Government collected wide ranging and sensitive patient data by subpoena
CHRISTOPHER KANE | Washington Blade
Courtesy of the National LGBT Media Association
The Justice Department has asked hospitals to share a wide range of sensitive information about transgender patients younger than 19, according to a subpoena that was made public in a court filing last week.
Per the document, which was issued to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, the agency has demanded billing information, communication with drugmakers and data like patients’ birth dates, Social Security numbers and addresses, along with emails, Zoom recordings, “every writing or record of whatever type” providers have made, voicemails, and text messages.
The request covers material going back as far as January 2020, well before gender affirming care was banned anywhere in the U.S.
About half of the states have since passed restrictions, with the U.S. Supreme Court ruling them constitutional in this summer’s decision in U.S. v. Skrmetti.
Attorney General Pam Bondi announced in July that the Justice Department had issued more than 20 subpoenas seeking to hold “medical professionals and organizations that mutilated children in the service of a warped ideology” accountable.
Legal experts told the Washington Post that her disclosure of these details about the agency’s issuance of subpoenas was unusual, and that the breadth of information requested in the subpoenas was unprecedented. Sources told the paper that the subpoenas were sent to providers in states where it is legal to administer gender affirming care for minor patients and to providers in states that have passed bans or restrictions.
Jacob T. Elberg, a law professor and former federal prosecutor, told the Post that under federal privacy laws, the DOJ must show that its collection of sensitive and personally identifying patient information was for a legitimate law enforcement purpose.
In Texas in 2023, legislators passed — and Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law — Senate Bill 14, banning gender-affirming care for transgender youth under the age of 18. The Texas Supreme Court upheld the ban in June 2024.
SB 14 prohibits Texas healthcare professionals from providing transition-related medical care to minors, including hormone therapy, puberty-blocking medications and surgery. Transgender youth who were already receiving these medical treatments when the law was passed were required to be weaned off of them.
The law does includes exceptions for precocious puberty and medically verifiable genetic disorders of sex development, and it does not restrict or ban access to mental health care for transgender youth.
Medical providers who violate the ban risk having their licenses revoked.