New York has all the time been a metropolis of arrivals. A sanctuary for these searching for security, dignity, and a future they couldn’t discover at house. That very same promise has drawn LGBTQIA+ folks right here for many years. From Midwestern cities, sterile suburbs, and nations the place queerness is criminalized, they’ve come not simply to outlive, however to be seen, cared for, and free. To belong to a tradition that constructed this metropolis’s status on grit, creativity, and risk.
That promise wasn’t simply rhetoric. It was made actual via coverage. Federal assist for Medicaid, the ACA market, and psychological well being packages just like the 988 disaster line laid the groundwork. Native and state leaders constructed on it with a number of the strongest LGBTQIA+ protections within the nation. And group establishments — from the Hetrick-Martin Institute to Callen-Lorde to Ali Forney Heart — stuffed within the gaps, providing affirming care, housing, and therapeutic for 1000’s.
However that delicate ecosystem is now buckling underneath the burden of recent federal coverage.
The lately handed One Large Lovely Invoice Act (OBBBA) threatens to dismantle the very methods that make survival attainable for LGBTQIA+ New Yorkers. Framed as a finances bundle, OBBBA slashes Medicaid, strips ACA subsidies, bans gender-affirming care protection via federal packages, and eliminates focused psychological well being funding, together with LGBTQ-specific assist via the disaster line. These cuts don’t simply damage. They sever the delicate threads that hold younger folks tethered to hope.
New York is uniquely weak. Over 1.5 million state residents are anticipated to lose medical insurance, together with lots of the 569,000 LGBTQIA+ folks in NYC, the biggest queer inhabitants within the nation. This metropolis isn’t only a sanctuary in identify. It’s a lifeline. A magnet for queer and trans youth searching for care and group.
Many depend on Medicaid or ACA subsidies for necessities like PrEP, hormones, puberty blockers, remedy, and HIV remedy. Beneath OBBBA, premiums will spike. Protection will lapse. And care will disappear.
At Hetrick-Martin Institute, we’ve seen a 200% improve in psychological well being service requests since January. And we don’t even obtain federal funding. The youth flooding our doorways are already slipping via the cracks. Some are uninsured. Some have misplaced entry to medicine and don’t know why. Some are barely holding on. When this invoice takes full impact, we gained’t simply be a security web — we’ll be the one web left.
This isn’t theoretical. These aren’t coverage shifts occurring someplace distant. That is your metropolis. Your neighbors. A 17-year-old trans lady within the Bronx questioning if she’ll need to cease HRT. A Black queer 21-year-old in Crown Heights whose solely entry to remedy was via Medicaid. A lately out teen sleeping on the F prepare, ready for a shelter mattress which will by no means come.
We discuss quite a bit about tradition on this metropolis — about what makes New York New York. The reality is, our cosmopolitan status has been held collectively by queer brilliance for many years. That is town that gave the world ballroom, the place vogueing grew to become a world export. The place Greer Lankton sculpted trans our bodies into reliquaries, David Wojnarowicz smeared rage and need throughout gallery partitions, and Cookie Mueller spun downtown chaos into sacred textual content. The place Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera marched whereas Studio 54 and Paradise Storage grew to become temples of transcendence. The place queer trend, theater, and visible artwork collided in a cultural Large Bang.
That tradition nonetheless pulses via basements and backrooms throughout the boroughs. But it surely’s now not simply underground — it’s the model. Queer expression is now a cornerstone of New York’s financial system and id.
So what occurs when our group can now not afford to stay right here and even keep alive?
New York should deal with OBBBA not as a distant federal struggle, however as a neighborhood emergency and act accordingly.
We have to absolutely fund a state-level Important Plan to interchange misplaced federal assist and canopy all present enrollees, together with immigrants. OBBBA will strip 730,000 New Yorkers from this program. At the least 224,000 may very well be left with no inexpensive protection in any respect.
We want a NYC Medicaid assure for gender-affirming care. The federal ban is a direct assault on trans New Yorkers. Town should step up with laws to domestically fund these providers and develop entry via clinics like Callen-Lorde and Apicha.
We want an emergency stabilization fund for frontline well being suppliers. Neighborhood clinics and public hospitals are bracing for deep cuts that may shrink pediatrics, OB/GYN, and behavioral well being providers. A neighborhood fund may offset the blow and defend capability.
And we should develop LGBTQIA+-focused disaster care and housing. With LGBTQ-specific 988 assist set to finish in 2025, New York should spend money on culturally competent disaster groups and convert vacant city-owned buildings into affirming shelters, therapeutic facilities, and long-term housing.
These aren’t aspirational fixes. They’re survival methods. If New York needs to stay a queer sanctuary, we should match that promise with coverage. As a result of proper now, lives are on the road.
Amy Harclerode is CEO of the Hetrick-Martin Institute. Marti G. Cummings is a NYC political activist and nightlife performer.
