Mamdani admin signs $8.9M contracts for gender-affirming care for minors

The Mamdani administration is entering into two contracts totaling $8.9 million to provide “gender-affirming” sex reassignment care to transgender patients under the age of 18.The move backs a policy the federal Department of Justice has challenged as medically dangerous and illegal.The city Department of Health identified two vendors — Callen-Lorde and Nonprofit Organization for Philanthropic Initiatives — to provide the services in contracts that run from 2027-29.“This includes the prescription and administration of puberty-blockers and hormone replacement therapy to all minor patients for whom such services are medically necessary based on the prevailing standards of care,” the DOH said in a public notice.“Services will be performed by qualified medical providers with current New York State licensure, and will be provided consistent with state laws governing parental consent.”Critics blasted Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s team, claiming they are trying to circumvent the federal ban on gender care services for minors.“They’re making an ideological decision instead of a medical decision,” said state Conservative Party Chairman Gerard Kassar.“They’re trying to pull a fast one.New York City thinks it is its own national government.

It further isolates us from the rest of the country.”Kassar believes such treatment of transgender youths shouldn’t be administered without parental consent similar to the way abortions would be handled.Two major city hospital systems —  NYU Langone and Mount Sinai — agreed to end their “pediatric gender-affirming care” or sexual reassignment practice for minors as they faced scrutiny from President Trump’s DOJ, which calls the operations “sex-rejecting” procedures  The hospitals faced the threat of losing millions of dollars in federal research grants and Medicaid and Medicare funding.The city Health Department and Mamdani’s office had no immediate comment.New York, which has a large and politic...