Statement From State Health Commissioner Dr. Mary T. Bassett In Honor of Pride Month

ALBANY, N.Y. (June 1, 2022) – "As Pride Month commences, the New York State Department of Health joins in recognizing and celebrating the LGBTQ+ community. Today and every day, our commitment to advancing health equity among lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and gender non-conforming New Yorkers remains stronger than ever.

Through our ongoing work to build a more inclusive and more sensitive public health and health care system, we will establish more compassionate, LGBTQ+-affirming health and human services statewide. The Department is grateful for the many partnerships with health care networks and community-based providers which allow us to address urgent, emergent, and long-term community needs.

In the month ahead, we will highlight critical areas of our focus and the efforts underway to understand how we can best serve the entire community. And we will continue to listen to and engage with LGBTQ+ New Yorkers directly, collecting the data and feedback necessary to pinpoint new and improved solutions and supports where they are needed most.

Pride, at its core, is about honoring the full value of one's sense of self. As we reaffirm our commitment to building a public health and health care system – and a society – that fully promotes and protects the rights of every individual to live their happiest, healthiest, and most authentic life, we must also acknowledge that there is still work to do.

We owe New York's LGBTQ+ community a debt of gratitude for their trailblazing efforts to create a more diverse, vibrant, and safe New York State for all – and we stand with them in seeing this work through."