A federal judge has granted a temporary restraining order against the Department of Justice (DOJ) to prevent the DOJ from pursuing the private medical records of transgender youth receiving gender-affirming healthcare in New York City. The judge also granted the request for provisional certification of a class so that the order benefits not just the case’s plaintiffs, but other trans youth as well.
“We’re thankful the court has granted our emergency request to protect the privacy interests of transgender New Yorkers and their families,” said ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Rights Project’s Co-Director Chase Strangio. “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.”
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The ruling from U.S. District Judge Katherine Polk Failla comes in response to the DOJ’s year long campaign to obtain the medical records and personal information of trans minors who have received gender-affirming care. Last year, the DOJ sent out at least 20 administrative subpoenas to hospitals across the country requesting extensive documentation on these young patients.
In an escalation in May, the DOJ sought criminal subpoenas from a grand jury in Texas to obtain the same information. Because of the secrecy inherent in the grand jury process, it is not known how many hospitals might have received this, but NYU Langone announced to their patients that its handling of the subpoena has been in compliance with New York’s Shield Law.
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Those subpoenas have been quashed every time they have been challenged in court, with judges calling them “fishing expeditions” intended to “harass” and “intimidate” as part of an effort to end gender-affirming care through “fear.”
The New York lawsuit was brought by Lambda Legal, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) on behalf of three families of trans minors who received care at Langone before the health center suspended its program. The case also represented two young adults who received treatment when they were minors. The requested motion sought relief and asserted that the DOJ was violating trans youth’s Fourth Amendment protections against unlawful search and seizure and their Fifth Amendment right to privacy.
In her hour-long ruling announcement from the bench, Law Dork reports, Failla called the endless subpoenaing by the DOJ and the repeated quashing of them “worse than a game of wack-a-mole.” She went on to say that the DOJ’s hunt for these minors’ private information “shocks the conscience,” and that it was done without “any legitimate government interest.”
In her decision, Failla agreed with the lawsuit and found that the plaintiffs met the requirements to receive the relief they were requesting since they had demonstrated that they will suffer irreparable harm and that the DOJ’s demand for their “identifying and sensitive” health information would “run afoul of constitutional protections for their informational privacy and against unreasonable searches and seizures.”
The provisional class certification means that any decisions in the case won’t simply affect the plaintiffs themselves, but anyone else who is part of that class, meaning all individuals who received gender-affirming care while under the age of 18 from a healthcare institution located in New York City between January 1, 2020 and May 5, 2026.
The temporary restraining order issued by Failla prevents the DOJ from “seeking, receiving, using, retaining, or disseminating any identifying or sensitive health information of Plaintiffs and members of the Class” through subpoenas or similar tactics as part of their “claimed investigations into health care offenses related to gender-affirming care.”
Additionally, the order restricts city hospitals from “disclosing or producing” the documents the DOJ has been requesting.
A temporary restraining order typically expires after two weeks, so this gives the plaintiffs a grace period where the DOJ won’t be able to move forward with the case. Failla has scheduled a preliminary injunction hearing for July 8, at which point the case will continue moving forward.
Notably, this is not the only attempt to beat back these subpoenas by establishing a class of plaintiffs. A similar case is playing out in California, and its judge has been made aware of Failla’s ruling in New York, which might aid the plaintiffs in securing a class certification there.
Additionally, a case came before Maryland District Court Judge Julie Rubin earlier this month, requesting a much broader class be certified, one which would include all trans minors whose medical information was requested by the DOJ as part of this investigation. While that class would have put an end to the subpoena whack-a-mole, Rubin denied the request on a technical issue over whether she had the authority to grant such a wide class certification across so many state lines.
When the court reconvenes in New York on July 8, the fight will continue, as Strangio said in a statement.
“For the past year, the Trump administration has not only decided that it knows better than these families and their doctors what their medical needs are, but has also sought to obtain troves of sensitive information about patients in New York. We will continue to fight on behalf of these families and the fundamental liberty of all transgender New Yorkers and those who come here to seek needed medical care,” Strangio said.
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