Its Time For Mayor Mamdani To Live Up To His Campaign Promises On Transgender Youth

With NYU Langone's shuttering of its transgender youth care program, New York City has significant tools in its toolbox to push back.

Photo Credit Corey Saunders

Yesterday, NYU Langone made a shocking announcement: it would be shuttering its gender-affirming care program for transgender youth. The hospital was just the latest of dozens that have shut their care programs down in recent weeks, capitulating to Trump administration threats rather than complying with state and city nondiscrimination laws that protect transgender health care. This time, though, the capitulation happened in New York City, the first major drawdown of care in the city since Mayor Zohran Mamdani took office. When campaigning, the mayor ran on a platform filled with promises to fight back against this very kind of action, holding hospitals like NYU Langone accountable and directly providing care through the city's public hospital system. Now, the rubber meets the road. Mamdani has a chance to show what have arguably been his biggest supporters that he has our backs with real action.

Mamdani built his campaign on the backs of transgender people who worked hard to elect him. And to his credit, he ran one of the most refreshing campaigns towards transgender people I have ever seen from a major Democratic politician. We were one of the first to report on his support early on, when he appeared at a protest against NYU Langone over the very same hospital's pause on trans youth care. Throughout his campaign, he never backed down from his promise that he had transgender people's backs, even releasing a two-minute ad about the history of transgender people in New York City, set to the music of transgender artist SOPHIE, celebrating that history in a way that made clear he cared.

Both Mamdani and state Attorney General Letitia James made clear that hospitals complying with Trump's demands and threats—which are not federal law—while violating New York state and city law would face consequences. Mamdani's own campaign platform went further, pledging $65 million to providing gender-affirming care directly through public hospitals and community clinics, and promising to coordinate with the Attorney General and district attorneys to investigate and hold public hearings on hospitals that deny trans youth care. He is not powerless to take control of this situation. As mayor, he has direct authority over the city's public hospital system, its human rights enforcement agency, and the executive orders that flow from his office. He must use them.

One step Mamdani can take immediately is to direct New York City Health + Hospitals to absorb displaced trans youth patients and provide continuity of care. H+H is the largest public municipal health care system in the United States—11 hospitals, more than 70 clinics, roughly 45,000 employees, and a budget in the billions. It already runs eight Pride Health Centers across Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the Bronx providing gender-affirming care including hormone therapy, puberty blockers, and surgeries. The mayor controls the H+H board and the board hires the CEO. He can do this immediately.

In January, the Mamdani administration stood up two new youth clinics at H+H Woodhull and Queens with $4 million from MetroPlusHealth, H+H’s own insurance plan. He has shown he can move fast when he wants to. The question is whether he will do the same for trans kids being told they have 30 days of medication left and nowhere to go.

Mamdani can also use the enforcement power he already has. The New York City Commission on Human Rights can enforce New York City Human Rights Law, which explicitly prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender identity. The commission can levy civil penalties of up to $125,000 per violation and up to $250,000 for conduct found to be willful or malicious, and can order policy changes, emotional distress damages, and mandatory staff training. On February 27, 2025, the commission filed its own complaints against both NYU Langone and Mount Sinai for denying gender-affirming care to new youth patients, docketing both under "public accommodation" jurisdiction. That was nearly a year ago. Both complaints are still listed as "open." No fines have been levied. No enforcement actions have been announced. The mayor has the power to demand that his own enforcement agency move with urgency on cases that go to the heart of his biggest campaign promise. He should use it.

There are a series of other steps Mamdani can and should take. His campaign pledged $65 million to expand gender-affirming care through public hospitals, community health centers, and telehealth. He also promised to coordinate with Attorney General Letitia James and district attorneys to jointly investigate hospitals that deny care and hold public hearings. And perhaps most basically, he needs to talk to us. Transgender New Yorkers—the patients being dropped, the parents scrambling to find new providers, the community that showed up for him at the ballot box—need to hear directly from their mayor about what he is doing, what his plan is, and when they can expect action.

Erin in the Morning reached out to multiple Mamdani administration officials for comment, including NYC Health + Hospitals, the NYC Commission on Human Rights, and the mayor's office directly. The Commission on Human Rights responded that it "stands firmly with the transgender community" and that it has been and "will continue to investigate claims of discriminatory denial of health care services." When asked specifically whether there has been any movement on the NYU Langone investigation begun nearly a year ago over its pause in taking new trans youth patients, it declined to comment, citing an ongoing investigaiton. H+H did not respond to a request for comment on whether the system would absorb transgender youth displaced by the NYU Langone closure, as the mayor promised during his campaign. The mayor's office likewise did not respond to a request for comment.

Transgender people have watched politicians campaign on having our backs many times in recent years, only to go quiet when the moment actually arrives. We continue to come under relentless attack from Republican leaders and the Trump administration. Mamdani ran a refreshing campaign that promised to be different. He earned the trust of a community that has learned the hard way to be skeptical of promises. Now transgender New Yorkers deserve to know whether he will honor those promises and use every tool at his disposal to maintain care for the trans youth who come to this city to access it. And if not, they deserve to know why.