Resisting anti-trans policies in NYC and beyond

In this talk, I am going to give an overview of the attacks against the trans community happening across the country and then talk specifically about the way we have been fighting back against these attacks in New York City. I hope to pull from that experience some lessons that can be reflected on as we move forward in this frightening political landscape.

We have seen executive orders (EOs) coming from the Trump administration that have viciously attacked the civil rights and well-being of trans people. This wasn’t really a surprise–trans people were the scapegoats throughout his campaign–but what knocked us back was the rapid-fire approach and the broad scope of these attacks.  On the very first day of his presidency, Trump signed Executive Order 14168  “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government”, stating that the United States only recognizes “two genders, male and female”, and proclaiming that “women are biologically different than men”.  On this day, Trump also rescinded a number of executive orders that were issued during Biden’s term, some of which benefited the trans community. Over the next month, four more EOs aimed at eliminating trans rights and protections were issued. These orders concerned gender-affirming care for minors, the inclusion of queer and trans identities in schools and in the military, and the exclusion of trans women from sports.

Trans people have been a focused scapegoat of right-wing legislation for some time now.  In the last few years, we have seen thousands of bills on the floors of state legislatures, which activists have been fighting at the local level.  After the inauguration, the direct attacks from the federal government on trans healthcare, education rights, participation in sports, and identity documentation have produced a deeper anger, fear, and anxiety..  Across the country, the trans community was immediately put on alert.  In New York City, the reaction was no different.

NYC is often thought of as a center of trans and queer resistance, and a place of relative refuge for the LGBTQ+ community.  This is not by accident, but is the result of generations of struggle from even before the Stonewall Uprising through the historic mass actions of ACT-UP NYC, all of which shaped the political landscape of NYC.

In our city today, gender-affirming care is available from public and private hospitals.  Public school regulations from both the city and the state are designed to uphold and defend the rights of trans youth and educators. New Yorkers have the right to use any bathroom consistent with their gender identity, and New York City’s Human Rights Law anti-discrimination policy is obligated to be enforced throughout city agencies.  Most recently, in April, the New York City Council approved a broad legislative package aimed at strengthening these civil rights protections and healthcare access for transgender, gender non-conforming, non-binary, and intersex people.

Like others across the country, in NYC, we watched the rollout of Trump’s EOs and anxiously waited for the fallout. In NYC, the first catalyst to action came after EO 14187 “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation,” which was issued on January 28th.  On February 1, it was reported that NYU Medical Center, among other medical facilities in the city, had begun canceling appointments for trans children in response to Trump’s threat of funding cuts to any medical facilities that provided gender-affirming care to patients under the age of 19.  Panicking parents scrambled to ensure that they could continue to access care for their trans kids, and sought alternate solutions in case they couldn’t. To ease fear, some providers took great pains to publicly assure patients that they would not be abandoned. Dr. Jeffrey Birnbaum at SUNY Downstate has told his patients, “I’m willing to go to jail to continue to provide your care.”

On February 2, the Trans Rights and Bodily Autonomy committee of the DSA called a protest for the next day in response to this news.  On February 3, with only 24 hours notice, thousands of people gathered at a small park on 1st Avenue in Manhattan, a stone’s throw away from NYU Medical Center. After a rally that included trans youth, politicians, activists, and celebrities, people began marching up 1st Avenue to stand opposite the medical center, chanting “shame on you, NYU”.  As the first response to an actual removal of care, people came out fired up and ready to fight.

On the same day as this action, NY Attorney General Letitia James issued a statement reminding hospitals of their legal obligation to provide care, which buoyed people’s optimism. Quoting from her letter to healthcare providers:

Electing to refuse service to a class of individuals based on their protected status, such as withholding the availability of services from transgender individuals based on their gender identity or their diagnosis of gender dysphoria, while offering such services to cisgender individuals, is discrimination under New York law.

