Judge blocks Trump DOJ from seizing trans youths’ medical records from NYC hospitals

A federal judge handed Lambda Legal and the American Civil Liberties Union a significant victory on behalf of transgender young people and their families on Wednesday, temporarily blocking the Trump administration from obtaining identifying information and sensitive medical records belonging to people who received gender-affirming care as minors in New York City.

U.S. District Judge Katherine Polk Failla restrained the Department of Justice from seeking, receiving, using, or disseminating the information through grand jury or administrative subpoenas. She also prohibited NYU Langone Health from turning over protected records.

Failla provisionally certified a class covering people who received treatment for gender dysphoria while younger than 18 at New York City health care institutions, including NYU Langone and Mount Sinai Health System, from January 1, 2020, through May 5, 2026.

The ruling follows months of retreat by New York hospitals under federal pressure. NYU Langone ended its Transgender Youth Health Program in February after the administration threatened federal funding for institutions providing gender-affirming care to minors. Mount Sinai curtailed care days later. Then, in May, NYU Langone notified patients that federal prosecutors in Texas had subpoenaed records and provider identities, prompting three families and two young adults to sue before the hospital could disclose them.

The judge found that the patients would face irreparable harm without intervention and were substantially likely to prevail on claims that the subpoenas violated their Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights. Disclosure by NYU Langone would also likely breach New York’s physician-patient confidentiality protections, she concluded.

"The subpoena expressly targeting members of a particular and uniquely vulnerable group both shocks ⁠the conscience and rises to the level of the most egregious official conduct," Failla said during a hearing earlier in the day, according to Reuters.

Related: Families ask judge to block Trump DOJ nationwide from getting trans kids’ medical records

The Justice Department has said the records are connected to an investigation into possible drug “misbranding.” The plaintiffs argue that the inquiry is a pretext for the administration’s campaign to eliminate gender-affirming care.

“Using subpoenas to attain the identities and sensitive health information of transgender young people … should send chills down the spine of every American,” Lambda Legal attorney Omar Gonzalez-Pagan said in a statement.

Chase Strangio, co-director of the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Rights Project, said families should be able to trust doctors to protect their private information from “impermissible and harassing demands.”

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

“BREAKING: A federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s bid to seize the medical records of trans youth,” the ACLU wrote on Bluesky. “We’ll continue the fight to defend trans youth’s right to privacy and end this harassment for good.”

At least eight federal courts previously blocked similar administrative subpoenas, Lambda Legal said. The Justice Department then turned to criminal grand jury subpoenas issued from Texas.

The temporary order protects patients while Failla considers longer-term relief.