“I will not let this administration come for you”: NY AG Letitia James Vows to Protect Trans Kids

“Your healthcare is still legal and protected, and your doctors cannot cut off your access to gender affirming care based on the administration's reckless proposal.”

Letita James // Social Media Video

New York’s political powerhouse of an Attorney General, Letitia James, has issued a scathing rebuttal to the Trump Administration’s boldest attack on transgender youth yet.

A proposed rule by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) this week, if finalized, would eliminate all Medicaid funding for any hospital that provides gender-affirming hormone therapies, puberty blockers, or surgeries to trans people under the age of 18. However, it would continue to allow many of these same treatments and procedures to be performed on cisgender youth. Private clinics unaffiliated with hospitals should also remain untouched, meaning gender-affirming care will remain accessible, but only to the affluent.

“I know this latest proposal from this administration to cut access to gender affirming care for many youth is frightening,” James said in a video, posted to social media on Dec. 18.

“Whether you live in Brooklyn, Binghamton, Buffalo, or anywhere else in New York, and even if you don’t live in New York, I will not let this administration come for you, your doctors, or your lifesaving healthcare.”

“As of now, nothing has changed,” she continued. “Your healthcare is still legal and protected, and your doctors cannot cut off your access to gender affirming care based on the administration’s reckless proposal. And most importantly, I want you to know that you’re not alone.”

You can see the full video here.

On the same day James posted her video, the ACLU announced they are suing over those Trump proposals. “These gratuitous proposals are cruel and unconstitutional attacks on the rights of transgender youth and their families,” said Chase Strangio, Co-Director of the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Rights Project, in a press release. “By attempting to strip away essential healthcare, the administration is not ‘protecting’ anyone; it is weaponizing the federal government to target a vulnerable population for political gain.”

This also comes after Republican congresswoman and former Trump acolyte Marjorie Taylor Greene successfully pushed a bill through the House that would classify providing gender-affirming care for trans youth as a felony, imposing prison sentences of up to 10 years on providers. It is not expected to pass the Senate to become law, but concerned citizens may still opt to reach out to their representatives and apply pressure to hold the line.

Earlier this year, AG James was among the most vocal supporters of trans patients who faced care stoppages after New York City hospitals capitulated to Trump’s unlawful and anti-trans threats. Withholding care for transgender patients would violate state anti-discrimination policies, James said in a letter sent to providers across the state.

“Regardless of the availability of federal funding, we write to further remind you of your obligations to comply with New York State laws, including those that prohibit discrimination against individuals based on their membership in a protected class,” she wrote.

“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.”

Following this letter, pressure from community activists, and talks with local lawmakers, at least one hospital that had paused youth gender care ultimately reversed course, Assigned Media reported at the time.

Only time will tell whether James will make good on her promises. Attorneys General are on the front lines of institutional resistance to many anti-trans federal attacks. Hoards of them banded together to sue the Trump Administration over his unlawful intimidation of gender-affirming care providers and his unconstitutional bid to hold public school funds hostage over gendered bathroom policies. (James is part of both cohorts.)

However, as Erin in the Morning has reported prior, the federal government is not the only pressure point. Attorneys General can investigate civil complaints filed against individual hospitals who overcomply or comply in advance, too. It appears James has yet to follow through on this front—in the meantime, the fate of America’s trans children hangs in the balance.