A New York State bill, in the Assembly as A6596A and the Senate as S6377A, would require Medicaid to cover sex-trait modifications in New York State regardless of federal funding restrictions, and frames refusing to offer these procedures as “discriminatory.”

This bill misleadingly refers to sex-trait modifications as “medically necessary.” We’ve already known for years that the “medically necessary” label didn’t come from the usual scientific testing a new procedure would be subject to, but was instead inserted into the care guidelines of WPATH, a large activist group, to get insurance to cover whatever cosmetic procedures a patient wants.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (“AAP”) recommended “gender affirmation” in 2018, not having performed any systematic review, and then re-confirmed this stance in 2023 while acknowledging that it still had not conducted a systematic review.  In fact, while the AAP promised to conduct a systematic review in 2023, this still has not been done.  The AAP also claims consensus among its doctor members, but members have objected to the endorsement of “gender affirmation.”  

Additionally, multiple high-profile systematic reviews have been conducted in other countries, and most recently by the United States’ own Department of Health and and Human Services, revealing both that the hospitals and providers offering sex-trait modification didn’t wait for evidence that these procedures actually helped people before offering them to children, and the fact that there is no high quality evidence that sex-trait modifications provide any real benefits to mental health.

Sex-trait modifications were offered despite the lack of proof that they truly alleviated distress. Now the FTC is investigating the misleading marketing claims hospitals and providers have made to trick the public into thinking the science is settled.

If passed, these bills spell out a dark future for New York.

The “scientific consensus” activists claim to have is dissolving quickly as more and more whistleblowers speak up about the horrors they witnessed at “gender” clinics.

Gordon Guyatt, the “father of evidence-based medicine,” admitted in an interview that activist pressure, not the evidence, drove his team’s decisions about what to communicate to the public. He was horrified to hear he had signed a statement calling these procedures “medically necessary,” which is the exact language A6596A and S6377A use.

Meanwhile, between 2019 and 2023, sex-trait modification procedures on over 1100 children in New York were billed to insurance, including over 600 surgeries. This excludes out-of-pocket procedures, or those funded through GoFundMe accounts, procedures paid through the Dept. of Veterans Affairs, procedures on those 18 and over, or procedures before or after the selected time period. Whenever someone tries to tell you children aren’t being groomed into sexually mutilating surgery they can’t consent to, keep that figure in mind. That’s 600 children who have either had double mastectomies and/or who have had their genitals surgically altered and around 1,100 who have been chemically castrated and/or given dangerous levels of synthetic cross-sex hormones. 

While “female genital mutilation” is illegal in New York State, and parental consent on the child’s behalf is also illegal, surgeries that cause way more damage to these sensitive body parts are legal in New York in the context of a made-up “gender identity,” and now the legislature is proposing to fully cover the cost thereof.

But one must ask why, If sex and gender are different, would changing sex characteristics affirm someone’s made-up “gender”?  Does it even make sense to medically alter healthy bodies to support a notion in someone’s mind?  Lawmakers don’t want you to think about this, and they want to sweep those 1,100-plus medically abused children under the rug. They don’t want the general public to find out what’s happening, so they can keep pretending their support of gender butchery is “virtuous,” and now they want your tax dollars to pay for it.

Let your Assembly and Senate representative know today that you don’t think New York should become a “sanctuary state” for sexually mutilating vulnerable members of our society, and they shouldn’t either.

Read the full text of the bill here.

Call to Action!

Tell your NY Assembly and Senate members to vote NO on A6596A and S6377A.

Assembly

1. Look up your New York State Assembly member here.
2. Check if they’re a sponsor or co-sponsor from this list.

Main sponsor: Linda Rosenthal

Co-sponsors: 

3. Find your Assembly member’s Contact page and follow the instructions to email them or submit a form. We have some sample text to start with, but add whatever you want! Be sure to indicate if you are a concerned parent, lifelong liberal, Democrat or former Democrat, progressive or former progressive—or gay or disability rights advocate, since those are the two groups (homosexuals and those with autism/autistic traits) most strongly targeted by these procedures. 

