When the U.S. Justice Department sought information from doctors and clinics that provide gender-affirming care for young transgender patients, officials weren’t just asking for policies. They also demanded information about individual patients.
Attorney General Pam Bondi announced in a statement July 9 that the department had sent more than 20 subpoenas to doctors and clinics that provide the care. The request represented an elevation in President Donald Trump’s administration’s effort to halt the medical treatment for transgender youth, even in states where it’s legal.
Bondi said the requests were part of investigations into “healthcare fraud, false statements, and more.” No charges have been announced so far, but the probes have had a chilling impact on the availability of care.
Specifics of the requests were not made public until a court filing in a separate lawsuit this week.
Advocates say the requests are invasive and unnecessary.
“It turns doctor-patient confidentiality into government surveillance,” said Jennifer Levi, GLAD Law’s senior director of Transgender and Queer Rights.
At least one of the requests seeks names and social security numbers of patients
The subpoena sent to Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia on June 11 was included in a legal filing Monday in challenges from the states of Minnesota, Oregon and Washington to the administration’s attempts to bar the treatment for patients under age 19.
The 18-page document demanded an expansive list of documents be provided.
Among them: Documents to identify “by name, date of birth, social security number, address and parent/guardian information” patients who were prescribed puberty blockers or hormone therapy.
The requests also covered personnel files for various categories of hospital employees, information about patient intake procedures and about which insurance billing codes the hospital used for gender-affirming care.
The due date listed was July 9.
It’s not clear whether subpoenas sent to other providers were identical.
The Department of Justice declined comment and the hospital did not respond to a request for comment.
Gender-affirming care has emerged as part of a political and legal battle
Gender-affirming care includes a range of medical and mental health services to support a person’s gender identity, including when it’s different from the sex they were assigned at birth. It encompasses counseling, medications that block puberty and hormone therapy to produce physical changes as well as surgeries to transform chests and genitals, though those are rare for minors.
Most major medical groups say access to the treatment is important for those with gender dysphoria and see gender as existing along a spectrum.
While there’s wide, if not universal, medical consensus, the political situation is contentious.
Since 2021, at least 27 states have adopted laws restricting or banning the care for minors, and a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in June affirmed the states’ right to have such policies, at least under certain conditions.
The Alaska State Medical Board on Friday is set to consider a resolution that would deem doctors who perform gender-affirming care of minors “as constituting unprofessional conduct.” The board directed one of its members, a podiatrist, to help draft the statement that could declare practitioners who perform the care “as being grossly negligent and therefore subject to disciplinary sanctions,” according to the minutes of the board’s June meeting.
The resolution was proposed after it asked the Alaska Legislature to ban such treatments for minors, but lawmakers took no action.
Trump has signed one executive order defining sex as only male or female — and as unchangeable — and another that seeks to end federal funding of the care for patients under 19. He’s also sought to bar transgender military service members and keep transgender athletes out of certain sports competitions.
And the administration released a document that questions the standards of treatment for transgender youth and suggests relying solely on talk therapy rather than medical interventions.
The investigation is one reason some clinics have halted the care
At least eight major hospitals and hospital systems announced in July that they were stopping or restricting gender-affirming care, even though they’re in states where it is not banned.
Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia is not among those that have announced they’re curtailing care, though a place it has referred patients for surgeries — Penn Medicine — said in May that it would no longer perform them on patients under 19.
A group of Democratic state officials across the country are suing the Trump administration, claiming it is intimidating healthcare providers to stop the care.
GLAD Law’s Levi said the investigation is just one of many factors that have led providers to change their policies.
“It’s chilling,” she said.
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Associated Press reporter Mark Thiessen in Anchorage, Alaska, contributed to this article.
