Federal judge blocks DOJ from getting its hands on trans children’s private medical records

A federal judge in California has ruled that the Justice Department likely cannot lawfully obtain confidential medical records identifying transgender minors who received gender-affirming care at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford. The ruling delivers a significant setback to a yearlong federal campaign targeting providers of such care.

U.S. District Judge P. Casey Pitts issued the preliminary injunction Thursday in Z.A. v. Blanche, barring DOJ, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, and anyone acting on their behalf from requesting, receiving, or otherwise obtaining records that would identify Packard patients as having sought or received gender-affirming care, disclose their diagnoses or clinical assessments, or reveal consent and parental authorization documents tied to that care.

Related: California families sue to stop Trump DOJ from obtaining trans kids’ records via Texas grand jury

Jennifer Levi, senior director of transgender and queer rights at GLAD Law, one of the organizations representing the families alongside the National Center for LGBTQ Rights and the law firm Lowell & Associates PLLC, said the ruling should ease parents’ fears.

“CA families can breathe a sigh of relief,” Levi told The Advocate after the ruling. “This decision makes clear no family should fear that seeking lawful healthcare for their child will put them in the government’s crosshairs.”

Levi explained that while the judge’s order applies only to Stanford patients, it is the only hospital in the state to have received such a subpoena so far.

Pitts opened his 43-page order by describing DOJ’s broader effort to “end” gender-affirming care for minors experiencing gender dysphoria as the backdrop for the dispute. The order traces how DOJ first sought Packard’s patient records through an administrative subpoena in July 2025, only to withdraw it in May 2026, the day before serving a nearly identical grand jury subpoena on the hospital. That subpoena was issued under seal in the Northern District of Texas, despite Packard, its patients, and the care in question all being located in California.

Related: Families fight the Trump administration's effort to obtain their children’s private medical records

DOJ argued that because it had shifted to a grand jury subpoena, the families’ only recourse was to challenge it in the Texas court that issued it. Pitts rejected that argument at this stage of the case, concluding that the relevant federal rule likely does not bar the families from suing in California to stop officials from acquiring the records. He also found that DOJ had not seriously defended its need for the information on the merits, instead relying on procedural objections.

He wrote that the department “does not meaningfully defend the propriety of its demand” for sensitive patient information, found that the records had “no obvious relevance” to an indictment in Texas, and said DOJ had at most a “minimal” need for access to the information. He also noted that other courts had concluded DOJ’s earlier subpoenas appeared aimed at interfering with states that protect gender-affirming care, intimidating hospitals, and discouraging patients from seeking treatment. In Pitts’ view, the government had not shown a legitimate reason to obtain records that could identify transgender minors and expose their diagnoses, assessments, treatment rationales, and family consent documents.

The court provisionally certified a class of Packard patients who received gender-affirming care as minors, though not the broader statewide class plaintiffs sought, finding insufficient evidence that patients at other California hospitals faced the same immediate threat.

Related: Judge blocks Trump DOJ’s latest effort to obtain medical records of transgender minors

Pitts also warned of lasting damage should the records be disclosed, writing that the resulting loss of privacy, chilling of doctor-patient communications, and risk of governmental harassment “cannot be undone.”

The Advocate contacted Stanford Medicine Children’s Health for comment Thursday but did not immediately receive a response.

Pitts’ ruling places the Stanford case in a growing line of federal court defeats for DOJ’s effort to obtain transgender youth medical records. As The Advocate previously reported, federal courts in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Rhode Island, and New York have blocked or limited similar attempts, including subpoenas seeking records from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Children’s National Hospital, Rhode Island Hospital, NYU Langone, and Mount Sina. In those cases, courts questioned DOJ’s authority, the relevance of the records sought, or the constitutional privacy interests of transgender minors and their families.

The injunction remains in effect for the duration of the litigation unless a court orders otherwise.

"The court held that parents and children have a constitutionally protected privacy interest in their medical records that the Trump administration must respect," Shannon Minter, National Center for LGBTQ Rights legal director, told The Advocate in a statement. "Families in California can now sleep at night knowing that this blatant attempt to harass and intimidate them and to dictate how they raise their own children has been stopped. Today’s preliminary injunction ruling is a strong indication our case will succeed on the merits."