Judge Katherine Polk Failla Blocks Trump DOJ Subpoenas for Trans Minors’ Records in New York Hospitals

A federal judge in Manhattan temporarily blocked the Department of Justice from using grand jury subpoenas to obtain medical records of transgender minors who received gender-affirming care at NYU Langone, Mount Sinai, and other New York City hospitals.

U.S. District Judge Katherine Polk Failla granted a temporary restraining order after families and patients sued to block a grand jury subpoena demanding medical records of transgender minors who received gender-affirming care at New York City hospitals since 2020.

Advocate

Failla said the executive order was one of many issued by Trump that sought to “identify, to demonize, and ultimately to eradicate an entire population of transgender people.”

The order blocks the subpoena until the case’s next hearing on July 8, while the ruling also provisionally certified a class of people who received care from a New York City provider over the past six years.

Failla said the scope of information sought by the government was significant because it included medical assessments, diagnoses, informed consent records, and the “revelation of plaintiffs’ transgender status,” and she ruled it fell “squarely within the class of intimate materials warranting the strongest constitutional protection.”

She also said, “Because I cannot conceive of a crime that would require the breadth of disclosures in the subpoena,” the government’s interest did not outweigh the plaintiffs’ interest in privacy.

Advocate

The U.S. District Judge questioned whether the Justice Department’s statements left open the possibility that prosecutors may use the records to criminally pursue patients or their parents, and she said, “I’m hard pressed for reasons to rely on the government’s representations that even the patients would not be prosecuted.”

Chase Strangio, an ACLU attorney representing the plaintiffs, said the ruling was “thankful” and argued that “Patients and families trust their doctors with their most intimate, private information and should trust in turn that this information will be protected from impermissible and harassing demands for disclosure from the federal government or anyone else.”

The temporary restraining order bars investigators from seeking, receiving, using, retaining or disseminating identifying or sensitive information pertaining to the plaintiffs, and Failla set a July 8 hearing to decide whether to impose a longer-lasting preliminary injunction.

“A United States federal judge has blocked the Department of Justice (DOJ) from issuing subpoenas for the medical records of transgender patients who received gender-affirming care as minors from providers in New York”

Al Jazeera

The subpoena at issue was issued to NYU Langone Hospitals under a federal grand jury in Texas, and it asked the hospital to release documents “sufficient to identify every patient who underwent sex-rejecting procedures” and all records “from initial consultation to the most recent treatment provided.”

The ruling also provisionally certified a class covering people who received treatment for gender dysphoria while younger than 18 at New York City health care institutions, including NYU Langone and Mount Sinai Health System, from January 1, 2020, through May 5, 2026.

Lambda Legal attorney Omar Gonzalez-Pagan said the court’s order was “a victory for the basic privacy of our clients and all families like theirs across New York City,” while the Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment on Failla’s ruling.