California families fighting to keep children’s health records private won a temporary victory in federal court Tuesday, after a judge in San José temporarily blocked hospital administrators from handing over their files to the federal government because of a subpoena.
The decision prevents Stanford Children’s Hospital, Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, from producing the children’s records for at least the next two weeks, while US District Judge P. Casey Pitts weighs whether a Texas judge can compel a California medical center to hand over its files to the Food and Drug Administration’s Office of Criminal Investigations in Kansas.
It also prevents the US Department of Justice from compelling records from any other California hospital that may be subject to similar subpoenas, the content and scope of which remain confidential.
The demand represents a major development in the Trump administration’s push to end gender-affirming care for transgender youth — a treatment it calls “sex denial procedures” and compares to child mutilation.
“One of the most alarming things about this is that major criminal proceedings have been shrouded in secrecy,” said Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for LGBTQ Rights and an attorney for the plaintiffs. “It is pure intimidation, designed to make people fear that they will be prosecuted for a crime.”
The Justice Department declined to comment on the criminal subpoena or any related investigation. But Minter and others say the move was unprecedented.
“The federal government has never used subpoenas to go after private medical records, let alone criminal subpoenas,” the attorney said. “They are banking on the public without concern because they are talking about a small group that is not popular but it is setting an example that will not be forgotten.”
California families learned that the Justice Department was only after their health records after NYU Langone Health disclosed that it had received a subpoena on May 7 in Fort Worth, Texas.
“The grand jury subpoenas obtained by LPCH and NYU Langone are so similar that both contain them the same typo,” said the California families’ complaint.
Stanford and NYU were among about 20 health care providers hit with public “administrative” subpoenas last July seeking similar information amid a coordinated, multi-corporate crackdown by the Trump administration to open records, seize millions in Medicaid funding and other dubious institutions that house transgender clinics across the country.
By the end of that summer, many of the country’s largest and most prominent clinics for transgender youth had closed or drastically reduced care, all but ending the supply of contraceptives, hormones and surgery to thousands of patients.
“They’re doing this to try to intimidate both medical providers and parents who want and need to protect their children,” said Jennifer Levi, executive director of transgender and queer rights at GLAD Law.
Parents feared that the government could use their children’s records to confiscate custody. Doctors were worried that they could be arrested and jailed for providing legal and widely known treatment to child patients.
Some clinics, including the now-shuttered Transyouth Health and Development Center at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, negotiated deals with the federal government to redact identifying information from the files they eventually turned over, while receiving assurances that the information would not be used in criminal prosecutions.
Others were sentenced in federal courts.
Now, that victory is being questioned.
“They’ve raised the bar by trying to follow this secret judicial process,” Levi said of the Trump administration.
Among the documents sought by the Texas subpoena are “complete personnel files” of any employee or contractor who examined patients seeking sexual care, performed surgery, or billed for it on behalf of the specified hospital, as well as all of their supervisors.
The subpoenas also seek “documentation sufficient to identify each patient” who received such care, as well as extensive medical records related to their diagnosis and treatment.
“I [NYU] The subpoena exposes medical providers and hospital administrators to multiple avenues of criminal enforcement just to provide this care,” wrote New York Atty. Gen. Letitia James in a brief in the US District Court for the Northern District of California on Wednesday.
In a statement, Stanford Children’s Hospital said it is “committed to complying with all laws, protecting the privacy of the patients we serve, and delivering the highest quality care.”
Meanwhile, the Department of Justice has so far sought to blame the game entirely.
Speaking in court Tuesday, Assistant US Atty. John Wollman answered carefully about the Texas subpoena issue at the heart of the suit.
“Obviously, we will not say anything to confirm or deny that there is a subpoena in the high court,” said Wollman. “Any motion to vacate this decision — assuming there is one — would have to be brought to the Northern District of Texas.”
The Justice Department did not respond to questions about why it pursued its case in Texas. But critics note that the state’s Northern region has long been considered a favorite for successive legal challenges.
“They bought the field,” said Minter. “The hospitals they are ‘investigating’ have absolutely no connection to Texas.”
The attorney emphasized that the administration’s victory in the Stanford case could prompt future investigations into more common treatments, such as HIV or abortion care.
“It sets an example that can be used by anyone,” he said. “This administration is crossing lines that, once crossed, are very difficult to reverse.”