Dear Assemblyperson [NAME], 
I am [your constituent, a member of the public] and I have serious concerns about Assembly Bill A6596A.
This bill appears to be based on misinformation around what treatments work best for alleviating discomfort around one’s sex. It suggests there is such a thing as “medically necessary” sex-trait modification, when we now know this claim has not been proven but was rather introduced without evidentiary support in the WPATH SOC8 to ensure cosmetic procedures would be covered by insurance. Furthermore, in direct contrast to activist claims that the science is settled, multiple high-profile systematic reviews have revealed that these cosmetic procedures were offered without a single longitudinal or controlled study showing they have any positive benefit at all.
Not only are the claims that hormones and surgeries are the proper treatment to alleviate mental distress unfounded, the hormones and surgeries themselves induce severe bodily harm that often leaves the patients sterile, incontinent, or disabled for life. A growing cohort of brave people who underwent these procedures as children, when they could not consent, have spoken up about the challenges they face as a result.
If A6596A passes, and if New York lawmakers continue supporting laws that repeat these false claims about the efficacy of sex-trait modification procedures, New York will not become a sanctuary state for the vulnerable. It will only enable activist doctors to profit from expensive, unproven procedures that disable them for life. Many people who feel discomfort around their changing bodies turn out to be gay or autistic. These populations need protection from medical harm, not for that harm to be endorsed by the state.
At this late stage, when many brave individuals have sacrificed their careers and families to expose the harm being done by healthcare providers, it is becoming unconscionable to turn a blind eye to the growing consequences. Accusations of “ignorance” or “bigotry” lose their power when the public is faced with more and more young girls who had their breasts cut off at 13. We don’t need more people to get hurt to know this is wrong.
I urge you as strongly as possible to vote NO on [and revoke your sponsorship of] A6596A. It’s high time for this medical abuse to end.
Sincerely,
[YOUR NAME]

Senate

1. Look up your NY state senator here.
2. Check if they’re a sponsor.

Sponsor: Brad Hoylman-Sigal

3. Click the ‘Message Senator’ button on the nysenate.gov site. We’ve gotten you started with some sample text, but add whatever you want! If copy-pasting from above, make sure it does not claim that your Senate representative sponsored the bill if they didn’t, and make sure the text represents the Senate bill, S6377A, and not the Assembly bill, A6596A.

Dear Senator [NAME], 
I am [your constituent, a member of the public] and I have serious concerns about Senate Bill S6377A.
This bill appears to be based on misinformation around what treatments work best for alleviating discomfort around one’s sex. It suggests there is such a thing as “medically necessary” sex-trait modification, when we now know this claim has not been proven but was rather introduced without evidentiary support in the WPATH SOC8 to ensure cosmetic procedures would be covered by insurance. Furthermore, in direct contrast to activist claims that the science is settled, multiple high-profile systematic reviews have revealed that these cosmetic procedures were offered without a single longitudinal or controlled study showing they have any positive benefit at all.
Not only are the claims that hormones and surgeries are the proper treatment to alleviate mental distress unfounded, the hormones and surgeries themselves induce severe bodily harm that often leaves the patients sterile, incontinent, or disabled for life. A growing cohort of brave people who underwent these procedures as children, when they could not consent, have spoken up about the challenges they face as a result.
If S6377A passes, and if New York lawmakers continue supporting laws that repeat these false claims about the efficacy of sex-trait modification procedures, New York will not become a sanctuary state for the vulnerable. It will only enable activist doctors to profit from expensive, unproven procedures that disable them for life. Many people who feel discomfort around their changing bodies turn out to be gay or autistic. These populations need protection from medical harm, not for that harm to be endorsed and funded by the state.
At this late stage, when many brave individuals have sacrificed their careers and families to expose the harm being done by healthcare providers, it is becoming unconscionable to turn a blind eye to the growing consequences. Accusations of “ignorance” or “bigotry” lose their power when the public is faced with more and more young girls who had their breasts cut off at 13. We don’t need more people to get hurt to know this is wrong.
I urge you as strongly as possible to vote NO on S6377A. It’s high time for this medical abuse to end.
Sincerely,
[YOUR NAME]