The Mount Sinai Health System has received a grand jury subpoena demanding information about adolescent patients who have received gender-related care, a spokeswoman for the hospital confirmed on Friday.<\/p>\n
That makes Mount Sinai the second Manhattan hospital system to publicly say its gender-transition treatments for minors are under federal investigation. The Trump administration has sought to put an end to gender-transition treatments for adolescents, claiming they harm impressionable and vulnerable children.<\/p>\n
The first hospital system, NYU Langone, disclosed last month<\/a> that it had received a subpoena demanding information \u201csufficient to identify each patient\u201d under 18 who had received gender-related treatments since 2020. That subpoena, as well as the one sent to Mount Sinai, was issued by the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas, according to information provided by the hospitals. <\/p>\n \u201cWe are committed to safeguarding our patients\u2019 privacy,\u201d a spokeswoman for Mount Sinai, Lucia Lee, said in a statement on Friday. Ms. Lee\u2019s statement said little about whether the hospital would try to challenge the subpoena.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we are ultimately required to produce records, our current plan is to provide only de-identified information, with all patient-identifying details removed,\u201d Ms. Lee said.<\/p>\n The statement noted that the hospital was required by New York law to notify affected patients \u201cin the event that the records are ultimately produced.\u201d<\/p>\n One mother with a 17-year-old son who received gender-related treatment at Mount Sinai said she had received a call on Thursday from a Mount Sinai social worker. According to the mother, Dawn Gabriel, the social worker told her that the hospital would be sharing anonymized details from her child\u2019s medical records with the federal government.<\/p>\n Ms. Gabriel said her family was \u201cin panic mode.\u201d Even if some identifying details were removed from the records, she said the federal government was likely to be able to identify her son, or anyone else from the medical records turned over by the hospital.<\/p>\n She said she felt \u201cbetrayed\u201d by Mount Sinai. \u201cFor a world-class medical institution to treat their patients, especially politically vulnerable ones like this, it\u2019s horrifying to me,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The subpoena and the notification calls were first reported by Gothamist<\/a> on Thursday.<\/p>\n Over the past decade, several hospital systems in New York had built up robust transgender health programs<\/a>. Some have focused on adolescent patients who say they are experiencing distress over a mismatch<\/a> between their gender identity and their birth sex, known as gender dysphoria.<\/p>\n Some parents and patients have described the treatments they have received as critical for their well-being, reducing depression and distress, experts say<\/a>.<\/p>\n Over the past year, the Justice Department and other federal agencies have launched broad investigations into the youth transgender health programs at major hospitals across the nation.<\/p>\n The investigations are examining<\/a> whether medical providers may have engaged in fraudulent billing<\/a>, or have wrongly omitted warnings<\/a> about risks to adolescent patients and deceived them by making unsubstantiated claims about the effectiveness of puberty blockers and hormone treatments.<\/p>\n The investigations and threats to pull federal funding have succeeded by blunt force in fulfilling the goal that President Trump announced at the outset<\/a>. Across the nation, major hospitals have shut down their medical programs for transgender children, and they no longer prescribe puberty blockers or hormones to minors who want to transition.<\/p>\n That has surprised many parents and patients in New York, where many families with transgender children initially predicted the city\u2019s medical institutions would be insulated.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s no safe place, and I want New York to be a safe place,\u201d Ms. Gabriel said. \u201cSo this is distressing.\u201d<\/p>\n But the investigations do appear to have run into some hurdles. Over the past year, the Justice Department has issued more than 20 subpoenas<\/a>. But in case after case, hospitals have been able to challenge those subpoenas, with some judges in those cases finding that they had been issued for an \u201cimproper purpose,\u201d such as to harass or intimidate, and they ruled that the hospitals did not need to turn over some records.<\/p>\n But the rulings that were favorable to hospitals tended to be in states where pediatric gender transition treatments remain legal. About half the states have barred such treatments, including Texas.<\/p>\n The latest subpoenas to these hospitals were issued by a grand jury in the Northern District of Texas. Some earlier subpoenas were issued by the Justice Department directly. To challenge the scope of the grand jury subpoena, the hospitals could have to litigate in the U.S. courthouse in Texas where the subpoena came from.<\/p>\n