Under pressure from Trump administration, NYU Langone Health will end gender-affirming care for minors and pay an $8.5M fine

NYU Langone Health has agreed to pay an $8.5 million fine and formally no longer offer gender-affirming care to minors, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Friday, as the Trump administration continues using threats of legal action and stiff fines to pressure doctors and hospitals from offering such services to families and patients who request it.

The announcement came two weeks after the Justice Department announced that the Mount Sinai health system agreed to stop offering gender-affirming care to children and adolescents. Such services can include hormone treatments, puberty blockers, and genital and chest/breast surgery, although gender-related surgery on minors is rare.

NYU Langone in February said it was halting gender-affirming care for minors because of the "current regulatory environment." The agreement adds legal weight to the decision and the fine.

Juli Grey-Owens, a transgender woman and Huntington Station resident who is executive director of Gender Equality New York, assailed NYU Langone for its “surrender” to the Justice Department, and the Trump administration for “attacking our small, marginalized community.”

“The federal government’s attacks are not based on scientific evidence,” she said. “The care that was being provided by NYU Langone was important care and necessary care.”

NYU Langone said in a statement that it denies wrongdoing but agreed to the settlement to protect its providers and the privacy of its patients and families.

“DOJ has agreed to resolve its investigations, removing the threat that NYU Langone would have to provide the confidential information previously demanded about patients under 18 who received gender-affirming care at our institution,” the statement said.

Mount Sinai had made a similar argument in defending its settlement with the Justice Department.

At least five other health systems and hospitals have signed agreements with the Justice Department to end gender-affirming care for minors. 

Shannon Minter, legal director of the San Francisco-based National Center for LGBTQ Rights and one of the nation’s leading transgender attorneys, said the Justice Department’s campaign against gender-affirming care for minors “is not law enforcement, it is intimidation.”

“The administration is threatening hospitals until they drop lawful care it opposes politically,” he said. “Families should not lose their doctors because the federal government bullied a hospital into submission, and that is exactly what is happening."

A January 2025 executive order signed by President Donald Trump called gender-affirming care “chemical and surgical mutilation.”

But Grey-Owens said such care can be lifesaving. Transgender youth have especially high rates of suicide attempts and suicidal ideation, studies have found.

Care such as hormone treatments typically is part of a yearslong, carefully deliberative process to help youth who can endure severe mental health problems because their gender identity does not match their biological sex, she said.

The American Academy of Pediatrics and several other major U.S. doctors groups back gender-affirming care for minors, arguing that doctors and families should make decisions on it, not the government. But the American Society of Plastic Surgeons in February issued a statement saying there’s not enough evidence that gender-related breast/chest, genital and facial surgeries have more benefits than risks for minors and recommended delaying such operations until at least age 19.

In Europe, policies on minors’ access to gender-affirming care vary, and some countries that broadly allowed surgery or treatments such as puberty blockers for minors now restrict them.

By David Olson

david.olson@newsday.com@DavidOlson11

David Olson covers health care. He has worked at Newsday since 2015 and previously covered immigration, multicultural issues and religion at The Press-Enterprise in Southern California.