Judge blocks subpoena for medical records of transgender kids in N.Y.
by Lisa Hornung · UPIJune 24 (UPI) -- A federal judge in New York on Wednesday rejected the Trump administration's efforts to subpoena medical records of minors who sought gender-affirming care in local hospitals in recent years.
U.S. District Judge Katherine Polk Failla provisionally certified a class of people who received care from a New York City provider over the past six years. She also issued a temporary restraining order that bars investigators from the records, including through a grand jury subpoena that had been issued to NYU Langone Hospitals.
Ruling from the bench on Wednesday, Failla said, "The scope of information sought by the government here, which includes medical assessments, diagnoses, informed consent records, and revelation of plaintiffs' transgender status, is significant," she said, adding that the health data falls "squarely within the class of intimate materials warranting the strongest constitutional protection."
She also noted that the crime isn't clear.
"Because I cannot conceive of a crime that would require the breadth of disclosures in the subpoena -- identifying and sensitive medical information for an entire class of people for a six-year period -- I have to find that the government's interest does not outweigh the plaintiffs' interest in privacy," Failla said.
She added that statements made by the Justice Department implied that the patients could be criminally prosecuted.
"I'm hard pressed for reasons to rely on the government's representations that even the patients would not be prosecuted, especially given the inability to comment on any aspect of the alleged investigation or the subpoena," she said.
The parents of several children who got the treatments in New York City asked Failla to block the records from being released to investigators because they feared they could face retaliation by the Trump administration.
The subpoena was issued to NYU via a federal grand jury in Texas. It asked the hospital to release documents "sufficient to identify every patient who underwent sex-rejecting procedures" and all the records related to those people "from initial consultation to the most recent treatment provided." It also demanded the hospital turn over records showing authorizations from parents for their minor children to receive care.
The hospital said in May that it received the subpoena and the class action lawsuit to stop the release was brought about a month later. NYU stopped providing gender-identity care for minors this year after the administration threatened to pull federal funding from the hospital. Other hospitals have also ended their programs after government pressure.
Failla pointed to other court rulings that have disallowed the release of medical records, saying prosecutors were clearly trying to get around the rulings by using grand jury subpoenas, which are more difficult to block.
"Undeterred by its disastrous showing in the courts, [The Department of Justice] decided to issue nearly identical document requests in the form of grand jury subpoenas," she said. She criticized the government's "efforts to recast discredited civil administrative subpoenas as grand jury subpoenas from a hand-picked, far-away jurisdiction in order to minimize judicial review of constitutional infirmities."
The plaintiffs are "thankful the court has granted our emergency request to protect the privacy interests of transgender New Yorkers and their families," said Chase Strangio, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney who represents the plaintiffs, in a statement.
"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."
The plaintiffs are also represented by the LGBTQ rights group Lambda Legal and the New York Civil Liberties Union.
Omar Gonzalez-Pagan, senior counsel and healthcare strategist at Lambda Legal, applauded the ruling.
"Our laws and our Constitution recognize that we all have a right to confidentiality about the most intimate and private information about ourselves," Gonzalez-Pagan said in a statement. "Whether a young person receives any type of medical care is a decision for that patient, their family and their doctor, not for political appointees to decide, interfere with or know. The government cannot abuse its powers to violate the constitutional rights of transgender young people and their families. It is an enormous relief for these families that the court has stopped them from doing so as this case proceeds."
Another hospital, Stanford University's Lucile Salter Packard Children's Hospital, said it received a grand jury subpoena from prosecutors in Texas conducting the investigation into gender-identity care.
A group of patients who received care from that hospital are seeking a similar court order to prevent their records from being released to officials.