FILE - The U.S. Department of Justice logo is seen on a podium before a news conference, May 4, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)
FILE - The U.S. Department of Justice logo is seen on a podium before a news conference, May 4, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — A judge temporarily blocked federal prosecutors in Texas from getting access to the medical records of transgender patients treated at New York hospitals on Wednesday, saying they were part of an improper government effort to “demonize and eradicate an entire population of transgender” people.
Judge Katherine Polk Failla ruled a day after hearing oral arguments in Manhattan, calling the government's pursuit of the most sensitive medical records of a “uniquely vulnerable group” of patients treated over a six-year period to be “most egregious” and unconstitutional.
Failla accused the Justice Department of turning to criminal probes as a way to obtain otherwise private records about those undergoing transgender care after judges across the country repeatedly rejected similar requests through civil means.
The Justice Department had sought the records as part of a probe of potential “misbranding” of drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
A message seeking comment from the Justice Department was not immediately returned.
Omar Gonzalez-Pagan, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, called the ruling “a victory for the basic privacy of our clients and all families like theirs across New York City.” He added in a statement that using subpoenas to attain the identities and sensitive health information of transgender young people “should send chills down the spine of every American.”
Failla ruled in a lawsuit filed this month on behalf of minors, their parents and young adults who received medically necessary gender-affirming care in New York City.
According to the lawsuit, NYU Langone Hospitals was one of several institutions to receive a federal grand jury subpoena on May 7 from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Texas. The request for records regarding transgender patients came from a special agent of the Kansas City office of criminal investigation of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Failla said there were at least 40 individuals who received treatment at NYU Langone alone during the Jan. 1, 2020 to May 5, 2026 period covered by the subpoenas.
Most major medical groups say access to gender-affirming care is important for people with gender dysphoria. Transgender teens, parents and providers have described it as life-saving for children who are depressed or suicidal because their gender identities do not match the gender assigned them at birth.
Gender-affirming care can include counseling, medications that block puberty, hormone therapy to produce physical changes or surgeries, although those are rare for minors.
Twenty-seven states have limited or banned gender-affirming care for minors, and the that they could do so under the U.S. Constitution.
President Donald Trump has transgender rights. During his second term, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has moved to to block gender-affirming care for minors, and the DOJ has demanded putting that often rely on federal funding to operate.
At the outset of reading a lengthy ruling to the parties participating in an electronic proceeding, Failla noted that the “current administration” had issued orders in the first few days of its existence in which it “sought to demonize and eradicate an entire population of transgender individuals.”
Before she finished nearly an hour later, Failla had granted class-action status to the plaintiffs and ruled that the Justice Department had violated the Fourth and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution with its subpoenas. She also set a July 8 hearing to hear additional evidence before deciding whether to impose a preliminary injunction, the next step in the legal process after she issued a temporary restraining order on Wednesday.
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Associated Press Writer Kimberlee Kruesi in Providence, Rhode Island, contributed to this report.
