A New York hospital system has disclosed that it received a grand jury subpoena from federal prosecutors in Texas, requesting information about children who received gender-affirming care and the medical providers who administered it.
Subpoena Details
NYU Langone Health, which operates seven inpatient facilities and over 300 locations in the New York City area and Florida, stated on Tuesday that it was one of several institutions to receive a subpoena from the Northern District of Texas on May 7. The subpoena seeks records on patients under 18 who received gender-affirming care between 2020 and 2026, along with the names of their providers. The hospital system is currently evaluating how to respond.
Broader Context
This development is the latest in the Trump administration's efforts to restrict care for transgender youth. NYU Langone had previously announced earlier this year that it would cease such treatments for transgender children amid funding threats from the federal government. Last July, the Justice Department issued over 20 civil subpoenas to doctors and clinics providing gender care to minors, citing investigations into “healthcare fraud, false statements and more.” Then-Attorney General Pam Bondi stated that the DOJ was holding accountable “medical professionals and organizations that mutilated children in the service of a warped ideology.”
A federal judge in the Northern District of Texas recently ruled that Rhode Island Hospital in Providence must comply with a similar subpoena seeking records on gender-affirming care for children. During a federal court hearing in Providence on Tuesday, an attorney for the Justice Department declined to disclose when the grand jury had convened, citing public reports only. U.S. District Judge Mary McElroy ordered the DOJ to provide the affidavit related to the grand jury to attorneys in the Rhode Island case, as it had become public.
Legal Challenges and Reactions
Since the civil subpoenas were issued last year, court documents indicate that at least seven federal courts have quashed or limited the expansive requests, which demanded birth dates, Social Security numbers, and addresses of patients who received transgender care. As doctors and hospitals grapple with these subpoenas, 11 families filed a class-action lawsuit this week in Maryland federal court, seeking to block the DOJ from obtaining the documents. The lawsuit is supported by families with transgender children who have received care at hospitals across the United States.
The Justice Department stated on Tuesday that it does not comment on grand jury investigations. NYU Langone and the U.S. attorney’s office for the Northern District of Texas did not immediately respond to requests for comment. LGBTQ+ groups condemned the federal requests for gender care information. “We will not allow anti-trans extremists to turn our hospitals into hunting grounds,” said Tyler Hack, executive director of the Christopher Street Project, a transgender rights group in New York. “Playing political games to weaponize Americans’ private healthcare information is not just an attack on trans people — it is an attack on every single American who benefits from basic patient-provider privacy.”
