This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
Since taking office, President Trump has signed a slew of executive orders attacking transgender people and their rights. Today we look at a key order that’s being challenged by doctors, lawyers and trans activists and their allies.
Last week, Trump signed an executive order to withhold federal research and education grants from hospitals that offer gender-affirming care to transgender youth. Major hospitals across the United States then announced they’ll stop providing such treatments. Others, such as the New York City hospital network NYU Langone, tried to quietly cancel appointments. But on Monday, as the White House released a statement claiming the order was, quote, “already having its intended effect,” New York Attorney General Letitia James responded by warning hospitals they will be in violation of New York state anti-discrimination laws if they stop offering this care. This comes as the American Civil Liberties Union, Lambda Legal and others filed a lawsuit Tuesday on behalf of transgender youth who say the order is depriving them of medical care, quote, “solely on the basis of their sex and transgender status,” unquote.
In a minute, we’ll speak with the ACLU attorney Chase Strangio and with a doctor who says he’s willing to go to jail to continue to provide transgender healthcare. But first, on Monday here in New York, trans youth and their families were joined by elected officials, medical professionals, NYU workers and trans activists at a rally to demand the NYU Langone hospital network ensure gender-affirming care for trans patients. These are some of their voices.
LORELEI CREAN: I’m Lorelei Crean. I’m a trans kid. And it’s amazing to be surrounded by people who are fighting for my rights, even if it’s… And I have been stripped of my rights again, with NYU Langone denying access to lifesaving gender-affirming care to trans kids like me.
PROTESTERS: Shame! Shame!
LORELEI CREAN: I came here straight from school. And when I walked into first period, which was algebra, everyone asked why I had a megaphone with me, which I’m not even using, because I’m using a mic now. I told them that I was coming to the protest because NYU Langone had stopped providing gender-affirming care to minors. My friend hadn’t heard the news yet, and she started freaking out, telling me that she had an appointment there scheduled for a month from now and asking me if that would still happen. I told them that I don’t know. But we’re here today demanding that it will.
PROTESTER: Yes!
CYNTHIA NIXON: I’m Cynthia Nixon, and I’m here as a lifelong New Yorker. And I’m here as a person who loves my city and my state, and I am here as actually a resident of Kips Bay. I live just a few blocks over there, and NYU is my hospital. Most importantly, I am here today as the mother of a proud trans man. I am here today as the aunt of a proud trans man. My best friend’s kid is trans, and my kid’s best friend is trans. My wife and I, our lives are filled with the most amazing, beautiful, brave trans people, young and old, but especially young. My trans kid had his top surgery at NYU a number of years ago. His doctors were fantastic. His surgeon was the best we could have imagined. And the idea that this city is filled with young people who thought they had a place to go where they could receive the highest care, and that place has now been shut to them, sickens me, sickens me to my core.
FREYA: My name is Freya. I am 16 years old. … I have been on estrogen since I was 14, and I know that I’m very privileged to be able to say that. But in the same breath, I can say that I am scared for myself, for my own healthcare, and for all of the other people like me. And I have one message to my kinfolk, because that’s what we are. All the people who are here and are like me and are showing up, willing to fight for our own rights or the rights of the people that we love and care about, don’t let them win.
AMY GOODMAN: Some of the voices at the rally Monday calling on the NYU Langone hospital network to continue to restore gender-affirming care to transgender youth, after canceling appointments for transgender children following Trump’s executive order. Thanks to NYC–DSA for the video.
For more, we’re joined by two guests. Dr. Jeffrey Birnbaum is with us. He’s a pediatrician and adolescent medicine specialist who works with transgender youth in New York City. And here in our studio, Chase Strangio, co-director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s LGBTQ & HIV Project.
We welcome you both. Chase, let’s begin with you. You’re the first trans attorney to argue before the Supreme Court. We’re waiting for that decision to come out. But you just filed a lawsuit. Explain what it is.
CHASE STRANGIO: Yeah, so, thank you, Amy.
We are obviously living in a situation that is catastrophic for transgender people of all ages, particularly transgender youth, with actions from the Trump administration almost every day targeting our community, that represents less than 1% of the population. And one of those orders sought to, in essence, threaten and coerce hospitals across the country to shut down care, including in places like New York and California and Illinois and Virginia, where people thought they were safe from the state-level bans that have been passing for the last several years. And what we’re seeing now is that there is a lot of compliance in advance with this executive order, as the rally in New York made very clear.
However, we also have to know that it is the Trump administration that is holding our entire medical system in the United States hostage to threaten people, to punish transgender people for simply existing. And it is not just transgender youth. This is an order that goes up to 19 years old. I have been on the phone with people who deliberately waited through their entire adolescence, until they were 18 years old, so that they could access medical care, and then they had those appointments canceled on the way to the hospital on the week of those appointments. The devastation is staggering.
And we are in federal court to make it clear that, first, the president does not have the authority to override Congress and decide how money that has been allocated by Congress, as the Constitution makes clear, can be taken away just because the president doesn’t like how it’s being used, and, second, this action violates the individual constitutional rights of transgender adolescents and their families, as well as transgender 18-year-olds.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Chase, as you mentioned, the transgender population of the country is less than 1%. Why do you think that the Trump administration has focused so much attention on repressing and discriminating against the trans community?
CHASE STRANGIO: I think the Trump administration is doing it for two reasons. And the first reason is that the Trump administration, as the campaign spending made clear, thinks that transgender people are an easy target for him to engage in this type of power grab where he exceeds his authority as president, thinks it’s going to be legitimized, and then he can use that excess of authority to start targeting all sorts of other communities that do have political power. But he seeks to have a precedent in what he believes to be a vulnerable and unsupported community. So we need to see people standing up.
And the second reason is that transgender people pose a threat to the reinforcement of the sex binary, which is a centerpiece of this administration. This is about deciding and enforcing government-mandated rules about how men and women can live in this country. And this is a full takeover for all of us that we should be very concerned about. It is part of the authoritarian move of this administration, exactly like we see from leaders like Orbán, Bolsonaro and others, who use control over the body, the gender binary and the family to build their authoritarian power.
