Trump DOJ demands NYU Langone patient records of trans youth who underwent gender-affirming care

NYU Langone was hit last week with a federal subpoena demanding it turn over records of patients under 18 years old it’s provided gender affirming care to since 2020, the health provider said in a publicly posted statement. 

The New York-based health system is one of several institutions across the country to receive a grand jury subpoena from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Northern District of Texas. Alongside requesting patient records of transgender youth, the subpoena also demands the names of healthcare professionals who provided the care.

In its statement, NYU Langone said that it understood the development “may be concerning to patients, providers and others,” takes the privacy of protected health information “seriously” and is “evaluating [its] response to the subpoena.” 

Pursuant to the state’s Shield Law, NYU Langone must notify the state’s attorney general and make a reasonable attempt to notify patients at least 30 days before providing information in response to the subpoena, which would mean it has not yet provided the requested information to the DOJ.

The Department of Justice did not respond to a request for comment. The subpoena is the Trump administration’s latest in a long line of actions against gender affirming healthcare, which has repeatedly taken to court to reduce access to that care for trans people across the country. 

New York Attorney General Letitia James said that the state has “strong protections in place to protect the privacy of patient records” when asked for comment on the subpoena.

“Every health care institution in New York should seek to protect both patients and providers,” James said. 

The attorney general has previously said that a hospital choosing not to provide gender affirming care could be a violation of state law and has spoken in support of trans youth. She could challenge the subpoena in court.

Gender affirming care has a regret rate of less than 1%, lower than nearly all elective procedures, and has been shown to decrease the chances of trans youth committing suicide by 73%. Gender affirming care for trans youth requires parental consent and involves a significant amount of consultation, assessment and therapy before healthcare professionals begin prescribing procedures or hormone treatments. 

Gender affirming care for trans youth typically involves drugs known as puberty blockers, which stop a person from going through the puberty associated with their birth-assigned sex, and, in later teen years, hormonal replacement therapy, so they can move through the puberty aligned with their gender identity. Sex reassignment and breast modification surgeries are typically only available to people over the age of 18, but in rare cases, may be carried out when a person is 16 or 17 years old. 

In a statement, LGBTQ advocacy group Christopher Street Project said that NYU Langone" has a moral and legal obligation" to stand up to the Trump administration and hold the line to protect their patients.

"We will not allow anti-trans extremists to turn our hospitals into hunting grounds," the statement says. "The law requires that every single New Yorker, trans or not, receive essential healthcare."

With reporting by Matt Tracy.