Maryland judge: Trump's DOJ can’t have trans youth hospital records

A federal court has denied the Justice Department access to youth medical records from a gender-affirming care provider in the D.C. area.

Last summer, the Justice Department sent subpoenas for medical records to 20 hospitals nationwide that provided minors gender-affirming care, including Children’s National Hospital. The facility stopped prescribing minors gender-affirming medication soon after.

Eight families who accessed medical care through the hospital’s Gender Development Program filed a motion to quash the subpoena last November. The medical records at hand were “deeply private and constitutionally protected,” their motion read.

In a January 21 decision, U.S. District Judge Julie Rubin described the department’s effort as “a fishing expedition” and “an overreach,” denying the Justice Department access to plaintiff medical records. Rubin restricted the scope of her decision to those who filed the motion.

“It was just a huge sigh of relief,” said Donovan Bendana, a legal fellow for the Massachusetts-based legal nonprofit GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, which represented the families. “They had been under immense anxiety and stress.”

Bendana described the Justice Department’s effort as an attack on trans health care, but also health care protections more broadly.

“This was just a vindication of not only our clients, but everyone’s fundamental right to medical privacy,” Bendana told The Advocate. “This is a right that has long been recognized by the courts.”

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said last year that the Justice Department issued the subpoenas as a means of “enforcing the law” against health care providers “that mutilate children under the guise of medical care.”

While other hospitals sued over the subpoenas directly, Children’s National Hospital did not take the Justice Department to court. But the ruling in favor of its patients marks the latest in a string of legal setbacks for the department’s effort.

Subpoenas from at least six of the hospitals targeted last year by the Justice Department have sustained challenges in court, Reuters previously reported.

“What’s most important is that both hospitals and patients are pushing back,” Bendana said. “Patients will not sit idly as their intimate and personal medical records are demanded. That they will step up and vindicate those rights.”

This article was written as part of the Future of Queer Media fellowship program at The Advocate, which is underwritten by a generous gift from Morrison Media Group. The program helps support the next generation of LGBTQ+ journalists.