The Trump administration’s demand for the identities and medical records of transgender youths at a Stanford hospital is part of a “bad-faith campaign to intimidate hospitals into halting the lawful provision of gender-affirming care,” a federal judge ruled Thursday.
U.S. District Judge P. Casey Pitts of San Jose had on June 8 issued a temporary restraining order, without stating reasons, blocking President Donald Trump’s Justice Department from seeking or obtaining records of transgender minors receiving treatment at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford in Palo Alto.
On Thursday, Pitts stated his reasons in a preliminary injunction that will remain in effect while the case proceeds unless a higher court overturns it.
The Justice Department is seeking “disclosure of children’s private health information to officials who expressly intend to deprive them of medical care that their families, doctors, and the California legislature deem necessary and appropriate,” said Pitts, who was appointed by President Joe Biden.
Disclosure would violate the youths’ “constitutional right to informational privacy” and could make some of them reluctant to seek health care, the judge said.
He denied a request for a broader injunction that would apply to all hospitals in California, saying there was no evidence that the Justice Department was currently seeking records from any other hospital in the state. But Pitts said the administration “has been on a mission to end gender-affirming care for minors,” treatment that Trump, in a January 2025 executive order, described as “a stain on our nation’s history.”
The decision came two days after the Supreme Court ruled that states can prohibit transgender female athletes from competing on girls’ and women’s teams in public schools and colleges.The 6-3 ruling by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a Trump appointee, does not affect laws in California and 22 other states that allow transgender athletes to take part in their chosen sports programs.
Shannon Minter, legal director for the National Center for LGBTQ Rights, said Pitts’ injunction reaffirms that “parents and children have a constitutionally protected privacy interest in their medical records that the Trump administration must respect.”
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Pitts’ June 8 restraining order was not subject to appeal, but the department could appeal his injunction to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and later to the Supreme Court.
The Trump administration’s initial requests for identifying information about transgender youths were rejected by federal judges in a number of states. So, Pitts said, the Justice Department tried a new tactic in May: convening a grand jury in Texas to issue subpoenas to hospitals for an alleged criminal investigation, and demanding information about their patients’ identities and medical histories.
“That information has no discernible relevance to any federal healthcare offense” in Texas or anywhere else, the judge said.