Trans youth sue over DOJ demand for medical records

MANHATTAN (CN) — Transgender patients and their families sued the Justice Department and U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche on Tuesday over the Trump administration’s efforts to force hospitals to disclose the identities of young trans people.

Last month, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas sent grand jury subpoenas to more than 20 health facilities, including New York City’s NYU Langone Hospital, demanding information about gender-affirming care provided to trans youth, including the plaintiffs, between 2020 and 2026.

Calling the move “part and parcel of the efforts by the current federal administration to ’end’ gender-affirming medical care for transgender people,” the patients’ families filed a class action in the Southern District of New York against Blanche, the Department of Justice and NYU Langone. They’re backed by attorneys from Lambda Legal, the American Civil Liberties Union and the New York Civil Liberties Union.

The patients — two young adults and three minors whose families are suing on their behalf — are asking the court to prevent the administration from forcing the disclosure of their identities and medical histories. Each of the plaintiffs was a minor when they received gender-affirming care at NYC hospitals during the years in question.

In the 47-page lawsuit, the patients argue that the Trump administration’s demands violate their constitutional protections against unreasonable search and seizure. Information sought, by a June 10 deadline, includes patients’ diagnoses, assessments and courses of treatment.

“The subpoenas represent a gross overreach of governmental power, founded on an improper purpose to ’end’ gender-affirming medical care and cast transgender persons into the shadows,” the plaintiffs write.

They also bring their claims under New York privacy law, and seek a temporary restraining order blocking enforcement of the NYU Langone subpoena.

“The Trump administration has been clear that it will use every tool it has to harass and intimidate hospitals into shutting down necessary and, at times, lifesaving care for transgender youth,” Karen Loewy, senior counsel at Lambda Legal and the director of its constitutional law practice, said in a statement announcing the suit. “But we will not allow the privacy rights of those youth and their families to be sacrificed as DOJ abuses its authority.”

‘Mislabeling’ investigation

When President Donald Trump resumed office last year, his administration “began a broad-based systematic campaign attacking transgender people based on a mandate to eradicate ‘gender ideology,’ the administration’s derogatory term for acknowledging the existence of transgender people,” the plaintiffs say.

Trump in a Jan. 28, 2025, executive order said 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 theFDA’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.

“These subpoenas are a baseless intrusion into the doctor-patient relationship, demanding medical professionals substitute their expertise for the Trump administration’s politics,” Elizabeth Gill, senior counsel for the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Rights Project, said in a statement announcing Tuesday’s lawsuit. “By weaponizing federal investigations, the administration is trying to scare hospitals into dropping patients and abandoning families.

“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,” Gill added.

The U.S. Justice Department did not immediately return a request for comment.

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