A convent of nuns caring for dying cancer patients has been threatened with sanctions for not implementing a series of transgender directives stemming from a 2023 New York State law.

The Servants of Relief for Incurable Cancer run a 42-bed nursing facility in Hawthorne, New York offering palliative services free of charge. They accept neither government funding nor insurance.

Yet, the new law stipulates that long-term care facilities must use patients’ ‘preferred gender pronouns’, even when they’re not present; defer to their choice of bathroom; and refuse to assign rooms based on biological sex. Staff must also undergo “cultural competency” training.

An editorial in the Washington Post newspaper noted that all of this would violate the sisters’ consciences, yet failure to do so could cost them thousands of dollars in fines, loss of licensure and even imprisonment.

In response, they have sued the state in US federal court.

They have now been joined by the Federal Government, with Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon saying: “States should take notice that they cannot require Americans to abandon their religious beliefs in the name of woke gender ideology”.