New Yorkers urge noncompliance with DOJ’s criminal subpoenas for NYU Langone’s trans medical records

Elected officials and LGBTQ+ organizers gathered near New York City Hall on Wednesday morning, urging a major hospital system to reject what advocates described as an illegal subpoena seeking medical records for transgender youth.

NYU Langone Health announced last week that it was one of several hospitals nationwide to be subpoenaed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas. Prosecutors ordered the release of medical records for youth who received gender-affirming care from the hospital, plus information about their doctors, despite these records being protected under medical privacy laws.

NYU Langone has not yet disclosed whether it plans to comply with the subpoena and did not return The Advocate's request for comment. Organizers with several LGBTQ+ groups and elected officials who support them gathered in lower Manhattan on Wednesday to urge the hospital to keep these records private and to call for continued support for gender-affirming care from the city and state governments.

Related: Trump administration seeks transgender patient records from NYU Langone

Related: NYU Langone Hospital ends gender-affirming care program for trans teens after Trump funding threats

The subpoena “is an attempt to intimidate hospitals to eliminate public health care and push trans people out of public life,” said Kei Williams, executive director of the NEW Pride Agenda, during the rally. “Trans young people deserve dignity. They deserve privacy. They deserve safety, and the freedom to access health care without fear that their personal information will be turned over to political actors.”

Beyond its efforts to restrict gender-affirming care outright, the Trump administration has made repeated attempts to punish hospitals that legally provide gender-affirming services to transgender youth and to obtain medical records from their gender-affirming care programs.

The federal government has largely been unsuccessful because medical records, especially for minors, are strictly protected under laws like the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA.

A federal court recently denied the Justice Department access to medical records from a hospital system in the Washington, D.C. area. At least six other attempts to obtain patient records have faced challenges in court, according to Reuters.

“I urge every provider to fight these subpoenas,” Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Siegel said at the rally. “Every hospital in New York regards patient privacy as sacrosanct. Otherwise, no patient could feel comfortable walking through their doors.”

Organizers urged the hospital to take advantage of New York state’s “shield laws,” which prohibit officers and state officials from “cooperating with investigations into reproductive or gender-affirming health care” when those services were “lawfully provided in New York,” according to the New York attorney general’s office website.

Related: New York AG orders major medical center to resume gender-affirming care for youth

Related: Mount Sinai Hospital drops gender-affirming care for trans teens, leaving New York families worried

“New York lawmakers knew this moment was coming and prepared for it. We have some of the most robust shield laws in the country,” said the parent of a trans child who delivered remarks at the rally. “But laws are only as strong as the will to enforce them. So to the leaders of the state and city, and to the leadership of the hospitals that provide life- saving care to our children, I say: Hold the line.”

Wednesday’s rally was organized by several LGBTQ+ advocacy groups based in New York City, including PFLAG-NYC, Equality New York, the NEW Pride Agenda, and Trans formative Schools, as well as representatives from the NYC Trans & Queer Coalition. Organizers described the rally as a show of both collective pushback against the subpoena, plus support for trans health care at large.

The demonstration comes amid broader threats to gender-affirming care even in New York City, which has long been regarded as a hub for trans-inclusive health care in the United States.

Related: Hospitals dodge questions on restoring trans youth care despite judge ruling they can keep providing it

In December, the Trump administration threatened to revoke federal funding from hospitals that provided gender-affirming care to transgender youth, spurring hospitals across the country to cut off services to trans youth patients, including NYU Langone.

Despite a federal court ruling that the Trump administration cannot unilaterally order hospitals to stop providing gender-affirming services to youth, NYU Langone has not yet disclosed whether it plans to reopen its program to minors.

In the meantime, organizers like Clark Wolff Hamel, executive director of PFLAG NYC, urged trans youth and their families to continue organizing and hold out hope for the future.

“I was a trans youth, and I am proud to be a trans adult,” Wolff Hamel said at the rally. “I want to express to trans young people right now that I know that this is scary. [But] you can still grow up and thrive and be a happy, brilliant person.”