New York Pushes—Trump DOJ Pushes Back

Department of Justice building with American flag.

A little-known New York “gender identity” rule now has Catholic hospice nuns — and the Trump Justice Department — teaming up to stop the state from forcing biological men into women’s rooms and speech.

Story Snapshot

New York’s long-term care law orders room, bathroom, and pronoun rules based on gender identity, not sex.^[10]
Catholic nuns who run a free hospice for dying women say the mandate violates their faith and speech rights.^[6]
The Trump Justice Department has moved to intervene, arguing New York treats religious homes worse than secular ones.^[4]
The case could set a major precedent on whether states can enforce “woke” gender rules inside faith-based care.

New York’s Gender Rule Collides With a 125-Year Catholic Hospice

The Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne have cared for poor, terminally ill cancer patients in New York for almost 125 years, offering free end-of-life care in a women-only hospice called Rosary Hill Home.^[6] New York’s new Long-Term Care Facility Residents’ Bill of Rights for LGBTQ New Yorkers and people living with HIV now demands facilities assign rooms, bathrooms, and daily interactions based on a resident’s gender identity instead of biological sex.^[10]^[8] That change strikes at the heart of how these sisters live out their Catholic faith.

State health officials sent the nuns at least three letters warning them that they may not “refuse to assign a room to a resident other than in accordance with the resident’s gender identity,” may not bar residents from bathrooms that match gender identity, and may not “willfully and repeatedly” decline to use preferred names and pronouns once told of them.^[2]^[6] The same law requires facilities to post notices and run “cultural competency” training built around these gender and sexuality rules.^[7]^[15] For women who entered religious life to serve modesty and truth, these orders are not minor paperwork.

Why the Nuns Say the Law Violates Faith, Speech, and Basic Common Sense

The sisters’ lawsuit argues that New York is forcing them to lie about what a woman is and how God created the human body.^[6]^[7] Catholic teaching holds that biological sex is God-given and cannot be changed, and that calling a man a woman is a form of falsehood, especially in intimate acts of care.^[4] Rosary Hill houses patients in single-sex rooms, refers to patients by pronouns that match their bodies, and provides very personal care like changing nightgowns, bathing, and grooming.^[4] The sisters say mixing biological males into those spaces violates both their conscience and their residents’ privacy.

The complaint also says New York’s rule compels speech by ordering staff to use preferred pronouns at all times, even when the resident is not present.^[7] That goes beyond simple non-discrimination and into forced endorsement of an ideology about sex and gender. The sisters add that they sought a religious exemption before suing, but received no answer from state officials.^[2] They now face the threat that the state could move against their license or even shut down their free hospice if they keep following their faith.^[7]

Trump’s Justice Department Steps In Against “Woke Gender Ideology”

The Trump-era Department of Justice (DOJ) has now notified the federal court that it is intervening on the sisters’ side, a rare step that signals the case has national constitutional stakes.^[3]^[4] In its complaint-in-intervention, the DOJ argues that New York Public Health Law section 2803-C-2 violates the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause by protecting secular objections but not religious ones.^[4] Under the state’s own framework, facilities can refuse opposite-sex room assignments if they claim possible psychological harm to a roommate, yet there is no similar space for religious objections about spiritual harm.^[4]

Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon framed the issue bluntly: states cannot force Americans to abandon their beliefs “in the name of woke gender ideology.”^[1] The DOJ points to long-standing federal guidance that government may not substantially burden religious exercise unless it uses the least restrictive means to achieve a truly compelling interest.^[24] By giving secular facilities flexibility while denying faith-based homes the same respect, the DOJ says New York is singling out religion for worse treatment instead of treating all providers fairly.^[4]^[24]

New York Calls It Anti-Discrimination; The Stakes Go Far Beyond One Hospice

New York leaders, including Governor Kathy Hochul, defend the statute as an anti-discrimination measure meant to “combat discrimination and mitigate isolation” suffered by lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and HIV-positive seniors in long-term care.^[12] The law sits inside a wider state trend of expanding sexual orientation and gender identity rules into every licensed facility.^[10]^[12] State health officials say they are simply enforcing a residents’ bill of rights that bars denial of admission, unfair room assignments, or harassment based on gender identity or sexual orientation.^[10]^[11]

The deeper conflict is familiar to many readers: religious homes say they are being forced to choose between their mission and state mandates built on contested gender ideology.^[8] Legal scholars note that modern religious liberty fights now often involve institutions seeking relief from broad civil rights rules, not small groups asking only to be left alone.^[25] If New York can dictate pronouns, room assignments, and intimate care policies inside a tiny Catholic hospice for dying women, many fear it will be even bolder with Christian schools, adoption agencies, and churches next.^[4]^[26] For now, the sisters of Hawthorne, backed by the Trump DOJ, are drawing a hard line and asking the courts to say the Constitution still protects both religious liberty and basic biological reality.