Mick Hartley

Here we go. ‘It Shouldn’t Be Happening Here’ Parents of trans children in NYC are outraged as hospitals quietly shift their approach to gender-affirming care. 

That stress has affected one mother in the Bronx whose son transitioned at the age of 3. He just turned 12, and his doctor at NYU Langone informed her that he will not be able to get a puberty-blocker device implanted in his arm this spring as planned. She was told the hospital is interpreting the order’s ban on “surgery” to include this quick outpatient procedure. While the medication-delivery device lasts a year, the alternative is quarterly injections, which would mean a two-hour commute by train every three months. Plus, her son is afraid of needles. “I haven’t even told him yet because things feel so in flux, and we’re hoping they can be ashamed or shocked or forced by law into giving the care they need to give,” she says. “This is a civil rights issue.”

Transitioned at the age of 3.

J.D., who is the trans dad of a 15-year-old trans daughter, tells me he stockpiled a year’s worth of meds for her after the election and has shared information with other families on how to do the same. “It’s a life-and-death issue,” he says. “There’s nothing more important in her life than having this care. We’ve known she was trans since she was 2 and a half.” The mood in their home has been brutal since the election. “We are an all-queer family. I’m a trans person myself,” he adds. “I’m very angry and I have a lot of despair.”

Trans since the age of 2 and a half.

These people are in the grip of a cult. It's like waiting for the aliens to arrive. It's Jonestown on the Hudson.