Families Win Key Protections After DOJ Targets Records of Transgender Patients at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles
Megan Flynn, Law Fellow
On January 22, 2026, transgender patients of Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and their families, represented by Impact Fund, Western Center on Law & Poverty, and Lawyers for Good Government, achieved an important victory to protect their private medical information from unlawful intrusion by the federal government.
In June 2025, the Department of Justice issued an administrative subpoena to the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles demanding sweeping records related to the provision of gender-related care for minors, including information about the identities and private medical records of transgender youth patients. In response, six patients and their parents and guardians filed a motion to quash the subpoena on behalf of themselves and more than 3,000 other transgender youth patients and families whose identities and information the subpoena demanded.
For families whose children had received care at Children’s Hospital, the subpoena was terrifying. The Department of Justice demanded documents that would identify patients by name, as well as include medical records containing their most intimate information. Without assurances from Children’s Hospital that it would fight the subpoena on their behalf, transgender young people and their families feared that their records would be handed over to the Trump administration, exposing them to serious risk of harm including outing, harassment, violence, or even prosecution.
Plaintiffs went to court to defend their rights, arguing that the subpoena violated their constitutional rights to informational privacy, exceeded DOJ’s statutory authority, and was issued for an improper purpose. They sought to certify a class under Rule 23(b)(2) of all patients, and their parents and guardians, who sought or received gender-related care at Children’s Hospital during the years covered by the subpoena. Class certification would protect the records of the thousands of families targeted by the administration’s improper requests. Plaintiffs also requested to file their motions under pseudonyms to protect their identities.
Before the court ruled, the parties reached a settlement. Under the agreement, DOJ formally withdrew the subpoena requests that sought patient-identifying information and instructed Children’s Hospital to redact all such information from any documents produced. DOJ confirmed it had not already received any patient-identifying information and agreed if it does, it will not use that information to support any investigation or prosecution. The government also committed to providing advance notice to plaintiffs’ counsel if it seeks similar information again before February 1, 2029.
The subpoena to Children’s Hospital was part of the Trump administration’s coordinated campaign to intimidate, attack, and erase transgender people by investigating and threatening to prosecute doctors and clinics providing gender-affirming care. In June 2025, following executive orders and memoranda from President Trump and the Attorney General calling for such care to be investigated and ended, the Department of Justice announced it had issued more than twenty administrative subpoenas targeting hospitals and medical providers across the country, including Children’s Hospital. The day after the announcement, Children’s Hospital announced that it was closing its Center for Transyouth Health and Development, leaving families with few options for their children’s ongoing care. For decades, the Center had provided medically necessary gender-affirming care to transgender and gender-diverse youth.
The settlement brings critical protections and relief to families at a moment of profound uncertainty, and we are grateful that we get to support our extraordinary plaintiffs in their fight against the Trump administration’s inhumane and unlawful attacks on transgender people.
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