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EXCLUSIVE: Mayor Zohran Mamdani is expanding access to gender-affirming care for transgender people across New York City, as the Trump administration moves to limit transition-related treatment for minors throughout the United States.

The Mamdani administration tells Them it will be launching a $15 million investment into three initiatives designed to safeguard access to gender-affirming care: a direct gender-affirming care access fund, a call and text line that will connect trans New Yorkers to available resources to receive care, and more funding for research on LGBTQ+ healthcare.

“Every New Yorker should have the freedom to live as themselves and access the health care they need,” Mamdani said in an exclusive with Them. “As the federal government attacks transgender people and attempts to intimidate patients, families and providers, New York City is stepping up. We will protect care, support the providers delivering it and make clear that trans New Yorkers belong in this city. Health care is a human right, and we will do everything in our power to defend it.”

The new expanded care initiatives for trans people come shortly after New York City’s June 11 amicus brief on June 11 supporting a lawsuit filed by trans patients and their families against NYU Langone Health to prevent the hospital system from disclosing private medical information to the Justice Department. Trump’s DOJ had criminally subpoenaed the major New York City hospital in May, demanding private medical information about trans patients of NYU who received gender-affirming care as minors between 2020 and 2026. On Wednesday, a federal judge granted an injunction temporarily blocking the DOJ subpoena of these sensitive medical records.

Because NYU Langone capitulated to the Trump administration’s attacks in February of this year — eliminating its program providing gender-affirming care to trans youth and citing the “current regulatory environment” as its reason for doing so — LGBTQ+ advocates in New York City have been fighting back. Earlier this week, the Gender Liberation Movement and over 20 NYC Pride grand marshals demanded that Pride celebrations this weekend bar hospital systems that stopped providing care to trans minors from participating.

On Thursday, however, the organizers of NYC Pride said they would allow both NYU Langone and Mount Sinai to participate in the march, saying that many “contingents, including those of local hospitals and healthcare systems are driven by the organization’s LGBTQ+ groups, not the leaders making system-wide decisions.”

The Mamdani administration’s latest expansion of gender-affirming care resources comes as LGBTQ+ New Yorkers await the finalization of the city budget in July

“This is the best news that we’ve heard all Pride Month,” NYC Council Member Justin E. Sanchez, Co-Chair of City Council’s LGBTQIA+ Caucus, tells Them. “As fun the parades, balls, and celebrations have been, the work we do and the progress we continue to make in the face of adversity is what Pride is all about. I’d like to thank Mayor Zohran Mamdani for his understanding of the challenges that transgender people face every day, working with our Caucus, and delivering on his promise to protect them. As he and our Council finalize the budget, I look forward to more good news for LGBTQIA+ New Yorkers.”

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