Federal Court Considers blocking Trump Administration attempt in seizing private health information

The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York will hold a hearing at 2:30 p.m. ET on Monday, June 22, to consider a request for a temporary restraining order blocking the Trump administration from obtaining the identifying and sensitive health information of transgender youth from health institutions in New York City. 

In May 2026, NYU Langone Hospitals received a subpoena purportedly under the authority of a federal grand jury in Fort Worth, Texas, which demanded that they turn over the identities and sensitive health information of any patient who had received medical treatment for gender dysphoria while they were under 18 years old from NYU Langone, from January 2020 through May 2026. Other healthcare institutions in New York City, including the Mount Sinai Health System, may have received similar subpoenas, though their nature is unclear.

The grand jury subpoenas followed a year-long effort by the Department of Justice to obtain the same information from hospitals across the country through administrative subpoenas—efforts repeatedly blocked by at least eight federal district courts. One court dismissed the government’s reasoning as a “smokescreen,” while another concluded that DOJ “issued the subpoena first and searched for a justification second.”

In June 2026, a lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York by the American Civil Liberties Union, the New York Civil Liberties Union, and Lambda Legal on behalf of three families with transgender youth and two transgender young adults who were minors when they began care. It requests a temporary restraining order blocking DOJ from violating the patients’ constitutional privacy rights by obtaining identifying and sensitive health information as part of their purported investigation into unspecified health offenses through the subpoena to NYU Langone and any other similar subpoenas to other healthcare institutions in New York City that provide or have provided gender-affirming medical care to transgender minors. All plaintiffs have filed under pseudonyms to maintain their privacy and anonymity. 

The lawsuit asks the court to protect “all individuals who received any medical treatment for gender dysphoria, … while they were under eighteen years of age, from January 1, 2020, through May 5, 2026, at a healthcare institution located in New York City, including NYU Langone Hospitals (and any other NYU entity) and Mount Sinai Health System.”

The plaintiffs charge the Department of Justice with violating their Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights to privacy and to be free from unreasonable search and seizure. The plaintiffs also sue NYU Langone to prevent its release of information protected by doctor-patient privilege under New York state law.

The Gayly online. 6/20/26 @ 6:48 p.m. CST.