Jan 23 (Reuters) – The U.S. Department of Justice has agreed to withdraw a subpoena demand that Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles turn over records identifying over 3,000 transgender youth who received gender-affirming care at the hospital.<\/p>\n
The agreement was reached on Thursday, opens new tab<\/a> after judges in several other states rejected efforts by President Donald Turmp’s administration to subpoena providers of transgender healthcare for patient information.<\/p>\n Sign up here.<\/a><\/p>\n At least seven judges in recent months have sustained challenges<\/a> to some of the more than 20 subpoenas that the DOJ under the leadership of U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi has said it issued to doctors and clinics involved in providing gender-affirming care to children nationwide.<\/p>\n One such subpoena was issued in June to the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles as part of what the Justice Department said was an investigation into potential violations of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act and related offenses.<\/p>\n The hospital that same month said it would close its Center for Trans Youth Health and Development and Gender-Affirming Care program, effective July 22.<\/p>\n The Justice Department in related cases had said it had issued subpoenas to healthcare providers in order to investigate the off-label promotion or unlawful dispensing of puberty blockers and hormones to minors.<\/p>\n Parents of six children who had received gender-affirming care from the hospital filed a class-action lawsuit in federal court in Los Angeles in November seeking to quash the subpoena, which they said improperly sought their families’ medical information in violation of their privacy rights.<\/p>\n The subpoena requested information identifying any patients prescribed puberty blockers or hormone therapies; the diagnoses that formed the basis of those prescriptions; and any disclosures about off-label use of the treatments and their potential risks.<\/p>\n According to Thursday’s settlement agreement, the Justice Department recently withdrew that portion of the subpoena request and instructed the hospital to redact any patient-identifying information in documents it produced in response to a demand for billing and insurance records.<\/p>\n Under the agreement, the Justice Department agreed to notify the plaintiffs’ lawyers if it nonetheless does receive information identifying patients.<\/p>\n Cori Racela, executive director for Western Center on Law & Poverty, which represented the plaintiffs, in a statement on Friday said the settlement “is a crucial affirmation that health care decisions belong in exam rooms, not government subpoenas.”<\/p>\n “No one’s private health records should be turned into political ammunition \u2013 especially children,” Racela said.<\/p>\n A DOJ official in a statement said it had not fully withdrawn the subpoena but instead withdrew three requests for patient records “based on the subpoenaed entity’s representation that it did not have custody of any such records.” The settlement would avoid needless litigation, the official said.<\/p>\n “As Attorney General Bondi has made clear, we will continue to use every legal and law enforcement tool available to protect innocent children from being mutilated under the guise of ‘care’,” the DOJ official said.<\/p>\n The subpoenas to the healthcare providers were issued after Trump, shortly after taking office in January 2025, signed an executive order ending all federal funding or support for gender-affirming care for transgender youth.<\/p>\n The order described such care as a “stain on our Nation\u2019s history,” a “dangerous trend” and a form of “chemical and surgical mutilation.” The order directed the Justice Department to prioritize investigations concerning such treatments, which Bondi then directed the department to do.<\/p>\n The case is In Re 2025 Children\u2019s Hospital of Los Angeles Subpoena, U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, No. 2:25-cv-11183.<\/p>\n For the plaintiffs: Amy E. Powell of Lawyers for Good Government; Helen Tran of Western Center on Law & Poverty; and Lori Rifkin of Impact Fund<\/p>\n For the Justice Department: Scott Dahlquist of the Justice Department<\/p>\n Read more:<\/p>\n DOJ subpoenaed hospital to end gender-affirming care through ‘fear,’ judge says<\/a>Judge rejects DOJ’s subpoena to Children’s Hospital Colorado over transgender care<\/a>Judge blocks Justice Department’s transgender care subpoena to Boston Children’s Hospital<\/a><\/p>\n Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston<\/p>\n Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab<\/a><\/p>\n Purchase Licensing Rights<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n Nate Raymond reports on the federal judiciary and litigation. He can be reached at nate.raymond@thomsonreuters.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jan 23 (Reuters) – The U.S. Department of Justice has agreed to withdraw a subpoena demand that Children’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":303087,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[275],"tags":[82519,95749,83110,82794,82803,102139,107299,87652,82802,83404,83113,18,45748,83117,87209,135,475,474,87211,19,17,82798,721,15368,83121,149336,96153,82524,107298,102138,83104,87647,82790,83402,82508,1540,82964,82558,88225,96152,83363,92983,83126,82534,88232,82533,107,83127],"class_list":{"0":"post-303086","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-amers","9":"tag-chld","10":"tag-civ","11":"tag-clj","12":"tag-destlit","13":"tag-destociv","14":"tag-destogov","15":"tag-destohlt","16":"tag-destolit","17":"tag-destopub","18":"tag-dli","19":"tag-eire","20":"tag-gen","21":"tag-govact","22":"tag-hea","23":"tag-health","24":"tag-health-care","25":"tag-healthcare","26":"tag-heca","27":"tag-ie","28":"tag-ireland","29":"tag-judic","30":"tag-legal","31":"tag-lgbt","32":"tag-lgsps","33":"tag-lgsps1","34":"tag-medreg","35":"tag-namer","36":"tag-nrlinogov","37":"tag-nrlpaociv","38":"tag-nrlpaoconl","39":"tag-nrlpaohlt","40":"tag-nrlpaolit","41":"tag-nrlpaopub","42":"tag-pol","43":"tag-potus","44":"tag-regs","45":"tag-reuters-legal","46":"tag-rhpilawsuits","47":"tag-rhpiregulatory","48":"tag-rsbiregulatory-oversight","49":"tag-rulestrump","50":"tag-soci","51":"tag-topcmb","52":"tag-topicpharma-healthcare-policy-regulation","53":"tag-topnws","54":"tag-us","55":"tag-wash"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=303086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303086\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/303087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}