Trump's DOJ Demanded Six Years of Children's Medical Records; Two Hospitals Settled to Protect Them

Trump Ordered the Campaign; DOJ Sought the Records

In May 2026, Trump's Justice Department demanded more than six years of identifying medical records for transgender patients treated as minors at NYU Langone and Stanford's Lucile Packard Children's Hospital.¹² Judges Katherine Polk Failla in New York and P. Casey Pitts in California blocked the demands after finding likely constitutional violations.³² In September, NYU and Mount Sinai settled with DOJ; both said they did so to protect patient privacy, and committed to end the targeted care. Both New York hospitals had stopped their trans youth health programs earlier in 2026, before the settlements.⁴⁵⁶⁷⁸ A demand for children's private medical histories became pressure to abandon their care.²⁶⁵

Trump ordered the enforcement campaign: on January 28, 2025, he signed Executive Order 14187, directing DOJ to prioritize investigations of deception, fraud and violations of federal drug law associated with pediatric gender-transition care, subject to applicable law.⁹ The order called that care a "dangerous trend" and said "it must end".⁹ DOJ says its nationwide hospital investigation carried out that directive.⁷

Six Years of Clinical Histories and Family Authorizations

The NYU subpoena, dated May 6, 2026, came from a grand jury in Fort Worth, Texas.¹ It covered January 1, 2020 through May 5, 2026, and demanded every covered patient's identity, diagnoses, assessments, treatment history, informed consent and parent or guardian authorizations.¹ The demand ran from the initial consultation to the most recent treatment, rather than selecting patients whose billing DOJ had identified as suspicious.¹

At Stanford, Pitts wrote, the requested information included names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers and detailed medical histories; the hospital's lawyer, he noted, put the demanded records in the tens of thousands.² A parent, B.B., told the court, "Disclosure would ruin our trust in the medical system."² Pitts found that loss of privacy, chilled conversations with doctors and the risk of government harassment could not be undone.²

A Texas Grand Jury After the Earlier Demands Failed

Stanford had produced non-patient records and spent nine months negotiating anonymized patient records when DOJ withdrew its administrative subpoena on May 6.² The next day DOJ served a grand jury subpoena of nearly identical scope, under the seal of the Northern District of Texas.² Pitts found that DOJ changed subpoenas to "avoid another loss" and force the hospital and its patients into a forum the Department considered friendlier.²

On July 2, Pitts found the Stanford patients likely to win their constitutional privacy claim and barred DOJ from obtaining their identifying and sensitive medical information.² He denied protection for all California patients because the plaintiffs had not shown the same disclosure threat at other hospitals.²

Failla's July 6 injunction protected patients treated as minors in New York City, including NYU and Mount Sinai, during the same period.³ She found them substantially likely to win their constitutional privacy and unreasonable-search claims, and barred NYU from producing their protected information.³ At NYU alone, she found well over 40 qualifying minor patients.⁴ In the June 24 oral ruling underlying the injunction, she found that targeting this uniquely vulnerable group "shocks the conscience" and reaches "the most egregious official conduct".⁴

Failla was also not satisfied that NYU could adequately anonymize the records to protect patients' privacy, given their volume and the identifying information throughout them.⁴

On the separate New York confidentiality claim her rulings conflict: the June 24 oral decision did not find likely success, but her signed order that day said NYU's compelled disclosure would breach physician-patient confidentiality.⁴¹⁰ The July 6 injunction barred disclosure to preserve the status quo and prevent irreparable harm, without repeating that conclusion.³

