Federal judge blocks DOJ’s attempt to seize transgender youth’s medical records
A federal judge blocked the Justice Department’s attempt to seize medical records from hospitals in New York City where transgender youth sought treatment. The department has backed legislation and secured agreements with medical providers to halt further surgical and medical treatment of gender dysphoria.
The American Civil Liberties Union and Lambda Legal announced on Wednesday that a judge signed off on a temporary restraining order to prevent New York City hospitals from disclosing medical records of trans patients. The two civil rights groups classified the department’s actions as an attack on trans youth.
Judge Katherine Polk Failla signed off on the order, adding that the requests would violate patients’ privacy rights and breach New York’s physician-patient confidentiality law. Her order applies to anyone who received medical treatment for gender dysphoria at medical practices in New York City, including New York University’s hospitals and Mount Sinai Health System.
“Whether a young person receives any type of medical care is a decision for that patient, their family, and their doctor, not for political appointees to decide, interfere with, or know,” Omar Gonzalez-Pagan, senior counsel and health care strategist at Lambda Legal, said in a Wednesday release. “The government cannot abuse its powers to violate the constitutional rights of transgender young people and their families.”
The groups filed a class action lawsuit against the Justice Department in early June after NYU Langone Hospitals received a subpoena from a federal grand jury in Texas to access medical records. The subpoena sought identities for anyone who received medical treatment for gender dysphoria from 2020 to May 2026 when they were under 18 years old.
The groups believed similar demands were sent to other hospitals in NYC. The Justice Department has recently used administrative subpoenas against Rhode Island Hospital to compel it to release pediatric records on prescriptions dispensed and other medical treatments used for transgender youth. A federal judge in Texas ordered Brown University Health to hand over records from the hospital, according to the Brown Daily Herald.
Sixteen states and the District of Columbia sued President Donald Trump and the Justice Department in August, alleging an executive order and the DOJ’s actions violate patients’ civil and privacy rights, as well as states’ rights to regulate medicine.
Subpoenas follow Bondi’s April 2025 memo
The Justice Department sought administrative subpoenas against practices across the nation after former Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a memo in 2025 to address what she said was a “radical ideological agenda” pushed onto children “to deny biological reality.” She called it tragic and absurd that 1.4% of kids aged 13 to 17 years old identify as transgender.
“The Department of Justice will not sit idly by while doctors, motivated by ideology, profits, or both, exploit and mutilate our children,” Bondi wrote. “Under my watch, the Department will act decisively to protect our children and hold accountable those who mutilate them under the guise of care.”
She sought the subpoenas for violations under the Food, Drug and Cosmetics Act and the False Claims Act.
According to GLAD Law, an LGBTQ+ legal organization, the federal government used the federal district court in northern Texas to obtain at least 20 near-identical subpoenas targeting medical practices.
The Williams Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles, estimated in 2025 that 2.8 million people aged 13 and up identified as transgender in the U.S. It later estimated that about 3.3% of the nation’s youth population (aged 13 to 17 years old) are transgender, or 723,700 people.
Actions by the Trump administration have hit the medical community, with leading medical organizations like the American Academy of Pediatrics calling the government’s actions “baseless intrusion.” It noted that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ placing of restrictions and eliminating grants on practices that treat gender dysphoria in youth makes it difficult for families to seek care.
“Patients, their families, and their physicians—not politicians or government officials —should be the ones to make decisions together about what care is best for them,” Dr. Susan Kressly, president of the AAP, said in December.
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Ella Rae Greene, Editor In Chief
