
“If we allow one group of people to be scapegoated via political attacks, it opens the door for anyone,” Cruz told Courier New York. “Anyone who might need access to abortion, anyone who might need access to HIV and AIDS care… Care should be provided, and it shouldn’t be politicized.”
A follow-up hearing on the subpoenas is slated for July 8.
