U.S. Justice Department subpoenas health records of young transgender patients

The U.S. Justice Department has demanded numerous health care providers hand over sensitive records on care provided for young transgender patients, a court filing revealed last week.

Twenty-seven states ban most or all gender treatment for minors. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld a ban on such care in Tennessee in June.

That’s the same month, according to The Washington Post, that Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia received a subpoena for “every writing or record of whatever type” that its doctors have made on such care dating to January 2020—even before hormone therapy, puberty blockers and gender transition had been banned in any state.

“The subpoena is a breathtakingly invasive government overreach,” Jennifer Levi, senior director of transgender and queer rights at the legal advocacy group GLAD Law, told The Post. “It’s specifically and strategically designed to intimidate health care providers and health care institutions into abandoning their patients.”

In July, Attorney General Pam Bondi said publicly that more than 20 subpoenas had been issued, but would not identify the recipients, what information was being sought or any potential law violations.

The aim, she said, was to hold to account “medical professionals and organizations that mutilated children in the service of a warped ideology.”

Seven people who spoke anonymously to The Post because they feared retribution, said the subpoenas targeted care for patients under age 19. Providers who received them were not only in states where gender care for minors has been banned but also in some where it is legal.

The moves suggest federal officials are trying to build a case against providers, alleging they may have violated criminal and civil statutes while providing care that was not illegal in their states.

In the subpoenas’ wake, more than a dozen hospitals nationwide have ended or scaled back gender transition programs for people under age 19, according to The Post. Most are in blue states.

Meanwhile, some doctors who treat young trans patients where the care remains legal are wary they may face prosecution.

“Frankly, I’m looking over my shoulder driving home,” a Midwestern doctor said, after surrendering a work cellphone to supervisors after their hospital received a subpoena.

The Post reported that “dozens of hospitals, doctors and small clinics” contacted by the paper would not say if they had been subpoenaed and that some had received violent threats. Others were fearful of government backlash.

The subpoena to Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia was filed in court by the attorney general of Washington state, Nick Brown. He successfully sued earlier this year over a pair of executive orders from President Donald Trump that aimed to withhold federal funding from institutions that offer gender care to minors.

In legal documents, Brown said he added the subpoena to the court record because Trump has “only escalated” his attack on this care since a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction in March.

Meanwhile, 16 Democratic state attorneys general filed a lawsuit earlier this month, The Post reported, accusing the administration of unlawfully intimidating providers to end access to care in states where it remains legal.

An analysis of gender-affirming care published in JAMA Pediatrics reported that fewer than 3,000 teens across the U.S. receive puberty blockers or hormone treatments. Even fewer undergo gender-transition surgery.

Trump administration officials say endorsements of such care from major U.S. medical groups expose youth to permanent body changes they may not be old enough to understand fully.

Bondi’s chief of staff, Chad Mizelle, said last month that prosecutors would work to thwart what he described as “one of the greatest frauds on the American public.”

The Justice Department would not comment on its plans.

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