Justice Department Steps In to Defend Catholic Nuns Against New York Gender Law Forcing Mixed Housing in Hospice Care

The U.S. Department of Justice has moved to support a group of Catholic nuns in their legal fight against a New York state law that would require their hospice facility to house biological men with women. This case raises serious questions about whether the government can force religious organizations to set aside deeply held beliefs in order to comply with gender ideology policies.

The Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne, who have operated Rosary Hill Home for more than a century, provide free palliative care to indigent cancer patients in their final days. The sisters welcome every patient who comes to them. Yet New York Public Health Law § 2803-c-2 demands that long-term care facilities assign rooms based on gender identity rather than biological sex. Staff must also use preferred names and pronouns that align with a resident’s self-identified gender.

In a statement, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division put it plainly. “States should take notice that they cannot require Americans to abandon their religious beliefs in the name of woke gender ideology,” Dhillon said. “For more than a century, the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne have provided free palliative care to indigent cancer patients in their last days. New York’s law would force these religious women to choose between their faith and their license if they wish to continue serving the dying.”

Catholic teaching holds that biological sex is God-given and cannot be morally changed. The sisters maintain single-sex rooms based on biological sex and refer to patients using pronouns that match that reality. Their care often includes intimate, personal acts such as painting women’s fingernails, combing their hair, changing them into fresh nightgowns, and arranging flowers in their rooms. Forcing them to ignore these beliefs, the lawsuit argues, violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The Justice Department noted in its complaint that the state law allows secular facilities some flexibility. Operators can refuse opposite-sex room assignments if they determine it would cause psychological harm to a roommate. Religious facilities, however, receive no similar accommodation for objections grounded in faith. This unequal treatment, federal officials say, discriminates against religious groups.

The Dominican Sisters filed their lawsuit in April, challenging the state’s LGBTQ long-term care facility residents’ bill of rights. The Justice Department said on June 18, 2026, it would intervene in the case, certifying it as one of general public importance. The move sends a strong message that the federal government will not be a bystander while states pressure faith-based providers to abandon core tenets of their beliefs.

The controversy comes as many Americans are reexamining the scope of gender policies in sensitive settings like nursing homes and hospices. End-of-life patients deserve dignity and peace. Forcing elderly women to share intimate spaces with biological males, regardless of how those males identify, can create real discomfort and undermine the compassionate environment the sisters have worked so hard to preserve.

Religious liberty has been a pillar of American life for centuries. The First Amendment protects the free exercise of religion, and equal protection principles should prevent states from treating faith-based organizations as second-class citizens. The Dominican Sisters are not turning anyone away. They simply ask to serve patients in a manner consistent with their Catholic faith.

New York officials may argue the law promotes inclusion. But true inclusion should not come at the expense of religious conscience or the vulnerability of dying patients. If secular facilities can make clinical judgments about room assignments, religious ones must be allowed to make faith-based ones as well.

As this case moves forward in federal court, it will test whether states can impose one-size-fits-all gender rules on institutions dedicated to serving the most vulnerable among us. The Justice Department’s involvement highlights the stakes involved in protecting both religious liberty and equality before the law. Americans of all faiths and none should be watching closely to see how the courts balance these competing interests.