Medical records contain some of the most private information a person can possess. Diagnoses, treatments, medications and personal identities normally belong between patients and their doctors—not in the hands of politicians.
Yet the Trump administration’s Department of Justice has been trying to obtain identifying information and sensitive medical records belonging to transgender young people who received gender-affirming care.
Now, a federal appeals court has refused to let it do so.
On August 26, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit rejected the Justice Department’s request to suspend a lower-court injunction protecting transgender patients in the New York City area. As a result, the government remains blocked from obtaining their identities and sensitive health information while its appeal proceeds.
It is an important victory not only for transgender people, but for the basic principle that governments should need compelling and lawful reasons before obtaining citizens’ private medical information.
What did the government want?
The dispute began after NYU Langone Hospitals received a federal grand-jury subpoena in May.
It was extraordinarily broad.
The subpoena sought 17 categories of records involving patients who had received medical treatment for gender dysphoria while under 18 between January 2020 and May 2026. The requested material included information capable of identifying individual patients, along with details concerning their diagnoses and treatment.
Other New York City healthcare institutions, including Mount Sinai Health System, also received similar subpoenas, although the precise nature of some of those demands remains unclear.
This was also not an isolated attempt.
According to the ACLU, the Justice Department had previously issued administrative subpoenas to more than 20 healthcare institutions across the United States as it sought information concerning gender-affirming care. Courts repeatedly blocked such efforts.
After those setbacks, federal prosecutors turned to grand-jury subpoenas.
Families went to court
Three families with transgender children and two transgender young adults who had begun receiving care as minors sued the Justice Department and Attorney General.
They did so anonymously because the very information at the center of the case was intensely private.
Their lawyers argued that forcing hospitals to disclose their identities and medical information violated constitutional protections, including rights under the Fourth and Fifth Amendments. They also sought to prevent NYU Langone from releasing information protected by New York’s doctor-patient privilege.
The federal district court initially issued a temporary restraining order on June 24.
Then, on July 6, it issued a preliminary injunction preventing disclosure while the litigation continued. The court concluded that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed on their constitutional claims.
The Trump administration attempted to have that protection suspended while it appealed.
The Second Circuit said no.
A remarkable warning from the judge
Perhaps the most disturbing part of the case came before the appeals court became involved.
U.S. District Judge Katherine Polk Failla expressed profound concern about what the federal government was doing.
During the earlier proceedings, she described the pursuit of sensitive information concerning a particularly vulnerable population as potentially unconstitutional government overreach. She also drew attention to the broader political context surrounding the administration’s treatment of transgender Americans.
According to reporting by the Associated Press, Failla said the situation could appear as though the government were “rounding up” vulnerable people by collecting their most personal information. She warned that American history contains deeply troubling examples of governments identifying vulnerable populations.
Those are extraordinary concerns for a federal judge to raise.
The issue extends far beyond the political debate surrounding gender-affirming medicine.
Governments possess enormous investigative powers. When those powers are directed at an unpopular minority, constitutional protections become particularly important.
This is about privacy too
People can disagree about gender-affirming care for minors.
There are legitimate medical, ethical and political debates about which treatments should be available, at what ages, under what circumstances and with what safeguards.
But that debate is separate from another fundamental question:
How easily should the federal government be able to obtain the identities and private medical histories of people who legally received controversial healthcare?
Medical privacy matters precisely because patients may seek treatment involving subjects they would never want publicly disclosed.
Today the political target may be transgender healthcare. Tomorrow another government could become interested in reproductive care, psychiatric treatment, addiction, sexual health or some other deeply personal medical matter.
Privacy rights have little value if they protect only people whose decisions the government approves of.
Part of a much larger campaign
The subpoenas also cannot be separated from the Trump administration’s broader campaign against gender-affirming care for minors.
The administration has pursued numerous policies intended to restrict such treatment and has pressured healthcare institutions that provide it. The Justice Department’s attempts to obtain patient records have occurred within that wider political effort.
That context helps explain why affected families fear that the information could be used for purposes extending beyond an ordinary investigation.
Their lawyers have characterized the subpoenas as attempts to intimidate transgender young people, their families and healthcare providers. That is the plaintiffs’ allegation rather than a final judicial determination of the government’s motives.
The government, meanwhile, has presented its efforts as investigations into potential healthcare offenses. Earlier proceedings referenced possible violations involving the alleged misbranding of drugs.
Courts therefore have to determine where legitimate investigative authority ends and unconstitutional intrusion begins.
The government has lost repeatedly
The New York case is also notable because federal courts elsewhere have resisted similar attempts to obtain transgender patients’ records.
According to the organizations representing the New York plaintiffs, at least eight federal district courts have previously blocked related DOJ efforts. In separate litigation, judges have prevented disclosure of records from healthcare institutions in several parts of the country.
The Second Circuit decision does not permanently settle the underlying case.
This distinction matters.
The appeals court rejected the government’s attempt to pause the preliminary injunction while the appeal proceeds. It did not issue a final judgment declaring that the Justice Department can never obtain such records under any circumstances. The litigation continues.
For now, however, the patients remain protected.
Nobody should have to fear the government reading their medical file
Transgender people constitute a small minority of the population. That makes constitutional safeguards more important, not less.
Civil liberties become easiest to sacrifice when the people losing them are unpopular, misunderstood or politically powerless.
One does not need to agree with every position taken by transgender activists—or with every medical intervention—to recognize the danger of allowing political administrations broad access to the identities and intimate medical histories of citizens they have explicitly targeted through public policy.
The Second Circuit has, for now, kept that information private.
The larger legal battle is far from finished. But the principle at stake should transcend America’s culture wars.
Your medical history belongs to you.
A government that wants it should have to demonstrate an exceptionally good legal reason for taking it.
