DOJ appeals quashed subpoenas for gender‑affirming care records as clinics brace

The Justice Department has appealed several federal court orders that quashed administrative subpoenas seeking patient and personnel records from providers of gender‑affirming care, pressing an expedited review in the first case against a small telehealth clinic and setting up a national legal showdown over privacy, federal power and health policy.

More than 20 administrative subpoenas were issued to clinics and hospitals in a campaign that followed an executive order on Jan. 28, 2025 titled “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation” and an April 2025 Justice Department guidance from the attorney general ordering investigations into alleged violations of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act and other statutes. The subpoenas target records relating to puberty blockers and hormone therapies and invoke theories of misbranding or off‑label promotion by drug manufacturers and potential false billing.

The first appeal, fast‑tracked by DOJ, challenges a district court decision that quashed a June subpoena to QueerDoc, a telehealth provider serving adolescents and adults. U.S. District Judge Jamal Whitehead concluded the subpoena was improperly motivated and that the department had “weaponized its investigative authority” to advance policy objectives. DOJ attorney Sarah Welch told the Ninth Circuit that the district court “completely ignored the possibility that QueerDoc could be a witness to violations by manufacturers and distributors,” and argued more broadly that the government must be able to enforce existing laws even while pursuing policy advocacy: “It just can’t be right that the administration must choose between advocating for a policy outcome and using tools like regulatory actions and proposing legislation to achieve that outcome on the one hand, and enforcing existing laws to protect consumers within the same space where it’s engaging in policy advocacy.”

In Massachusetts, U.S. District Judge Myong Joun quashed an administrative subpoena seeking 15 categories of records at Boston Children’s Hospital, including personnel files for roughly 2,000 employees, billing records, consent forms and identifying information for minors. Judges in multiple districts have expressed sharp skepticism, with several writing that the DOJ was “motivated only by bad faith,” seeking “to fulfill its policy agenda through compliance born of fear,” and pursuing records “beyond the authority granted by Congress.”

In Pittsburgh, U.S. District Judge Cathy Bissoon reaffirmed her December denial of a subpoena to UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh and rejected the department’s offer to accept anonymized records, writing: “The patients have persuaded the Court that true and effective anonymization cannot be achieved. To the extent the DOJ has urged trust, moreover, it must understand why its assurances are cold comfort.” Mimi McKenzie, legal director at the Public Interest Law Center, said the subpoena sought deeply intimate clinical and psychiatric records and warned the effort is “an effort to intimidate providers from providing the care, an effort to intimidate families from seeking this care for their children.” She expects DOJ to appeal to the Third Circuit.

The appeals will determine whether the Justice Department can use administrative subpoenas to compel highly sensitive medical records in enforcement efforts tied to broader policy goals. Legal analysts and law firms Lowenstein and Morgan Lewis have cautioned that the litigation raises acute privacy risks and could produce precedent that either constrains or expands federal investigatory power. The department’s strategy to press an expedited appeal against a small clinic has drawn criticism from defense counsel, with Adrien Leavitt of the ACLU noting, “I think that there’s something profound about the fact that the government sought expedited review and was granted expedited review in this case, but didn’t do so in other cases.”

The outcome of the first appeals could shape DOJ’s approach in the dozens of other matters and, if appellate courts split, increase the odds of Supreme Court review. Hospitals, clinics and policymakers are watching closely; providers warn the litigation and the prospect of compelled disclosure may raise legal costs, invite heightened Medicaid scrutiny for those accepting public funds, and prompt some to curtail services to avoid future enforcement risk.