Judge Blocks Trump DOJ From Obtaining Trans Youth Records in California

A federal judge in the Northern District of California has temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s Department of Justice from obtaining the names, medical records, and personal information of transgender youth who received gender-affirming care at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford. The ruling, issued by U.S. District Judge P. Casey Pitts on June 8, grants a temporary restraining order that applies statewide, preventing Stanford and potentially other California hospitals from complying with grand jury subpoenas issued by the DOJ.

The case, Z.A. v. Lucile Salter Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford, was brought by six California families with transgender children who argued that the DOJ’s use of a Texas grand jury to subpoena California medical records represented an unprecedented overreach that violated patient privacy rights. According to NPR, the order bars the government from taking further action to enforce similar demands while the court considers pending motions.

Background: A Nationwide Subpoena Campaign

The California ruling is the latest development in a broader legal battle that has unfolded across multiple states. Since July 2025, the DOJ has served subpoenas to more than 20 hospitals nationwide, initially using administrative subpoenas — many of which were quashed in court — before escalating to criminal grand jury subpoenas. NYU Langone Medical Center disclosed in May 2026 that it had received one such criminal subpoena and was “one of several institutions” targeted.

The subpoena in the California case was issued from the Northern District of Texas — a court with no apparent connection to California, Stanford Hospital, or the patients involved. It sought names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, home addresses, complete clinical histories, billing records, and private communications of every transgender minor treated at Stanford since 2020.

Previous Court Victories

Multiple federal courts have already blocked similar DOJ subpoenas. In Rhode Island, Judge Mary McElroy — a Trump appointee — issued a scathing ruling on May 13, finding that the DOJ acted in “bad faith” and made “intentionally and knowingly false” sworn statements. As Truthout reported, McElroy accused DOJ attorneys of “subterfuge” and found that a senior DOJ official had misrepresented facts to multiple federal courts.

Similar rulings have been issued in Maryland, where a federal judge blocked a subpoena against Children’s National Hospital in January 2026; in Pennsylvania, where a judge quashed a subpoena against a Philadelphia-area provider; and in Washington state, where a court found DOJ filings reflected “a fundamental misunderstanding — or deliberate misuse — of court procedure.”

However, the legal landscape remains mixed. On June 10, a federal judge in Maryland rejected a bid to certify a nationwide class of families to fight the administrative subpoenas, meaning hospitals must continue to challenge subpoenas individually, as Reuters reported.

Families and Advocates Respond

Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for LGBTQ Rights (NCLR), which represents the California families, said the DOJ’s actions amount to harassment. “Nothing has changed — they haven’t uncovered some new reason or basis to be seeking these records,” Minter told NPR. “It is pure harassment. It’s just an effort to frighten people, to intimidate doctors out of providing the care and to frighten parents.”

Jennifer Levi, senior director of transgender and queer rights at GLAD Law, which is co-counsel in the case, said the federal government is “engaging in extraordinary measures, using a secret grand jury process to try and pry into patients’ medical records.” She added that the court’s order gives families “the relief of knowing that private information about their children will not be immediately turned over to DOJ.”

Arne Johnson, a parent of a trans teen and volunteer with Rainbow Families Action, described the experience as “like being in a stormy ocean right now — like you’re floating on a raft and each individual wave is terrifying, but we also know we have a really long journey to survive.”

DOJ’s Position and Legal Strategy

A Justice Department spokesperson stated that the DOJ “will use every legal and law enforcement tool available to protect innocent children from being mutilated under the guise of ‘care.’” The Trump administration refers to transgender healthcare as “sex-rejecting procedures” in its subpoenas and has made ending gender-affirming care for minors a stated policy goal.

The DOJ’s legal theory rests on the claim that prescribing gender-affirming medications to minors constitutes illegal off-label prescribing. However, as Judge McElroy noted in her Rhode Island ruling, off-label prescribing is legal, common, and accounts for roughly one in five prescriptions written in the United States.

Broader Implications

The conflicting rulings across different federal circuits make Supreme Court review increasingly likely. Craig Konnoth, a professor of health law and LGBTQ rights at the University of Virginia School of Law, told NPR that the government’s actions raise concerns far beyond transgender youth. “It’s not just search and seizure of medical records,” he said. “It’s the ability of the government to come after you, hoping that they’ll be able to catch you out in something, that they will attach a label to afterwards, because they don’t like the group that you belong to.”

Meanwhile, the broader chilling effect has already taken a toll. Many hospitals and clinics across the country have ended their gender-affirming care programs for youth, citing legal and financial pressure from the Trump administration. With 27 states having enacted bans on gender-affirming care for minors, access to care continues to shrink for transgender youth nationwide.

What to Watch For

Judge Pitts is expected to consider whether to certify a class action in the coming weeks, which could expand the scope of the California ruling. The DOJ may also appeal the temporary restraining order. As the legal battles continue to produce contradictory outcomes across different federal circuits, the stage is set for a potential Supreme Court showdown over the limits of federal investigative power, medical privacy, and the use of grand juries for politically motivated investigations.