Weekly News Roundup: January 31 - February 6, 2025
The week in gender
Welcome to our weekly newsletter! Every Friday, just for paid subscribers, Informed Dissent will publish a roundup, written by Ben Appel, of the previous week’s gender-related news. Our next podcast episode drops tomorrow morning. Happy Friday!
Where We Are, Ten Days After Trump’s EO
In response to President Trump’s January 28 executive order, which called on agency heads to ensure that medical institutions receiving federal funds halt the “chemical and surgical mutilation” of anyone under age 19, hospitals around the country have begun suspending pediatric sex-trait modification. Those hospitals are DC’s Children’s National Hospital, Children’s Hospital Colorado, Denver Health (only surgeries suspended; prescriptions “being handled privately with each individual patient and provider”), Virginia Commonwealth University Health, Children’s Hospital of Richmond, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (where Johanna Olson-Kennedy is Medical Director), and NYU Langone.
New York’s Mount Sinai Health system has been cancelling surgery consultations for minors as far back as December, according to some parents.
New York Presbyterian removed references to “gender-affirming care” for young people from its website and puberty suppression and hormone treatment from its list of available services. Angela Karafazi, the hospital’s senior director of media and public relations, said, “We are working through this developing situation to comply with applicable state and federal laws and regulations.”
Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago stated it is currently “reviewing” the executive order and “assessing any potential impact” to the services it provides. UPDATE: A helpful reader, Jackson, commented, ‘Lurie Children's Hospital is the home of Aron Janssen (one of the authors of the Yale Integrity Project's Cass Review critique [mentioned below]) and Diane Chen of the (in)famous "Chen et al" paper. So to have Lurie publicly announce that it's reviewing its policies around GAC seems like a reasonably big deal.’ The paper Jackson is referring to claimed that “GAH [gender-affirming hormones] improved appearance congruence and psychosocial functioning” in trans and nonbinary youth after two years. While participants did typically report mental health improvements, those improvements “were small—generally single-digit increases on a scale that runs from 0 to 100,” reported SEGM. Furthermore, the study had no control group—and two of the 315 patients committed suicide!
On January 28, twenty-three attorneys general filed a lawsuit in federal district court, which seeks to block the freeze on federal funding. The court responded by issuing a temporary restraining order that prohibits federal agencies from freezing the funds. The Department of Justice then sent a notice to federal agencies, contractors, and grantees, stating that federal agencies cannot freeze funds on the basis of the executive order. In a letter to recipients of federal funds, New York Attorney General Letitia James stated that failing to provide pediatric sex-trait modification will be a violation of New York State law, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender identity.
A federal lawsuit filed in the District Court of Maryland is challenging Trump’s executive orders on gender ideology and pediatric sex-trait modification. The ACLU, Lambda Legal, ACLU of Maryland, and the private law firms of Hogan Lovells and Jenner & Block filed the suit on behalf of two trans-identifying young adults, five families of trans-identifying children, PFLAG National, and GLMA, a national association of LGBTQ+ and allied health professionals.
Protests have erupted at hospitals around the country. On February 3, hundreds gathered outside of NYU Langone in Manhattan. The crowd shouted in unison, “Shame on you, NYU!” One protester screamed, “Go kill yourself, you fuckers!” Another waved a tall flagpole displaying a trans flag, a Palestinian flag, and the flag of Lebanon. Several people gave speeches, including the actress Cynthia Nixon and NYC Council Member for District 22 in Queens, Tiffany Caban.