In the following months, there were mass organizing calls, multiple protests that brought thousands of people into the street, and upwards of 200,000 letters written to NYU CEO Robert Grossman demanding the resumption of care to trans minors.  As of today, NYU states that care has been reinstated to those patients for whom appointments were abruptly canceled, but there are still some reports of patients being blocked from advancing their care.

I want to zoom out for a minute to the national scene in which we’ve had some major setbacks in the healthcare struggle.  The Center for Trans Youth Health and Development at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA), one of the largest youth transgender clinics in the nation, announced it is shutting its doors on July 22 due to increasing pressure from the Trump administration. I might add that the announcement of this closure on their website states that they have been proud of their “evidence-based, medically essential care for transgender and gender-diverse youth” but were left with “no viable path forward” in light of the severe impacts of administrative actions.  There were also listed contact numbers for suicide prevention, the Trevor Project, and TransLifeline, as if this information would be enough to replace the life-saving care that families have relied on to keep their kids safe.

It is not just the far-right that has been undermining the rights of the trans community’s access to care. For the last several years, mainstream news sources such as the New York Times and the Atlantic have been relentlessly publishing article after article questioning the legitimacy of life-saving healthcare for trans youth even though the every major medical association including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, and the American Psychiatric Association, supports the provision of gender-affirming care for transgender and non-binary people.

Then, in June, the Skrmetti judgement in which the Supreme Court held that a Tennessee state law banning puberty blockers and hormone therapy for the treatment of gender dysphoria in minors did not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. This devastating ruling is seen as a victory for states that have been working to erode the rights of trans people, wiping away a series of lower court decisions that favored transgender litigants. While the ruling doesn’t invalidate existing laws in other states that permit gender-affirming care for minors, it allows states with existing bans on gender-affirming care for minors to continue to enforce them, and opens the possibility of further restrictions on transgender rights and other forms of discrimination moving forward.

It is important to point out that hormone therapy and puberty blockers are still available to cisgender youth who may need these treatments for other conditions, such as early onset or delayed puberty, but now states can ban trans youth from accessing this care without legal consequences. There are no laws that prevent cisgender minors from accessing hormone therapy or even plastic surgery, as long as they have parental consent. Hormone therapy treatment is a well-established, safe practice to treat, for example, early onset puberty, but when trans youth attempt to access this care, it’s suddenly “unsafe and untested”. In other words, as long as care reinforces the socially constructed gender binary, then it’s fine.

As Eric Maroney has written about in Tempest Magazine, the nationwide anti-trans attacks we are seeing are primarily on public goods, with education being one of the most prominent. Schools have always been sites of struggle, but now, with the elimination of the federal Department of Education, attacks on DEI initiatives in schools, on immigrant students, on curriculum, and even on individual teachers who support the rights of the trans and gender non-conforming students they serve, the stakes are much higher than ever before.

I have had two entry points into the school struggle: I am both a public high school educator and a parent of a trans kid who attended a NYC school. My experiences as an educator have led me to embed my politics into the workplace. I have at times been the only queer teacher available to students in a school, so I feel it’s important to be out and visible and to make myself readily available to LGBTQ+ students. I can advise the GSA (gender and sexuality alliance), educate young people on their rights, create and identify safe spaces for students, and ensure that gender neutral bathrooms are made available for them. Thus far, the NYC school Chancellor has maintained that schools will continue to be safe spaces for LGBTQIA+ youth, and rightly so, since on paper, DOE anti-discrimination policy maintains a supportive and safe environment for all students. This is important because we know any student whose needs are not being met will have greater difficulty succeeding in school.  This is true for all vulnerable populations: unhoused students, migrant students, students with disabilities, and students of color. When a school is not safe and inclusive for every student, students’ learning becomes difficult.

