{"id":167483,"date":"2026-03-18T18:08:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T18:08:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/167483\/"},"modified":"2026-03-18T18:08:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T18:08:07","slug":"mamdani-pledged-65-million-to-protect-gender-affirming-care-will-he-follow-through","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/167483\/","title":{"rendered":"Mamdani pledged $65 million to protect gender-affirming care. Will he follow through?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Real journalists wrote and edited this (not AI)\u2014independent, community-driven journalism survives because you back it.\u00a0Donate<\/a>\u00a0to sustain Prism\u2019s mission and the humans behind it.<\/p>\n

Last week, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced<\/a> the creation of the Office of LGBTQIA+ Affairs, fulfilling a key promise he made to queer and trans New Yorkers on the campaign trail. The office\u2019s appointed director, Taylor Brown, who worked in the Civil Rights Bureau of the New York Attorney General\u2019s Office, becomes the first openly transgender person to lead a New York City office or agency.<\/p>\n

As queer and trans New Yorkers celebrated the announcement, some advocates were left wondering about another major campaign pledge Mamdani made to the community: investing $65 million to protect and expand gender-affirming care.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On Feb. 17, the Mamdani administration released its $127 billion preliminary budget<\/a> for fiscal year 2027, but, according to an analysis by Prism, the $65 million funding increase has not been explicitly allocated.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The mayor\u2019s office did not respond to multiple emails about where the funds are in the budget and how Mamdani planned to fulfill his campaign promise.<\/p>\n

Concerns about whether trans health services would be bolstered in New York come as the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) seeks to eliminate all federal funding for youth gender-affirming care. The department has proposed rules that would prevent hospitals that provide treatments such as puberty blockers and hormone therapy for trans youth from receiving Medicare or Medicaid funding, and restrict payments to outpatient providers. While the rules have yet to go into effect, two major hospitals in New York, NYU Langone Health and Mount Sinai, preemptively ended their transgender youth health care programs, leaving many young people and their parents scrambling to continue care<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Budget experts and sources within city government acknowledged the lack of clarity around whether Mamdani\u2019s budget would increase funding for gender-affirming care. Some said the money could be apportioned under other budget items, or the administration could be waiting to determine the amount after the state budget is finalized.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Amid the Trump administration\u2019s threats to trans health care, trans advocates told Prism that it\u2019s more important than ever that Mamdani live up to his promises. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are in office because this community showed the hell up to get you in office,\u201d said Ceyenne Doroshow, founder and executive director of GLITS<\/a>, a Black-led trans advocacy organization, and one of New York\u2019s most prominent trans activists. \u201cOur babies were up at 6 o\u2019clock in the morning getting people to vote, canvassing, fighting to make you mayor. Now we need you to fight to keep us alive.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The $65 million pledge<\/p>\n

Amid a busy mayoral primary season last spring, Mamdani held a Trans Community Town Hall<\/a> to share his platform for LGBTQIA+ New Yorkers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

His platform focused on<\/a> three pledges: to make New York a \u201csanctuary city\u201d for queer and trans people, including by expanding protections against the criminalization of gender-affirming care; to create the Office of LGBTQIA+ Affairs to oversee and implement LGBTQIA+ initiatives; and to invest $65 million in public providers for gender-affirming care. According to the platform, $57 million would go to public hospitals, community clinics, federally qualified health centers, and nonprofits that provide gender-affirming care and $8 million to expand telehealth appointments and broader health access programs for trans New Yorkers. The platform also pledged to \u201chold private entities abetting Trump\u2019s attacks to account.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lorelei Crean, a lead organizer of NYC Youth 4 Trans Rights<\/a>, sat in the front row at the town hall. Crean had spoken alongside Mamdani at a protest<\/a> a few months prior, when hospitals first started curtailing<\/a> gender-affirming care programs for youth under 19 in response to a Trump executive order, which was blocked in court. Crean said he had been denied care at Mount Sinai, and many of his friends were similarly impacted.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Prior to the town hall, \u201cthe last time I\u2019d met Zohran was literally at the rally protesting the removal of gender-affirming care,\u201d Crean recalled. He said it was \u201creally impactful\u201d that the next time they met, Mamdani promised that under his leadership, things would change.<\/p>\n

Mamdani\u2019s $65 million pledge received widespread news coverage. Yet shortly after the city\u2019s preliminary budget was published last month, budget experts and trans advocates, including Doroshow, noticed that there was no mention of gender-affirming care. Prism\u2019s review of the budget found that funds have not been explicitly appropriated for gender-affirming care, and no departments that would typically disburse such funds have been given an increase in funding equivalent to $65 million.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Members of city government have also noticed a lack of clarity over where the money appears in the budget, including the City Council\u2019s Committee on Health. \u201cWe are aware of these discrepancies, and we intend to ask questions about this at the Health Committee\u2019s Preliminary Budget Hearing on March 19th,\u201d Jonathan Boucher, chief of staff for New York City Council Member and health committee Chair Lynn Schulman, said in an email. As part of the budget process, the City Council holds a series of public hearings in March and April to address concerns about the mayor\u2019s preliminary budget.<\/p>\n

