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MANHATTAN (CN) — A federal judge on Wednesday blocked the Trump administration from obtaining sensitive medical records from New York City healthcare facilities that provided gender-affirming care to minors in recent years.
U.S. District Judge Katherine Failla signed the four-page order granting a temporary restraining order to transgender patients and their families who sued the Justice Department and U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche earlier this month after federal prosecutors in Texas sent grand jury subpoenas to more than 20 health facilities demanding information about gender-affirming care provided to trans youth since 2020.
The plaintiffs demonstrated they will suffer irreparable harm without the court’s action, Failla said, and that they’re likely to prevail on claims that the Justice Department’s move runs afoul of constitutional privacy protections. They’re also likely to win claims against NYU Langone, a co-defendant and one of the facilities targeted in the government subpoenas, under New York confidentiality laws.
The patients — two young adults and three minors whose families are suing on their behalf — were all minors when they received gender-affirming care at NYC hospitals during the years in question.
The federal government is seeking information including patients’ diagnoses, assessments and courses of treatment.
Failla, a Barack Obama appointee, enjoined the federal government from “[s]eeking, receiving, using, retaining, or disseminating any identifying or sensitive health information” of the plaintiff class through the subpoenas at issue, or “substantially similar administrative or grand jury subpoenas” as part of the department’s “claimed investigations into health care offenses related to gender-affirming medical care.”
Backing the plaintiffs are attorneys from Lambda Legal, the American Civil Liberties Union and the New York Civil Liberties Union.
Omar Gonzalez-Pagan, senior counsel at Lambda Legal, said the order is a victory for families’ basic privacy.
“It is no secret that this administration will use every lever in its power to attack transgender people and fulfill its misguided goal to ‘end’ gender-affirming medical care — care that is legal and protected in New York state. Using subpoenas to attain the identities and sensitive health information of transgender young people to effectuate such goals should send chills down the spine of every American,” Gonzalez-Pagan said in a statement.
“The government cannot abuse its powers to violate the constitutional rights of transgender young people and their families. It is an enormous relief for these families that the court has stopped them from doing so as this case proceeds.”
The Justice Department declined to comment on the ruling.
President Donald Trump issued a Jan. 28, 2025, executive order declaring the U.S. “will not fund, sponsor, promote, assist or support” gender-affirming medical care for minors.
In April 2025, then-Attorney General Pam Bondi directed the Justice Department’s civil division to investigate drug companies that make and distribute puberty blockers and sex hormones for potential violations of the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, probing those businesses for “misbranding” by making false claims about on- or off-label uses of those drug therapies.
“Even if otherwise truthful, the promotion of off-label uses of hormones — including through informal campaigns like those conducted by sales reps or under the guise of sponsored continuing medical education courses — run afoul of the FDA’s prohibitions on misbranding and mislabeling,” Bondi wrote.
The subpoenas that followed have been met with lawsuits around the country asking the courts to test the limits of medical privacy laws. Courts quashed or limited the scope of the subpoenas in several states including Washington, Colorado and Maryland.
“As courts across the country have already told this administration, this heavy-handed overreach has nothing to do with fraud prevention; it is a direct attempt by politicians to interfere with the New York’s exercise of its police power to ensure the health and welfare of its residents, override parental rights and block families from making their own private healthcare decisions,” Elizabeth Gill, senior counsel for the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Rights Project, said in a statement announcing the lawsuit.
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