NYU Langone ends trans medicine for youth, erases evidence of past care
The hospital is ending care for trans kids effective immediately.
The decision by the hospital came on the same day the New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani unveiled the details of his new city budget, including $65 million dollars to provide trans healthcare to the residents of the city.
By Jane Migliara Brigham and Artemis T. Douglas
NYU Langone, one of the largest hospital networks in New York City, has cancelled all trans healthcare for children and 18 year olds, and shut down its youth gender clinic.
The news was individually delivered by phone to the parents of various children. The Needle has spoken to two separate parents who were informed by a nurse that their children’s care was being cut effective immediately.
This comes after a decision by the hospital last January to cease medical care for all trans kids and 18 year olds who are not already on puberty blockers. This latest move puts the hospital in line with the Trump Administration’s policy of banning trans medicine for anyone under 19.
The decision by the hospital came on the same day the New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani unveiled the details of his new city budget, including a proposed $65 million dollars to provide trans healthcare to the residents of the city.
This decision appears to be the choice of the hospital’s conservative and Trump-aligned board of directors, and appears to be opposed by the hospital staff.
One source described hearing the nurse who informed them cry while telling them that their child would be cut off from their healthcare.
One parent has a child with a puberty blocker implant. The implant might work for years, although if it is not being monitored, there is no way to know for sure.
If it fails, they won’t know until the child’s puberty starts again.
When the parent asked for further details, the nurse said that the office might be able to redirect them to other doctors who could remove the puberty blocker, or manage it in other ways.
Another parent suspected that the youth gender program might be cut soon, and opted to have their daughter’s implant replaced so that it can last as long as possible.
NYU Langone has also been removing all evidence that they once had a youth gender clinic from their public website, as well as removing references to related practices from other pages.
Past examples of pages from the Wayback Machine show that these references were removed sometime within the past month.
The page for the Transgender Youth Health Program was archived in October. Today, when you open the link to this page, it redirects to an unrelated page showing locations of the hospital branch.A page for Medical Care & Emotional Support for Transgender Youth has been removed entirely, and now redirects to the locations page.
The page for Gender and Sexuality Services was similarly edited to remove references to trans medicine, as can be seen by the current version of the page. The current version of that page further uses language that aligns with SEGM’s framing of trans healthcare for youth and the language used by the UK’s gender conservatives.
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Instead of puberty blockers or actual transition medicine, they now offer:
“The Gender and Sexuality Service offers a 10-week cognitive behavioral group therapy program for transgender and gender-expansive teens ages 13 to 18 who are experiencing shyness or social anxiety along with gender dysphoria.
This interactive program helps teens gain a better understanding of their anxiety and develop skills to manage social anxiety. This group also focuses on real and perceived challenges experienced by transgender and gender-expansive teens and provides social support through other group members.”
As well as:
“We help children and their families understand and explore their identity, with the goal of helping them achieving a true and nuanced sense of self. We want children to understand and value themselves, so that they can develop the confidence to talk with others about their sexual orientation and gender identity.
In addition, we counsel children, adolescents, and young adults who have been diagnosed with disorders of sex development, also known as intersex conditions or congenital genital variations, and co-occurring mental health disorders.
Our mental health experts help your child and family understand gender identity and connect your child with appropriate medical and mental health services.”
Using “disorders of sex development” to refer to intersex conditions is pulled straight from the UK’s transphobia discourses. Further, this new language frames their support for gender identity as “stress management” and “cognitive behavioral therapy”. This framing is guilty of emphasizing the false idea that trans kids are just distressed and confused.
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It also is concerning that this is what NYU Langone is offering trans kids now, rather than what is actually needed in many cases: transitioning, or at least puberty blockers.
The phrase “A true and nuanced sense of self” could be innocuous, but in the context of the other language, it sounds like a euphemism for conversion therapy.
Curiously, this language sits alongside a commitment to following the WPATH standards for trans healthcare, implying that the sections were written separately.
The phone number which was used to call a number of parents over the course of the day is now listed as being not in service.
It seems that the hospital administration wants to remove all traces that NYU Langone once provided trans healthcare to youth.
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