Judge blocks Texas prosecutors from seeking New York transgender patient records

U.S. District Judge Katherine Polk Failla on Tuesday blocked Texas prosecutors from getting medical records of transgender patients treated at New York City hospitals, halting a subpoena fight that had reached deep into the files of vulnerable patients and their families. Failla said the government’s effort to obtain the most sensitive records of a “uniquely vulnerable group” over a six-year period was “most egregious” and unconstitutional.

The temporary restraining order stopped the Justice Department from obtaining records sought through a criminal grand jury subpoena served on NYU Langone Hospitals on May 7 by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas. The subpoena covered patients treated from Jan. 1, 2020, through May 5, 2026, and Failla said there were at least 40 people who received treatment at NYU Langone alone during that period.

Three families of transgender youth and two transgender young adults, represented by Lambda Legal, the American Civil Liberties Union and the New York Civil Liberties Union, brought the lawsuit in federal court in the Southern District of New York. The plaintiffs sought to block the Justice Department from obtaining identifying information and sensitive medical records for patients who received gender-affirming care at NYU Langone and other New York City hospitals. The Justice Department tied the subpoena to a probe of potential misbranding of drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

Failla’s ruling extended a separate agreement reached on June 4, when the Justice Department and NYU Langone agreed that no documents covered by the lawsuit would be turned over before Tuesday’s hearing. The judge said the government had shifted to criminal investigations after similar civil demands were rejected by courts elsewhere. The subpoena fight comes amid the Trump administration’s wider campaign against gender-affirming care for minors. The Justice Department has issued subpoenas to more than 20 health care institutions nationwide after other legal strategies were blocked. Major medical groups consider gender-affirming care medically important for people with gender dysphoria, even as 27 states have limited or banned such care for minors and the Supreme Court ruled in June 2025 that states could do so under the Constitution.