“NYU is the best university to be transgender at,” I confided in my physical therapist last Thursday at the NYU Student Health Center. As he massaged my post-op incisions, I added, “probably in the whole world.”
Two days later, I resigned from my part-time job as an NYU Wagner project assistant to protest NYU Langone Health’s conniving cancellation of gender-affirming care for transgender patients aged 18 and younger. As an NYU MPA grad student, not only do I receive my education from NYU, but I also receive my gender-affirming care. I had my mastectomy at NYU Langone just 48 days ago, and my primary care physician at NYU’s SHC has prescribed my testosterone since December 2022.
Until NYU Langone utilizes its $14 billion operating revenue to litigate against this illegal executive order, NYU cannot claim to be an inclusive “campus without walls” while denying life-saving care to marginalized patients. Moreover, NYU’s submission to Trump’s will means that they comfortably burden 18-year-old “children” with $93,184 of estimated costs each year since the executive order defines anyone under 19 years old as a child. NYU students, will you let them take away your adulthood too?
The following is Denholtz’ resignation letter emailed to the NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service.
Good evening,
I am officially resigning from my position as NYU Wagner Accreditation Project Assistant, effective immediately.
I am heartbroken to find out that NYU Langone canceled gender-affirming care for 18-year-old adults, teenagers, and children. When Trump extends his EO to adults 19 and older, I can’t imagine NYU will speak out, nor continue the life-changing care I received 44 days ago and am scheduled to receive in 192 days, when it took them less than 3 days to forsake the children everyone claims to protect.
It is terrifying to see the core values of equity and inclusion that were instilled in my 5 years at NYU be forgotten so quickly. By ignoring the significant benefits of gender-affirming care for youth, NYU Langone abandons the Hippocratic oath and denies the fundamental truth that an attack on transgender rights is an attack on universal human rights.
While I deeply appreciate the kindness my colleagues have shown me these last 6 months, I must immediately resign to use the little time I have to recover from my enduring health challenges, reorient my life around emigration, archive the stories and lives of transmasculine people, and grieve the life of safety I was promised as a Jewish child in America.
As Ibram X Kendi writes, “No one becomes ‘not racist’, despite a tendency by Americans to identify themselves that way. We can only strive to be ‘antiracist’ on a daily basis, to continually rededicate ourselves to the lifelong task of overcoming our country’s racist heritage”.
Onwards,
Alex Denholtz
Alex Avry Denholtz (they/he)
Founder, Library of Trans Alexander
NYU MPA ’25
NYU BA ’23
WSN’s Opinion section strives to publish ideas worth discussing. The views presented in the Opinion section are solely the views of the writer.
Contact Alex Denholtz at [email protected].
