"Transgender, gender-nonconfirming, and nonbinary New Yorkers deserve age-appropriate health care that is affirming, respectful, and considerate of all their needs. That’s why, for the first time later this summer, the NYC Health Department will be expanding services to provide gender affirming hormone therapy to adults 19 years of age and older at our Corona Sexual Health Clinic. As with the other clinic services, gender-affirming hormone therapy will be offered at no to low cost and regardless of immigration status. We look forward sharing more details upon launching the pilot,” said a NYC health Spokesperson in a statement to Erin In The Morning.

Commissioner Alister Martin: “It’s incredibly important that we get the messaging right here and that we lean in on the comms and the campaign here, but it’s also important to deliver for people and to provide the services they need. And we’re excited to say that pretty soon we’re going to be able to offer gender-affirming care directly at our clinics. We have a clinic that will be opening up in Corona which will offer gender-affirming hormone therapy for adults. It’s like one of the first times a public health department has ever taken that step, and we’re proud to not just stop there. We’ll continue moving forward with this.”

Councilmember Tiffany Cabán: “Can I ask a follow-up on that? Particularly because that’s a really big deal, but also—we’re seeing this devastating decrease in services for youth, and especially youth under 13, 12—like, there are almost no providers who provide that care. And the one or two that do is obviously under attack from the federal government. So is there going to—are you thinking about an expansion in that youth care? Because I’m talking to parents all the time and they don’t know where to take their children.”

Commissioner Martin: “As you can appreciate, the balance that we have to strike is—we are committed to this issue and want to make sure that we provide the services and resources for youth, as well as making sure that we don’t expose ourselves to clawbacks from the federal government, which disrupt the rest of the care that we can give. And so there’s much more to come on this, trying to sort of figure out that right balance. We’re eager to work with you on this, but rest assured we are working on this and we’re trying to figure out how to do this.”

  • dandelion@lemmy.blahaj.zoneOP
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    2 days ago

    it is disappointing, for many reasons … I hope they push back on the executive order in other ways, but I worry that this signals that the NY attorney general is less likely to enforce NY laws about this … since, the new clinic would clearly be in violation of anti-discrimination laws written to protect access to this care in particular.

    I understand not wanting to threaten access to care for adults, but the executive order is not a law and shouldn’t be treated that way, meanwhile NY has actual laws to prevent this kind of discrimination - so in some sense they are choosing illegal discrimination out of fear of retribution for an order that doesn’t carry the legal weight it claims to … not unlike Trump’s other illegal executive orders which attempted to end birth-right citizenship and other absurdities - we shouldn’t give those executive orders power by respecting them, but I understand that may not be the most pragmatic path.