DOJ drops demand for Children’s Hospital L.A. transgender care records

The U.S. Department of Justice has agreed to halt requests for medical records identifying young patients receiving gender-affirming care from Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, ending a legal standoff with families who had sued to block the subpoena that some feared would be used to criminally prosecute parents of transgender children.

The settlement, filed Thursday in federal court, allows the hospital to retain certain records and redact personal information from others receiving gender-affirming treatments; Trump administration officials compared it to mutilation of children, even though the nation’s leading medical associations support such care.

Many parents of CHLA patients expressed deep relief Friday while acknowledging that other threats to their families remain.

Jesse Thorn, the father of two transgender children who are patients at Children’s Hospital, said hospital officials ignored his requests for information about whether they shared his children’s data with the Trump administration, which he said is frightening. He said it was a “double” relief to hear that they hadn’t and now they won’t.

“The increase in threats to our family is so relentless that one of the things that compounded it was the uncertainty about what the federal government knows about our children’s medical care and what to do about it,” he said.

It is less clear whether the agreement provides new protections for doctors and other hospital staff who provide clinic care and have also been targeted by the Trump administration.

The settlement follows similar victories by families elsewhere in the country who wanted to block such disclosures by gender-affirming care clinics, including a decision Thursday for families of transgender children treated at Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C.

“What was unique here was that this was a class action lawsuit,” said Alejandra Caraballo, a civil rights attorney and law instructor at Harvard who was not involved in the Los Angeles case. “I can’t tell you what a huge benefit it is to protect the records of all these patients.”

Some cases continue due to families’ fear that appeals to higher courts may result in different results. There are also Republican-backed bills moving through Congress to restrict gender-affirming care for teens.

Another father of a transgender patient at Children’s Hospital, who asked to remain anonymous out of fear for his child’s safety, said he was grateful for the agreement but did not see it as the end of the road. He fears the Trump administration could renew the subpoena if it wins appeals in cases elsewhere.

“There is some comfort, but that doesn’t close the book,” he said.

The Justice Department said in a statement to The Times that it “did not withdraw the subpoena. Instead, it withdrew three requests for patient records based on the entity’s representation that the entity subject to the subpoena did not have custody of such records.”

“This settlement avoids unnecessary litigation based on this fact and also instructs Children’s Hospital Los Angeles to redact patient information in documents responding to other subpoena requests,” the Justice Department said in its statement. “As Attorney General Bondi has made clear, we will continue to use every legal and law enforcement tool available to protect innocent children from being maimed under the guise of ‘care’.”

Children’s Hospital did not respond to a request for comment.

“This is a huge victory for every family who refuses to be afraid to back down,” Khadijah Silver, director of Gender Justice and Health Equity at Good Government Lawyers, which helped file the lawsuit, said in a statement Friday. “The government’s attempt to tamper with children’s medical records was unconstitutional from the beginning. Today’s settlement confirms what we have said all along: these families did nothing wrong, and their children’s privacy deserves to be protected.”

Until last summer, the Trans Youth Health and Development Center at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles was among the largest and oldest pediatric gender clinics in the United States and one of the few to offer puberty blockers, hormones and surgical procedures to transgender youth with public insurance coverage.

It was also among the first programs to be shut down under coordinated, multi-agency pressure from the White House. Ending treatment for transgender children has been a central policy goal for the Trump administration since the president took office last year.

“These threats are no longer theoretical,” Children’s Hospital administrators wrote to staff in an internal email announcing the clinic’s closure in June. “[They are] It threatens our ability to serve the hundreds of thousands of patients who depend on CHLA for life-saving care.”

In July Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi announced that the Justice Department will subpoena patient records from gender-affirming care providers, noting that medical professionals in particular are the target of an investigation into “organizations that maim children in the service of a distorted ideology.”

California law explicitly protects gender-affirming care, and the state and others led by Democrats have fought back in court, but most providers across the country have shuttered under White House pressure, raising fears of a de facto ban.

Parents feared the subpoenas could lead to child abuse charges and that the government could then use it to take away custody of their children. Doctors feared being arrested and jailed for providing medical care that was widely supported by medical organizations and legal in the states where they provided the service.

The Justice Department’s subpoena to Children’s Hospital Los Angeles initially requested numerous personal identification documents; specifically called for requests for records “sufficient to identify each patient.” [by name, date of birth, social security number, address, and parent/guardian information] those prescribed puberty blockers or hormone therapy.

It also called for records “related to clinical symptoms, diagnoses, or evaluations that form the basis for prescribing puberty blocker drugs or hormone therapy” and records “related to informed consent, patient recruitment, and parental or guardian consent for minor patients” to receive gender-affirming care.

Under the new agreement, the Justice Department withdrew its requests for those specific records, which had not yet been created by the hospital, on Dec. 8 and told Children’s Hospital to redact patients’ personally identifying information from other records it still requested.

Thursday’s agreement formalizes that position and requires the Justice Department to return or destroy any future records that provide personally identifying information.

“The government will not use this patient’s identifying information to support any investigation or prosecution,” the agreement states.

According to attorneys for the families who filed the lawsuit, the agreement preserves records of both their clients and other care patients who confirm the clinic’s gender. “They have assured us that no identifiable patient information has been received to date and will no longer be received,” said Amy Powell of Good Government Lawyers.

Cori Racela, executive director of the Western Center on Law and Poverty, called it “vital confirmation that health care decisions belong in exam rooms, not government subpoenas.”

“Young people, families, and healthcare providers have constitutional rights to privacy and dignity,” he said in a statement. “No one’s private health records, especially children, should be turned into political ammunition.”

The agreement was also welcomed by families of transgender children beyond Southern California.

“This is especially troubling for families in Los Angeles, of course, but for all families,” said Arne Johnson, a father of a transgender child in the Bay Area who helps run a group of similar families called Rainbow Families Action. “Every time one of these subpoenas comes out, it’s terrible.”

Johnson said that every victory against government demands for family medical records feels like “someone is pointing a gun at your child and a hero comes and takes it away from you”; It’s just such a visceral feeling.”

Johnson said he hopes recent court victories will push hospitals to resist canceling care for transgender children.

“It’s the parents who are fighting back, and they’re the ones who are winning, and hospitals should lead them,” he said. “Hospitals must fight parents the same way so their doctors and other providers can be protected.”