Mamdani Backs Challenge to Trump DOJ’s Demand for Transgender Minors’ Medical Records

The New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced Monday that the city had filed an amicus brief in support of transgender patients seeking to block a federal grand jury subpoena demanding all records from NYU Langone related to minors who received gender-affirming care since 2020.“Last week, our Law Department filed an amicus brief in support of transgender New Yorkers, affirming a simple principle: your medical decisions and personal health information belong to you, not the government,” Mr. Mamdani said on X Monday. In May, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in North Texas in Fort Worth, acting on behalf of President Donald Trump’s Justice Department, hit NYU Langone Hospitals with a federal grand jury subpoena demanding records related to, and the identities of, patients under 18 who received gender-affirming care between 2020 and 2026. This includes treatment records, informed consent records, and communications with the World Professional Association for Transgender edHealth. The Justice Department also requested documents showing whether NYU used diagnosis codes other than those that specifically identified transgender care when documenting treatment for minors. Additionally, the Justice Department demanded the personnel files for all NYU Langone providers involved in a patient’s “Sex-Rejecting Procedures.” The Justice Department argued that the 1996 Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which protects sensitive health information, allowed for these records to be disclosed as the information was “relevant and material to a legitimate law enforcement inquiry.”In its amicus brief, the City called the Justice Department’s subpoena “part of the current federal administration’s broader campaign to bring an end to gender-affirming care for transgender youth” that also violated privacy rights and presented “a serious barrier for an already vulnerable group of City residents.”“With a long history of activism for rights protecting gender minorities, the City is home to one of the largest transgender populations in the country, including many transgender minors and young adults,” city attorneys write in their amicus brief.Since returning to office in 2025, Mr. Trump has targeted national health providers and individual states that deliver gender affirming care — like puberty blockers and gender reassignment surgery — that he claimed in an executive order “will be a stain on our Nation’s history.” In December, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. proposed new regulations that include ending Medicaid and Medicare funding to hospitals that provide gender-affirming care to minors, which Mr. Kennedy called “malpractice.”“Sex-rejecting procedures rob children of their futures,” Mr. Kennedy added. Gender-affirming treatment is still legal and covered by Medicaid in nearly two dozen states. In June, three New York families with transgender children and two transgender adults who received care when they were minors sued the Justice Department and demanded a temporary restraining order for subpoenas issued to NYU and other hospital groups like Mount Sinai Health System, arguing that medical records were protected by the Fourth and Fifth amendments. In the suit, attorneys argued that the Justice Department had “shifted tactics” to secure these records through a criminal subpoena after similar efforts to do so through civil subpoenas were either quashed or limited in scope by the federal courts. On X Monday, Mr. Mamdani said he was “proud to stand with trans and queer young people across New York in defending privacy and dignity for all.”

Mamdani Backs Challenge to Trump DOJ’s Demand for Transgender Minors’ Medical Records

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