The Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne have cared for dying cancer patients for free since 1900 – and never once faced a complaint.
Now New York wants to put them in jail.
What the Justice Department found buried inside New York's own law just turned this into a different fight entirely.
New York's Transgender Mandate Threatens Catholic Nursing Home With Jail Time and License Revocation
The Dominican Sisters run Rosary Hill Home, a 42-bed nursing home in Hawthorne, New York, where women of God provide free palliative care to the indigent dying of cancer.
They take no government funds.
And turn no one away.
For four years ending January 2026, they had exactly zero complaints from patients – against a statewide average of more than 55,000 complaints against other nursing homes.
Then New York's Department of Health sent them warning letters.
The 2024 "LGBTQ Long-Term Care Facility Residents' Bill of Rights" demanded the sisters house biological men with women based on "gender identity," force staff to use pronouns that contradict biological sex, train employees in gender ideology, and post a public notice confirming the facility's compliance with the state's demands.
Refusal carries fines of up to $2,000 per violation, rising to $5,000 for repeat offenses.
Willful noncompliance earns up to one year in prison and fines up to $10,000.
The sisters asked New York for a religious exemption on March 5.
New York never responded.
DOJ Says New York's Gender Identity Law Violates the Fourteenth Amendment
The sisters filed suit on April 6, and the Justice Department announced it intends to intervene on their behalf.
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said: "States should take notice that they cannot require Americans to abandon their religious beliefs in the name of woke gender ideology."
The DOJ's complaint identifies a constitutional trap Albany built into the law itself.
New York's statute allows facilities to decline opposite-sex room assignments when a secular clinical judgment determines the placement would cause psychological harm to a roommate.
The same accommodation for religious judgment – that placing a biological male in a women's ward violates Catholic teaching – does not exist.
There is one religious exemption written into New York's law.
It protects facilities affiliated with the Church of Christ, Scientist.
It does not protect Catholics.
The Justice Department's Complaint-in-Intervention argues this violates the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause – the state is picking winners and losers among religious denominations, granting one faith a carveout while threatening another with jail time.
Kathy Hochul's Office Ignored the Nuns' Religious Freedom Request for Two Weeks
The pattern here is identical to the decade-long war New York and Washington Democrats waged against the Little Sisters of the Poor – another order of Catholic nuns serving the indigent elderly, dragged through federal courts for years over the Obama-era contraceptive mandate.
The Little Sisters ultimately won at the Supreme Court in 2020.
New York Democrat Governor Kathy Hochul's administration learned nothing from that fight.
The Catholic Church teaches that biological sex is assigned by God and is permanent – and that calling someone by a sex that isn't theirs is a form of lying that faith forbids.
The sisters do not compromise that teaching at Rosary Hill.
They paint women's fingernails and comb their hair, change them into fresh nightgowns at night, and arrange flowers in their rooms.
That ministry – personal, dignified, free of charge – is what New York's law now threatens.
The Trump DOJ is making clear that states do not get to decide which religions deserve constitutional protection, and federal attorneys are now going to spend the next several months explaining that double standard to a federal judge.
Mother Marie Edward, general superior of the order, has said the sisters cannot implement the mandate without violating their Catholic faith.
New York's Department of Health says it does not comment on pending litigation and is committed to following state law.
That answer won't survive a Fourteenth Amendment challenge – not when the same law exempts Christian Scientists but threatens Dominican Sisters with prison.
Sources:
- Scott McClallen, "Justice Department Backs Catholic Nuns Against New York's Gender Ideology Law," Townhall, June 20, 2026.
- Valerie Richardson, "Trump administration backs Catholic nuns fighting New York transgender mandate," The Washington Times, June 19, 2026.
- Tyler Arnold, "Justice Department Joins Catholic Nuns' Lawsuit Against New York's Housing Rule," National Catholic Register, June 19, 2026.
- "Justice Department Sues State of New York for Requiring Catholic Nursing Facilities to House Men with Women," U.S. Department of Justice Office of Public Affairs, June 19, 2026.
- "Catholic nuns sue New York over trans nursing home law, face jail time," Fox News, April 12, 2026.
- "NY nuns sue state over transgender law for nursing homes," Catholic Benefits Association, April 7, 2026.
