by Dana DiFilippo, New Jersey Monitor
LGBTQ advocates urged New Jersey lawmakers Monday to protect health care for the state’s transgender community, demanding action on stalled legislation at a midday rally outside the Statehouse in Trenton as federal threats mount.
A bill that would shield both patients and providers in New Jersey from criminal or civil liability for getting or giving health care related to gender dysphoria and gender incongruence has languished since it was introduced in June 2024.
Almost half of the Legislature has signed on as sponsors, and the bill’s backers say it has enough other legislative support to pass.
The bill would codify protections Gov. Phil Murphy (D) outlined in a 2023 executive order.
“Everyone deserves health care without discrimination, and trans people are part of everyone. It’s just health care, legislators! It’s nothing to be afraid of!” said Melissa Firstenberg, a transgender woman from Marlton who emceed the rally.
Louise Walpin, an advocate who helped lead the fight to legalize same-sex marriage in New Jersey more than a decade ago, said lawmakers have failed to act despite a flood of constituent calls and emails supporting the legislation.
“This is not how a democracy works. This is a failure of government, and we will call it out,” Walpin said. “Delay is not neutrality. Delay is collaborating with hate. Delay is harm.”
The delay is also “batshit crazy,” said one lawmaker who joined the rally to support the bill.
“If New Jersey wants to be a state that protects people instead of targeting them, if we are going to be choosing compassion and courage over cruelty, then this bill needs to pass and be enacted swiftly,” said bill sponsor Sen. Raj Mukherji (D-Hudson).
Rich McGrath, a spokesman for New Jersey’s Senate Democrats, said Senate President Nicholas Scutari had no comment on why the bill hasn’t moved. Spokespeople for Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin did not respond to a request for comment. Both men control what bills advance in their chamber.
Assemblyman John Burzichelli (D-Gloucester), a bill sponsor who also joined the rally to talk up the bill, conceded lawmakers have a rapidly shrinking window to get the bill to Murphy’s desk, with the next two-year legislative session set to begin on Jan. 13. But if they fail to act, he added, the bill will just be introduced again in the new session.
“We’re hoping to get it done. Speaking personally, I’d like to get it done this week. If not, the game goes on. We regroup very quickly,” he told the New Jersey Monitor.
It’s unclear if Gov.-elect Mikie Sherrill (D) would support the legislation. Her spokespeople did not respond to a request for comment.
The legislative inaction comes as hospitals around New Jersey, following a national trend, have increasingly scaled back or abandoned altogether gender-affirming care, fearing federal funding cuts and other reprisals.
On his first day in office, President Donald Trump issued an executive order declaring his administration would recognize only two sexes. The Trump administration also issued a report critical of gender-affirming care and threatened to withhold funding from hospitals that provide such care to youth.
Trump loomed large at Monday’s rally.
Tina Neal, who heads the transgender-supportive nonprofit Tertium Quid, said the Trump administration’s strategy of threatening to defund hospitals to force compliance is a “mafia tactic.”
“I don’t blame providers for making impossible choices under financial coercion. That’s exactly why this administration is doing it. But you know who has money? The state. You know who has the power to keep this care alive for those who need it? The state,” Neal said. “So New Jersey, we ask you: Are you going to stand up for your children?”
Other states, including Connecticut, New York, Maryland, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island, have passed similar shield laws, and outgoing New York City Mayor Eric Adams created a $2 million emergency fund last month to ensure access to such care, according to Andy Bowen, a former Garden State Equality executive director and the group’s first transgender leader.
New Jersey legislators should protect gender-affirming care because restricting it for transgender people is discriminatory, said Nathan Rodriguez, executive director of the Trans Equity Coalition. Cisgender people receive gender-affirming care every day already in the form of hormone treatment for menopause, breast reconstruction for cancer survivors, hair transplants, and testosterone for men with low hormones, Rodriguez said.
“That is gender-affirming care, and there’s no outrage, no legislation, and no moral panic,” he said. “If you are willing to let the government strip these rights from trans people, please ask yourself this: Who will be next? How far are you going to let them go before they are knocking on your door, deciding what care you are allowed to receive?”
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