By Nate Raymond and Luc Cohen
June 24 (Reuters) – A federal judge on Wednesday blocked the U.S. Department of Justice from using subpoenas to obtain medical records of transgender patients who as minors received gender-affirming care from New York City healthcare providers.
U.S. District Judge Katherine Polk Failla in Manhattan issued a temporary restraining order at the behest of several families and patients who sued after NYU Langone Health disclosed it received a grand jury subpoena as part of the Trump administration’s crackdown on treatments for transgender youth.
That subpoena was issued by a grand jury in the Northern District of Texas, a venue long popular among conservative litigants and that had recently emerged as a hub for the Justice Department’s criminal investigation.
The Justice Department shifted toward using grand jury subpoenas from Texas after numerous judges nationally quashed some of the 20-plus administrative subpoenas it had previously issued to doctors and clinics providing such care in July 2025.
It had issued them after President Donald Trump, shortly after taking office in January 2025, signed an executive order ending all federal funding or support for gender-affirming care for transgender youth, and directing the Justice Department to prioritize investigations into such treatments.
Failla, who was appointed by Democratic President Barack Obama, said that executive order was among several Trump issued “that sought to identify, to demonize, and ultimately to eradicate an entire population of transgender people.”
She said the patients and families pursuing the class-action lawsuit before her were likely to prove that the Justice Department’s sweeping demand for six years of their sensitive medical records “shocks the conscience” and infringes on their rights to privacy in violation of the U.S. Constitution’s Fourth and Fifth Amendments.
“Whether by accident or by design, the administration’s policies vis-a-vis transgender persons embody a concerted effort to obtain deeply private information about an entire class of individuals without their knowledge or consent,” she said.
She scheduled a July 8 hearing to decide whether to issue a preliminary injunction that would further block the DOJ’s efforts once her 14-day restraining order expires.
“Today’s order from the court is a victory for the basic privacy of our clients and all families like theirs across New York City,” Omar Gonzalez-Pagan, a lawyer for the plaintiffs at the LGBTQ rights group Lambda Legal, said in a statement.
The Justice Department declined to comment.
Failla ruled hours before another federal judge was set to hear arguments in a similar case over whether to block the Justice Department from obtaining information on transgender patients from California hospitals, including Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford, which also received a grand jury subpoena.
A third federal judge has blocked the Justice Department from receiving records from Brown University Health-operated Rhode Island Hospital. The hospital has in the interim turned over medical records to a Texas judge whose court is holding onto them while appeals play out.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston and Luc Cohen in New York; Editing by Bill Berkrot)
Comments