Elliot Page takes on hospitals that caved to Trump on care for trans kids: ‘Denying this care hurts children’

Actor Elliot Page is in lockstep with the Gender Liberation Movement to stand up and fight for transgender youth.

On Tuesday, September 23, the award-winning actor joined crowds of trans people and accomplices rallying outside of NYU Langone Health in New York City, protesting the hospital giant’s capitulation to the Trump administration. After the Trump administration threatened to revoke federal funding from medical institutions that provide gender-affirming care to minors, major New York City hospital systems such as NYU Langone, Mount Sinai, and New York Presbyterian ended their gender-affirming care programs.

Joining organizers and community leaders like Democratic congressional nominee Claire Valdez and legendary activist Qween Jean, Page filmed a PSA in partnership with the Gender Liberation Movement amid the chanting. Posted to Instagram on October 1, he explains in the video that the dissolution of these medical programs are part of a “coordinated assault on health care” by the Trump administration.

“He’s already gutted Medicaid and 7.5 million people are projected to lose coverage,” Page says. “While these cuts have hit so many, trans youth and their families have been at the center of them.”

The actor points out that these New York City hospital systems have served trans youth for decades. In fact, as more states have passed legislation banning gender-affirming care services for minors, many trans kids and their families have had to make the difficult decision to relocate their lives to states like New York, which boasts of having some of the most robust anti-discrimination protections for trans people in the country.

“Despite state-wide protections and expressed support for this care from officials like New York Attorney General Tish James and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, these institutions caved to threats from Trump’s Department of Justice,” Page continues. “Mount Sinai even agreed to establish a detransition fund — the often coercive ending of gender transition, which uses the same logic as conversion therapy.”

In August, Mount Sinai reached a deal with the Trump administration, allocating $2 million for the construction of the detransition clinic Page refers to, all while cutting access to life-saving care. This is all in spite of decades of research that establishes that access to gender-affirming care saves trans children’s lives.

“The Trump administration claims to care about child safety, but their reasoning is based on lies,” Page explains in the video. “Gender-affirming care for youth is necessary, backed by science, and supported by every major credible medical association. One day, many will look back on all of this and say, ‘We should have known better.’ But we do know better, right now, that denying this care hurts children and leads to increased depression and worse.”

Page references a harrowing statistic: per the Trevor Project, in states that have passed anti-trans laws, suicide attempts among trans and nonbinary youth have increased 72% over six years.

“Kids’ lives are on the line,” he says, chanting in the background. “Gender-affirming care gives trans youth a sense of belonging, of wholeness, of their inherent value. And these hospitals know it. In fact, their doctors still believe in this health care and the science that backs it. Despite this, these New York hospital administrators chose to abandon these families and end this care because of bigoted politics.”

Page then makes the demands of the organizers clear, “Fighting for our lives and all of our futures. We demand these hospitals restart care, meet with families, and apologize for abandoning them. Don’t stand on the sidelines. Join the movement. Speak out. Donate.”

Get the best of what’s queer. Sign up for Them’s newsletters.