A religious order in southeastern New York has filed a lawsuit against the state over a 2024 law that requires hospice facilities to support patients’ gender identities.
The Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne, New York, operate Rosary Hill Home, a 42‑bed Catholic hospice serving indigent patients.
The order says its religious beliefs are compromised by New York’s LGBTQ Long‑Term Care Facility Residents’ Bill of Rights, which requires facilities to affirm patients’ preferred pronouns, room assignments and restroom use.
The mandate bars Rosary Hill Home from “segregating restrooms by biological sex, requires the use of patients’ preferred pronouns even when the patient is not present, and requires allowing patients to cross‑dress,” according to the complaint.
Violations of the law could result in fines, loss of licensing or jail time, the lawsuit states.
“We Sisters have taken care of patients from all walks of life, ideologies and faiths. We treat each patient with dignity and Christian charity. We have never had complaints,” said Mother Marie Edward, general superior of the Hawthorne Dominicans, in a news release announcing the legal challenge. “We cannot implement New York’s mandate without violating our Catholic faith.”
The federal lawsuit was filed April 6 after the state failed to respond to the order’s request for a religious exemption, according to the release. The suit asks a judge to declare the law unconstitutional as applied to the plaintiffs and to award attorneys’ fees.
NewsNation reached out to the office of New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, who is named as a defendant along with state Health Commissioner James V. McDonald, seeking comment.
A spokesperson for the state Department of Health told the New York Post that the agency is “committed to following state law, which provides nursing home residents certain rights protecting against discrimination, including but not limited to gender identity or expression.”