When asked to identify whether the funds are in the budget, Malek Al-Shammary, the press secretary of the Independent Budget Office, noted that the Mamdani administration has apportioned some additional funds to the city\u2019s public hospital system and the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, including several millions toward a \u201cnew public health lab\u201d and \u201ccomprehensive adolescent care.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThose totals do not add up to $57M\/yr,\u201d Al-Shammary said in an email. \u201cWith that said, we do not know what the administration\u2019s plans are currently for that specific proposal. Barring more details, there isn\u2019t much else we can share.\u201d<\/p>\n

Al-Shammary added that it\u2019s difficult to know whether the funding is appropriated in the preliminary budget. Instead of being expressly listed, some programs or activities can be subsumed under a broader unit of appropriation: For example, pens would likely be incorporated into a category for general office supplies, Al-Shammary said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt really depends on the Unit of Appropriation and how the budget is structured,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The mayor\u2019s office did not respond to Prism\u2019s requests to detail which departments were apportioned the $65 million pledge, the amounts by department, and unit of appropriation.<\/p>\n

Threats to gender-affirming care<\/p>\n

Questions surrounding Mamdani\u2019s campaign pledge to gender-affirming care arise as care for trans youth is under threat nationally.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In December, the HHS introduced two rules intending to restrict youth access to gender-affirming treatments. The first rule would eliminate all Medicaid and Medicare funding for hospitals that provide gender-affirming care for minors. Hospitals that continue to offer such care would be barred from billing Medicaid or Medicare for any patient\u2014essentially forcing hospitals to choose between providing gender-affirming care and remaining solvent.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The second rule applies to non-hospital medical settings and would eliminate federal Medicaid payments for youth gender-affirming care. If this rule comes to effect, states would no longer be able to split the cost of puberty blockers and other treatments with the federal government, and instead be forced to cover the total cost of care, as is already the case for abortion care.<\/p>\n

The public comment period for the proposed rules ended Feb. 17. If the rules are published, they would go into effect 30 days after. The rules are being challenged in federal court<\/a>, and a judge could issue an injunction that would temporarily bar them from going into effect.<\/p>\n

Hospitals in New York and across the country have already begun shuttering their youth gender-affirming care programs. Last month, NYU Langone<\/a> announced that it would cease providing gender-affirming care to people under 18. State officials said the decision violated New York\u2019s anti-discrimination laws. The state attorney general gave the hospital<\/a> until March 11 to reinstate its transgender youth health care program. It is not clear whether Langone responded to the attorney general\u2019s order.<\/p>\n

Mount Sinai<\/a> has also reportedly followed suit in ending services for trans youth.<\/p>\n

In preparation for the potential imposition of the HHS rules, state legislators have been pushing for the passage of bills to absorb any additional costs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

State Sen. Kristen Gonzalez sponsored a bill to create<\/a> an $8 million gender-affirming care fund, which could help outpatient providers cover the cost of accepting patients previously seen in hospitals. Assembly Member Linda Rosenthal also introduced legislation mandating Medicaid and insurance companies to continue covering gender-affirming care regardless of federal funding rules. (State regulations require that Medicaid as well as private insurers cover gender-affirming care, but these rules are not yet codified in state law.)<\/p>\n

Movement on the state level to fund gender-affirming care may explain the delay to set aside money in the city budget, said Michael Kinnucan, the director of health policy at the New York-based Fiscal Policy Institute<\/a>. The $65 million for gender-affirming care does not appear to be in the preliminary budget, according to Kinnucan, but that doesn\u2019t mean Mamdani has reversed course.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s too soon to tell whether the mayor has backed down from his pledge because there\u2019s a state-level push to protect funding,\u201d Kinnucan said in an email. \u201cIf the state-level push succeeds then there won\u2019t be a need for city funding.\u201d<\/p>\n

The state budget must be approved by April 1. The mayor usually releases a revised city budget in May, following input from the City Council, which the council votes on by June 30.<\/p>\n

Trans advocates are asking Mamdani to do more to defend access to youth gender-affirming care in New York. Trans journalist and advocate Erin Reed has called<\/a> on the mayor to instruct the Commission on Human Rights to investigate NYU Langone and other hospitals for violating the city\u2019s anti-discrimination protections.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Doroshow of GLITS told Prism that the announcement of the new Office of LGBTQIA+ Affairs left her no less unsettled about Mamdani\u2019s promises to queer and trans New Yorkers. She still has faith in him, she told Prism, but he needs to act with the urgency this moment demands.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat the federal government is about to do to all of us and the politicians and everybody is make us the new slaves. We need somebody that represents saving and helping and making this a sanctuary city right now,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was this community that pushed you to success. We rang the bell for you. Now answer the door.\u201d<\/p>\n

Editorial Team:
Rashmee Kumar, Lead Editor
Lara Witt, Top Editor
Saba Keramati, Copy Editor<\/p>\n

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