On September 18, the U.S. Department of Justice announced agreements with NYU Langone Hospitals and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center requiring both health systems to cease certain gender-affirming medical care for minors. NYU agreed to pay $8.5 million and UPMC $950,000.
There is an extraordinarily important sentence buried beneath the government's triumphant rhetoric: “The claims resolved by the United States in these agreements are allegations only, and there has been no determination of liability.” Both health systems expressly denied the allegations.
That matters.
But we also need to pay attention to the language being used.
The DOJ repeatedly describes gender-affirming health care as “sex-rejecting procedures.” This is not an accidental turn of phrase. HHS used precisely the same terminology in August when announcing its report attacking insurance coding associated with pediatric gender-affirming care. CMS incorporated the term into its final rule prohibiting federal Medicaid and CHIP funding for specified gender-affirming care for minors.
And the rhetoric goes further. President Trump's January 2025 executive order labeled these forms of care “chemical and surgical mutilation.”
Words matter.
These are not neutral medical descriptions. They are terminology deliberately adopted by this administration to describe health care and the people receiving it. And when government repeatedly replaces established clinical terminology with ideologically charged language, we should pay attention.
Because eventually the conversation stops being only about medicine.
Transgender, nonbinary, Gender Expansive, and intersex people understand what happens when government begins defining some bodies, identities, and lives as problems requiring correction, containment, or elimination from public life.
We have seen this administration's approach move across federal agencies. DOJ is investigating providers. HHS has issued reports condemning this care and its billing. CMS has acted against federal Medicaid and CHIP funding. The FTC, joined by four states, has sued the World Professional Association for Transgender Health; importantly, those claims remain allegations in a pending case, not judicial findings.
These actions should therefore be understood not simply as one settlement involving two hospitals, but as part of a coordinated federal policy toward pediatric gender-affirming health care.
Here in New Mexico, that makes vigilance essential.
We must protect patient privacy. We must support medical professionals practicing within New Mexico law and accepted standards applicable to their practice. We must make sure families understand their rights. And our elected officials must be prepared to defend New Mexico's protections when federal policy collides with them.
We must also refuse to surrender our language.
A transgender child is not an ideology.
A nonbinary teenager is not a political movement.
An intersex person is not a problem for government to solve.
And LGBTQIA2S people are not abstractions to be deployed in somebody else's culture war.
These are human beings whose lives deserve the same dignity, privacy, compassion, and careful medical decision-making we expect for everyone else.
The Human Rights Alliance will continue documenting these actions, challenging misinformation, supporting affected communities, and working with our partners throughout New Mexico to protect LGBTQIA2S people and their families.
Because what happens in New York and Pennsylvania does not stay there.
When the federal government establishes a vocabulary, coordinates agencies around it, and uses federal enforcement authority to advance that policy, New Mexico must pay attention.
And we must be prepared to respond.
M. A. D’Arrigo
HRA Board President