Update: On July 31, the US District Court for the Northern District of California denied the DOJ’s motion for a stay pending appeal. The DOJ will continue to not be able to access the sensitive medical records of patients receiving trangender medical care at Lucile Salter Packard Children’s Hospital while the appeal is pending.

Six California families are asking a federal court to stop the Trump administration’s Department of Justice from using a grand jury subpoena issued more than 1,500 miles away to seize their children’s confidential medical records from Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford. The lawsuit, filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, raises serious questions about the limits of federal investigative power and the privacy of the doctor-patient relationship. 

Read the complaint

Read the Motion for Temporary Restraining Order

The families – whose children are transgender youth who received care at Stanford, ranging from counseling to prescribed medication – were given no notice that federal prosecutors in Texas had demanded their identities, diagnoses, treatment histories, and even their parents’ signed consent forms. They learned about the subpoena only through public reports involving other hospitals that received nearly identical demands.

Simply put: The Department of Justice is misusing its investigative power to target families. Federal courts have made clear that these subpoenas serve no legitimate purpose – they are meant to harass and intimidate people to advance a political agenda. Medical privacy is not optional, and everyone should be alarmed by the federal government’s demand for access to people’s private, protected information.

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On June 8, the US District Court for the Northern District of California issued an emergency order blocking the Department of Justice from seizing the confidential medical records of California families whose children receive transgender health care.

On July 31, the US District Court for the Northern District of California denied the DOJ’s motion for a stay pending appeal. The DOJ will continue to not be able to access the sensitive medical records of patients receiving trangender medical care at the hospital while the appeal is pending.