The Government Has Investigative Power, and Won One Appeal

DOJ's strongest defense is that it has authority to investigate drug-law violations and fraudulent billing, that the President may set enforcement priorities, and that grand jury secrecy safeguards sensitive records.⁷¹¹² In New York, it told Failla it viewed patients as victims and would not prosecute them.⁴ One appeals court has sided with DOJ: on August 14, in the separate QueerDoc case, Ninth Circuit Judges Carlos Bea and Daniel Bress held the administrative subpoena authorized and relevant, and found the clinic had not met its heavy burden to prove an improper purpose.¹¹ The administration's opposition to gender-affirming care, the majority held, did not itself invalidate an otherwise permissible investigation; Judge Richard Paez dissented.¹¹ Paez argued in dissent that the record supported the lower court's finding that DOJ used the subpoena as a pretext to pressure providers to stop gender-affirming care.¹¹ The court remanded overbreadth and undue-burden objections and allowed consideration of patient-privacy objections and protective orders.¹¹

On the Stanford demand itself, Pitts found DOJ's need for identifying patient information negligible and the records almost certainly irrelevant to a Texas grand jury investigation.² He also rejected secrecy as a complete safeguard, because federal prosecutors could share grand jury material with state officials assisting the investigation, including Texas officials.² Failla noted that DOJ gave no equivalent promise for parents or doctors, and declined to rely on its assurances about patients.⁴ On July 31, Pitts refused to pause his injunction, explaining that DOJ could seek permission from the Texas court to present confidential evidence of investigative need but had supplied none.¹²

Patient Privacy Became a Reason to Settle

In September both New York hospitals settled, each citing patient privacy.⁶⁵ On September 4, DOJ announced that Mount Sinai agreed to cease puberty blockers, hormones and surgical interventions for minors, pay an unspecified penalty, and dedicate $2 million to free care for people suffering adverse consequences of treatments they received as children.⁸ Gothamist reported that spokesperson Lucia L. Lee said Mount Sinai entered the agreement to protect patient privacy and avoid compelled production of sensitive records to the grand jury.⁶ On September 18, DOJ announced NYU's agreement to cease the targeted interventions and pay $8.5 million.⁷ NYU said the agreement resolved the investigations and removed the threat of surrendering confidential information about patients treated as minors.⁵

DOJ acknowledged that the settlements resolved allegations only, established no liability, and that the hospitals denied the allegations.⁸⁷ NYU said pediatric mental health programs and care for patients 18 and over would continue.⁵

DOJ also credited NYU for ongoing cooperation in investigations of other entities over potential federal-law violations connected to this care.⁷ Five Federal Regulators covers related FTC pressure on advocacy groups; in a separate case, Judge James Boasberg found likely retaliation against the World Professional Association for Transgender Health and found it had stopped some educational and certification programs for fear of government targeting or loss of members' privacy.¹³

The Records Were Protected; the Agreements Committed Hospitals to End Care

NYU stopped these services in February 2026 in response to federal funding threats, Failla recounted; Gothamist reported that Mount Sinai also ended its youth program earlier in 2026, before the September settlement.⁴⁶ The agreements secured the hospitals' commitments to end the targeted care, advancing the goal Trump's order set and DOJ pursued.⁹⁸⁷ Quincy May Cavanagh, 21, a Mount Sinai patient, told Gothamist that she began estrogen treatment at 17 and experienced an immediate improvement in her mood and demeanor.⁶ People like her, she said, would now be unable to get the care.⁶

Plaintiffs' counsel says no patient information was disclosed to DOJ through the New York settlements.¹⁴ Protecting the records did not restore the programs: the hospitals agreed to cease the interventions anyway.⁸⁷¹⁵

The Charge as of October 10, 2026

As of October 10, 2026, the New York injunction remained in full effect, plaintiffs' counsel reported; the Second Circuit had denied DOJ's request to pause it.¹⁶¹⁴¹⁷ DOJ had appealed the Stanford block, and the case remained ongoing, according to the Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse.¹⁸¹⁹ Both July rulings were preliminary injunctions, not final judgments.³²

Trump ordered an enforcement campaign to end this care, subject to applicable law.⁹ His Justice Department sought entire classes of children's confidential histories, changed tactics after judicial losses, and obtained agreements to end care from hospitals that cited patient privacy as their reason for settling.²⁶⁵⁷ That is an abuse of investigative power: the threat to children's medical privacy became pressure to abandon their care.²⁶⁵