The standoff centered on the now-former assistant attorney general’s public and internal castigation of pediatric gender medicine.

Goldis, a specialist in prosecuting deceptive business practices, repeatedly raised fraud-related concerns regarding exploitative patterns that she had identified in the PGM industry, much to the chagrin of her boss, James, a staunch supporter of transgender procedures performed on children.

“James was wrong to treat me like a pest,” Goldis said in a scathing social media post announcing her termination. “I was trying to warn her about red flags for fraud that I saw around PGM—that’s what she hired me to do.”

Goldis noted that she is a lesbian, part of “the LGBTQ community that James purports to champion,” and out of concern for gender-nonconforming gay adolescents, she tried to explain to NYAG officials that “PGM, by its nature, targets children who defy sexed norms — whom studies show are more likely to be gay when they grow up.”

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“No one in authority at NYAG showed interest in the concern that PGM may be homophobic,” Goldis said. “If Letitia James actually cared about ‘LGBTQ’ youth, then she’d research ‘gender’ drugs and learn what they do. Instead, she glibly calls the drugs ‘safe’ and fires me for contradicting her.”

In an interview with the Washington Examiner, Goldis said that virtually any substantive talks she tried to have with the NYAG’s office about fraud markers surrounding PGM and malpractice concerns devolved into threats of disciplinary action.

“It was hard to have any conversation at all,” Goldis said. “Most of the back and forth was about whether I should be disciplined. It was kind of surreal, like I would want to talk about pediatric gender medicine and they would want to talk about discipline.”

Disciplinary procedure documents shared with the Washington Examiner show that Goldis received several warnings from her higher-ups to stop speaking critically about the PGM sector.

Goldis, the author of a Substack blog primarily discussing legal issues related to gender ideology, previously wrote under a pseudonym.

NYAG officials caught wind of it in the spring of 2025, telling Goldis that the agency needs to review everything she wants to write or speak about publicly and that they would decide what was appropriate, in accordance with Executive Order 6.

“This is a really overbroad policy that I thought violated the First Amendment, because government workers have the right to free speech,” Goldis told the Washington Examiner. “[The government] can’t just totally control what you say outside of work. There are limits.”

Still, she submitted a disclosure form requesting permission to write the blog, but did not hear back for soem time.

In June, she was invited to appear before the Federal Trade Commission as a panelist to explain the harms of PGM from a consumer fraud perspective.

Goldis, wanting to accept the invitation, requested prior approval in accordance with the policy, but the NYAG’s office denied her petition. She tried to appeal the decision but struggled to break through the red tape in time and wound up speaking at the roundtable anyway.

On the eve of the July event, Goldis emphasized online that she was speaking strictly in a personal capacity, not on behalf of her employer. Up until that time, Goldis had never attached her work title to her advocacy, and in this instance, she specified that her views represented her own. The agency said her Disclaimer made no difference.

“So then the office was going to discipline me for disobeying their instructions,” Goldis recalled.

Over a series of meetings, the agency questioned Goldis about all her outside activities, including which podcasts she had appeared on, which journalists she had spoken with, and where she blogs.

That summer, the NYAG’s general counsel finally found an objectionable line in one of Goldis’s blog posts, titled Free to Ban. In it, Goldis laid out the Supreme Court’s ruling on United States v. Skrmetti, which upheld a Tennessee law banning PGM statewide.

Kumiki Gibson, general counsel at the NYAG’s office, told Goldis that her statements, particularly where she simply states the Supreme Court’s holding, “directly contradict” James’s legal position, priorities, and prerogatives. Gibson quoted a passage of her Substack piece explaining that the high court decided that such bans are “not discriminatory” on the basis of so-called transgender status.

James, who currently leads a multi-state lawsuit against the Trump administration to protect the PGM industry from investigations and funding cuts, has threatened to hold doctors legally liable for declining to offer PGM, arguing that doing so is “discriminatory.” In one decree, James declared that medical providers refusing such services to gender-confused minors constitutes “discrimination under New York law.”

“I wish to reiterate in writing,” Gibson said in an August letter addressed to Goldis, “the Office’s right to regulate public comments made by members of its staff and to remind you of your obligations as both a government employee and a lawyer subject to the New York State Rules of Professional Conduct.”

Gibson said the government is well within its authority to “restrict, forbid, or sanction public employees’ speech, even when such speech involves matters of public concern.”

In a September notice sent to Goldis, the NYAG’s ethics chief determined that she can keep her Substack blog but dictated that she cannot say or write anything that “conflicts” with James’s legal opinions.

The ethics council chairman likewise cited the state’s professional conduct rules, which Goldis countered say no such thing about taking “public legal positions that conflict with” those of her employer.

“It seemed he was trying to protect James by cowing me into silence,” she said.

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On Jan. 15, Goldis was given an ultimatum: abide by the office’s terms, resign within the week, or face termination. Goldis chose not to stand down, letting the deadline pass. She was abruptly fired the following week.

In a statement, James’s office accused Goldis of “flagrant[ly]” flouting workplace procedures and engaging in conduct that undercuts the attorney general’s work.

“The Office of the Attorney General has rules and protocols for employees who engage in activities that can impact the work, operations, or integrity of the office,” a spokesperson for James told the Washington Examiner. “This employee’s flagrant and repeated disregard of these rules and protocols disrupts and undermines our efforts to protect the rights of all New Yorkers.”

As for her official fireable offense, the NYAG’s office concluded that Goldis engaged in “disruptive public speech.”

“Unfortunately, that’s not true,” Goldis said. “I haven’t disrupted the Democratic elite’s zombie-like devotion to PGM providers. But I’m just getting started.”

Goldis, a Brooklyn-based Democrat, said her social circles are full of progressive lawyers who, like many Americans, tend to be leery of PGM, but because leaders on the Left treat the fight like a battle of “good versus evil,” that makes ordinary people afraid to voice skepticism.

“James’s behavior toward me illustrates why the public discussion of PGM is often one-sided in places like NYC—and so strikingly different from what you hear behind closed doors,” Goldis said.

After losing her job, Goldis said she is in touch with constitutional law experts to advise her on next steps and see if the NYAG’s restrictions on her outside communications violated her free speech rights.

Praising her colleagues’ work, Goldis said she was honored to serve in the consumer protection unit. “I hope someday they’ll investigate PGM providers,” she added.