New York Attorney General Letitia James recently defied President Donald Trump’s executive order on protecting children, instructing hospitals to comply with the state’s laws allowing transgender surgeries to be performed on children. James warned the hospitals that halting the “gender-affirming care” for children would violate state law.
Trump’s critically acclaimed executive order defined “child” or “children” as any person under the age of 19. Furthermore, the move explained that the phrase “chemical and surgical mutilation” referred to a variety of prominent medical practices deployed in the so-called “gender-affirming care” which conservatives have railed against for years.
Following the executive order, James wrote a letter to healthcare providers and organizations that receive federal funding, claiming that denying “care” to children in New York violates state laws that protect against discrimination on the basis of sex and gender identity. “Regardless of the availability of federal funding, we write to further remind you of your obligations to comply with New York State laws,” James said.
The attorney general continued, “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.”
Trump’s order defined “mutilation” as “The use of puberty blockers, including GnRH agonists and other interventions, to delay the onset or progression of normally timed puberty in an individual who does not identify as his or her sex; the use of sex hormones, such as androgen blockers, estrogen, progesterone, or testosterone, to align an individual’s physical appearance with an identity that differs from his or her sex; and surgical procedures that attempt to transform an individual’s physical appearance to align with an identity that differs from his or her sex or that attempt to alter or remove an individual’s sexual organs to minimize or destroy their natural biological functions.”
The order called out that such actions are irreversible and, therefore, a gender-confused could permanently alter their life for the worse. “Countless children soon regret that they have been mutilated and begin to grasp the horrifying tragedy that they will never be able to conceive children of their own or nurture their children through breastfeeding,” it said.
Additionally, such procedures can create exorbitant medical expenses throughout the child’s lifetime. “Moreover, these vulnerable youths’ medical bills may rise throughout their lifetimes, as they are often trapped with lifelong medical complications, a losing war with their own bodies, and, tragically, sterilization,” the order stated. The EO further noted, “Accordingly, it is the policy of the United States that it will not fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called “transition” of a child from one sex to another, and it will rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit these destructive and life-altering procedures.”
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According to reports, several hospitals around the nation have paused their transgender procedures for minors following Trump’s executive order. As a result, the White House claimed that the EO is working as intended. “It’s already having its intended effect — preventing children from being maimed and sterilized by adults perpetuating a radical, false claim that they can somehow change a child’s sex. Hospitals around the country are taking action to downsize or eliminate their so-called ‘gender-affirming care’ programs,” the administration said.
Featured image credit: By Er-nay – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=67718860