In NYC, schools are not uniform in their adherence to the rights of LGBTQ students.  It comes down to the administrators to enforce protections, and situations can vastly differ from school to school. Some schools will make excuses as to why they can’t have a gender neutral bathroom, or will refuse a student the right to use the locker room that aligns with their gender. An individual administrator may give a transphobic teacher a pass when they refuse to use a student’s correct name and pronouns, or brush off complaints of bullying. In these situations, the role of individual advocates is extremely important. Trans students just want to use the toilet, like any other student. Most don’t want to have to build a campaign around it or have to fight for their right to do so. A student who actively knows their rights, or is able to tell their parents that the situation is happening, or can find an ally in a teacher who will act as an advocate, can make all the difference. A 2019 GLSEN report found that 54 percent of transgender students are unable to access the school bathroom, and 36 percent are prevented from using their name or pronouns in school.

I want to give an example from our experience in NYC about how we had some modest success fighting this climate of hate through organizing teachers, students, parents, and community members. In March of 2024, the Community Education Council or CEC of School District 2 in Manhattan voted and approved Resolution 248, which made a recommendation that the NYC Department of Education should review and revise its policy of allowing students to play on school sport teams that align with their gender identification. A context note here: CECs are a Bloomberg-era replacement for school boards. Members are elected by parents of students in NYC schools, and can make policy recommendations, but are largely without power.

Resolution 248 was proposed by Maud Maron, a right-wing parent who has the support of Moms For Liberty and has been bankrolled by the hedge-fund-backed organization PLACE NYC. When this resolution was approved, people were shocked: this kind of right-wing infiltration into NYC schools had been unthinkable. Banning trans kids from playing school sports? Chase Strangio (ACLU lawyer), whose child attends a District 2 school, spoke about the situation on his social media and brought attention to the fight that was unfolding.  Organizers from ACT-UP NYC, Transformative Schools, and Aunties for Liberation put out the call for folks to attend the monthly public CEC meetings to voice support for upcoming resolutions that would rescind 248, and the call was met! People came out every month for the next 15 months to provide testimony and ask members of the council to vote to rescind the resolution. The crowd was diverse, and solidarity was visible. Many wore keffiyehs, as they spoke fervently against the resolution, condemning the extreme right agenda of the council members. Transphobes who came to testify (always in the minority in the crowded school auditoriums) were ignored and interrupted, activists silently danced the hokey pokey to draw attention to the absurdity of the hate and transphobia being witnessed. Those of us invested in public education–whether as parents, students, educators, or community members–felt that this fight was essential in maintaining NYC as a safe haven for trans people. We could not let these haters even get one toe in the door.

In the spring, organizers shifted their strategy to focus on the upcoming CEC elections.  Activists worked tirelessly to identify progressive parents who could run for a seat on the council, encouraging parents to vote, and in June, we saw victory! Maud Maron and another PLACE-backed candidate were voted out. We are looking forward to resuming the CEC in August, encouraging new members to rescind the anti-trans Resolution 248, and continuing to hold new members accountable.

In wrapping up, I’d like to make a point about lessons we can draw from queer struggle. The 1969 Stonewall rebellion which paved the way for the modern LGBTQ rights movement, is now celebrated as an uprising led by trans women of color and street queers.

However, despite this history, there are still some on the Left who want to deny trans people their place at the center of our struggle, who question why we should fight for trans rights, or even participate in attacking our trans comrades. We cannot allow this to happen. Solidarity means that no one is excluded or left behind. Solidarity has to be at the core of our movements; our existence relies on this principle.  Let me be plain: the transphobia that exists in our movements must be called out and challenged. There is no other way forward.

Activist and writer  Leslie Feinberg, put it best:

Transgender people are not dismantling the categories of man and woman. We are opening up a world of possibilities in addition. Each of us has a right to our identities. To claim one group of downtrodden people is oppressing another by their self-identification is to swing your guns away from those who really do oppress us, and to aim them at those who are already under siege.

Opinions expressed in signed articles do not necessarily represent the views of the editors or the Tempest Collective. For more information, see “About Tempest Collective.”