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Families of transgender youth in California learned this week that their private medical records will not be sent to the Trump administration, for now. That's after a federal judge temporarily blocked hospitals in California from producing any documents responding to criminal subpoenas from the Department of Justice.
For nearly a year, the DOJ has served hospitals with subpoenas, seeking detailed patient files of transgender youth, personnel files for clinicians, and other documents related to transgender healthcare. Attorneys for the government haven't articulated exactly what's being investigated, but they have pointed to the stated goal of President Trump to end gender-affirming care for youth.
Criminal subpoenas to hospitals
At first, the DOJ issued administrative subpoenas, and many of those were quashed in court. Now they've moved to criminal subpoenas using a grand jury in a federal court in Texas.
One was posted publicly by NYU Langone Medical Center last month. It is not known how many hospitals across the country have received the criminal subpoenas, but the notice from NYU says that it was "one of several institutions" to receive them. The Trump administration refers to transgender healthcare as "sex-rejecting procedures" in the subpoena.
The administrative and criminal subpoenas are practically identical, says Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for LGBTQ Rights, which has brought many of the lawsuits fighting these subpoenas. "Nothing has changed — they haven't uncovered some new reason or basis to be seeking these records," he says.
"It is pure harassment. It's just an effort to frighten people, to intimidate doctors out of providing the care and to frighten parents and make them afraid that the federal government is going to seek them out, identify them and harm their families in some way," he adds.
Stanford case brought by families
The win in California this week is significant, Minter says. A group of six families who received care at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford sued to block the hospital from sending any of their medical files to the Justice Department.
Right before a deadline for the hospital to send those files, a federal judge in the Northern District of California granted a request for a temporary restraining order that applies to the whole state.
A Justice Department spokesperson in a statement said "it will use every legal and law enforcement tool available to protect innocent children from being mutilated under the guise of 'care.'"
'Long journey to survive'
Arne Johnson is the parent of a trans teen in the Bay Area and a volunteer with the group Rainbow Families Action. He says even if the win is temporary, it's still a relief for parents like him. "This is like being in a stormy ocean right now — like you're floating on a raft and each individual wave is terrifying, but we also know we have a really long journey to survive," says Johnson, who is not a plaintiff in the case.
He says he's grateful to the families who brought the case and the attorneys representing them. "It's impressive and very noble in a time when people are compromising and turning their backs on our families," he says, fighting tears. "It just really means a lot to folks to see how hard people are working to fight for our kids."
So far, the many legal challenges to the Trump administration's attempt to get the medical files of transgender youth have been quite effective, Minter says. "We don't have any reason to believe that any hospitals have turned over records yet, but there would be no way to know that for certain," he adds.
At the same time, many hospitals and clinics that had been providing gender affirming care for young people all over the country have ended their programs, citing legal and financial pressure from the Trump administration. And this week, a federal judge in Maryland rejected a bid to certify a class of families of transgender youth nationwide to fight the administrative subpoenas.
Craig Konnoth is a professor specializing in health law and LGBTQ rights at the University of Virginia School of Law. He notes that the federal government's moves to get private medical records are unprecedented and could have effects far beyond transgender youth.
"It's not just search and seizure of medical records," he says. "It's the ability of the government to come after you, hoping that they'll be able to catch you out in something, that they will attach a label to afterwards, because they don't like the group that you belong to or the group that you're trying to assist."
That's why, he says, if the government succeeds in these efforts, the implications are vast.
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