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NYC Pride grand marshals call for ban on hospitals that ended youth gender-affirming care
By
Caroline Lewis
Published Jun 23, 2026
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By
Caroline Lewis
Published Jun 23, 2026
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Advocates for trans youth are calling on organizers of Sunday’s annual NYC Pride March to ban hospitals from participating that have ended gender-affirming care for minors under pressure from the Trump administration.
About 20 current and former grand marshals of the parade — including celebrities such as SNL alum Bowen Yang and Broadway star Billy Porter — signed onto an open letter to Heritage of Pride, the group that organizes the parade, calling for the hospital ban.
The letter singles out NYU Langone Health, Mount Sinai Health System and NewYork-Presbyterian. NYU Langone and Mount Sinai both ended gender-affirming care for minors earlier this year amid threats from the Trump administration to pull federal funding from institutions that offer those services, Gothamist reported.
Asked about the status of NewYork-Presbyterian’s gender-affirming services for minors on Tuesday, hospital spokesperson Angela Karafazli said the network continues to “comply with applicable state and federal laws and regulations.”
A list of signatories on the letter was provided to Gothamist by the group Gender Liberation Movement, which posted it online Monday. They include LGBTQ+ advocacy groups, activists and parents of trans children.
“We call on NYC Pride to prohibit any hospital system that has ended, restricted, or suspended gender-affirming care for transgender youth from marching in the 2026 NYC Pride March and festival, and any future prides, unless and until they restore that care and publicly commit to protecting trans youth and their families,” the letter states.
Lucia Lee, a spokesperson for Mount Sinai Health System, confirmed the hospital network’s planned involvement in the parade but did not comment on the pushback from advocates.
“We are participating and excited to be there!” Lee said on Tuesday.
NYU Langone did not respond to a request for comment.
The letter calling for the hospitals to be banned comes as the Trump administration ramps up its attacks on institutions that provide services such as puberty blockers and hormone therapy to minors.
The Trump administration recently issued grand jury subpoenas to Mount Sinai and NYU Langone seeking information about patients under 18 who received services at those institutions over the past six years.
The hospitals have not yet said whether they will comply with those subpoenas, and a class-action lawsuit has been filed seeking to block the sharing of that information.
Heritage of Pride did not respond to a request for comment on the letter or provide information about which other hospitals are expected to participate. But Eliel Cruz, a cofounder of the Gender Liberation Movement, said representatives of Heritage of Pride have agreed to join a call to discuss activists’ demands.
“To think that our Pride March would elevate institutions that have denied trans youth care, or restricted that care, is out of line with the history of our movement and out of line with how we should be showing up for the most marginalized in our community,” said Raquel Willis, another cofounder of Gender Liberation Movement and a past grand marshal of the parade.
The 57th annual NYC Pride March starts at noon Sunday, stepping off from 26th Street and Fifth Avenue and dispersing at 15th Street and Seventh Avenue.
Local hospitals have participated in past Pride events, and Mount Sinai’s website includes a video of people marching in 2022 with a banner representing the health system.
But this is not the first time there has been a debate around which institutions should be represented at Pride.
Heritage of Pride barred the Gay Officers Action League, which represents LGBTQ+ NYPD officers, from marching as a group in 2021, saying that some participants might feel threatened by their presence. The organization lifted the ban last year, but the Gay Officers Action League has continued to opt out of participating because they were told they had to leave their guns at home.
Both Mount Sinai and NYU Langone continue to offer gender-affirming care to adults, but discontinued such services for minors earlier this year after the Trump administration proposed new rules that threatened federal funding for hospitals offering “sex-rejecting” procedures to patients under 18.
Those rules were never finalized, however, and the letter from the Gender Liberation Movement argues that the hospitals are “capitulating” to the Trump administration by complying preemptively.
New York State Attorney General Letitia James has directed NYU Langone to resume its gender-affirming services for youth, saying that discontinuing them violated the state’s antidiscrimination laws.
Tagged
Health and Science
Politics
manhattan
pride
Caroline Lewis
Caroline Lewis is on the health care beat for WNYC and Gothamist. She has covered COVID, a nurses' strike, the overdose crisis and New York’s marijuana legalization effort, and spent a year investigating patients' medical bills. She always wants to hear about how everyday New Yorkers experience the health system. Got a tip? Email [email protected].
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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