“Sex and the City” star Cynthia Nixon lambasted New York University — as well as President Donald Trump — for canceling procedures that gave kids puberty-blocking medication. The actress, while speaking into a microphone at a rally in front of NYU on Monday night, said she was “mad as hell” at the school.
A few days earlier, NYU “canceled appointments for two 12-year-olds who had been scheduled to receive implants that dispense puberty-blocking medication,” according to the New York Times. The appointments were called off after President Trump signed an executive order last week, saying the U.S. government would not fund doctors nor institutions that performed gender-reassignment surgery or other procedures tied to transitioning.
This was unacceptable, Nixon said on Monday. The “And Just Like That” actress said trans kids and their supporters have been dealing with a nonstop “assault” and “barrage” since Trump’s election.
“I am here today as the mother of a proud trans man,” Nixon said, while receiving roars of support from the crowd. “I am here today as the aunt of a proud trans man. My best friend’s kid is trans, and my kid’s best friend is trans.”
Nixon also told the protestors that this was a personal issue for her, since one of her three children had their breasts surgically removed at NYU years ago. “His doctors were fantastic. His surgeon was the best we could have imagined,” the former politician said.
But the thought that other New York kids cannot receive that same surgery now, Nixon said, “sickens me to my core.”
She added that, while she has been crestfallen since the election, the Monday protest had lifted her spirits. “Nothing has made me feel so good as coming around the corner today and seeing you all standing here fighting for trans rights,” she shared.
Last week, Trump signed the “Protecting Children From Chemical and Surgical Mutilation” executive order.
“Across the country today, medical professionals are maiming and sterilizing a growing number of impressionable children under the radical and false claim that adults can change a child’s sex through a series of irreversible medical interventions,” Trump wrote in his order. “This dangerous trend will be a stain on our Nation’s history, and it must end.”
“Countless children soon regret that they have been mutilated and begin to grasp the horrifying tragedy that they will never be able to conceive children of their own or nurture their children through breastfeeding,” the order added. “Moreover, these vulnerable youths’ medical bills may rise throughout their lifetimes, as they are often trapped with lifelong medical complications, a losing war with their own bodies, and, tragically, sterilization.”
Nixon, beyond her career as an actress, turned to politics in recent years. She unsuccessfully ran for governor in New York against Andrew Cuomo in 2018, and has often commented on a number of social issues since then.
On Monday, she said the nationwide push to stop these surgeries and puberty-blocking medications “cannot happen” in New York. “Here is where we have to take a stand.”
