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

The U.S. Department of Justice has agreed to stop demanding medical records that identify young patients who received gender-affirming care from Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, ending a legal standoff with families who sued to block a subpoena that some feared would be used to criminally prosecute the parents of transgender kids.

The agreement, filed in federal court Thursday, allows the hospital to withhold certain records and redact personal information from others who underwent gender-affirming treatments, which Trump administration officials have compared to child mutilation despite support for such care by the nation’s major medical associations.

Several parents of CHLA patients expressed profound relief Friday, while also acknowledging that other threats to their families remain.

Jesse Thorn, the father of two transgender children who had been patients at Children’s Hospital, said hospital officials have ignored his requests for information as to whether they had already shared his kids’ data with the Trump administration, which had been scary. Hearing they had not, and now won’t, provided “two-fold” relief, he said.

“The escalations have been so relentless in the threats to our family, and one of the things that compounded that was the uncertainty about what the federal government knew about our kids’ medical care and what they were going to do about that,” he said.

Less clear is whether the agreement provides any new protections for doctors and other hospital personnel who provided care at the clinic and have also been targeted by the Trump administration.

The agreement follows similar victories for families seeking to block such disclosures by gender-affirming care clinics elsewhere in the country, including a ruling Thursday for the families of transgender kids who received treatment at Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C.

“What’s unique here is this was a class action,” said Alejandra Caraballo, a civil rights attorney and legal instructor at Harvard, who was not involved in the Los Angeles case. “I can’t undersell what a major win that is to protect the records of all these patients.”

Some litigation remains ongoing, with families fearful appeals to higher courts could end with different results. There is also Republican-backed legislation moving through Congress to restrict gender-affirming care for youths.

Another father of a transgender patient at Children’s Hospital, who requested anonymity because he fears for his child’s safety, said he was grateful for the agreement, but doesn’t see it as the end of the road. He fears the Trump administration could renew its subpoena if it wins on appeal in cases elsewhere.

“There’s some comfort, but it doesn’t close the book on it,” he said.

In a statement to The Times, the Justice Department said it “has not withdrawn its subpoena. Rather, it withdrew three requests for patient records based on the subpoenaed entity’s representation that it did not have custody of any such records.”

“This settlement avoids needless litigation based on that fact and further instructs Children’s Hospital Los Angeles to redact patient information in documents responsive to other subpoena requests,” the DOJ statement said. “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 mutilated under the guise of ‘care.’”

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

“This is a massive victory for every family that refused to be intimidated into backing down,” Khadijah Silver, director of Gender Justice & Health Equity at Lawyers for Good Government, which helped bring the lawsuit, said in a statement Friday. “The government’s attempt to rifle through children’s medical records was unconstitutional from the start. Today’s settlement affirms what we’ve said all along: these families have done nothing wrong, and their children’s privacy deserves protection.”

Until last summer, the Center for Transyouth Health and Development at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles was among the largest and oldest pediatric gender clinics in the United States — and one of few providing puberty blockers, hormones and surgical procedures for trans youth on public insurance.

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

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

In July, Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi announced the Justice Department was subpoenaing patient records from gender-affirming care providers, specifically stating that medical professionals were a target of a probe into “organizations that mutilated children in the service of a warped ideology.”

California law explicitly protects gender-affirming care, and the state and others led by Democrats have fought back in court, but most providers nationwide have shuttered under the White House push, stirring fear of a de facto ban.

Parents feared the subpoenas could lead to child abuse charges, which the government could then use to strip them of custody of their children. Doctors feared they could be arrested and imprisoned for providing medical care that is broadly backed by the medical establishment and is legal in the states where they performed it.

The Justice Department’s subpoena to Children’s Hospital Los Angeles had initially requested a vast array of personally identifying documents, specially calling for records “sufficient to identify each patient [by name, date of birth, social security number, address, and parent/guardian information] who was prescribed puberty blockers or hormone therapy.”

It also called for records “relating to the clinical indications, diagnoses, or assessments that formed the basis for prescribing puberty blockers or hormone therapy,” and for records “relating to informed consent, patient intake, and parent or guardian authorization for minor patients” to receive gender-affirming care.

According to the new agreement, the Justice Department withdrew its requests for those specific records — which had yet to be produced by the hospital — on Dec. 8, and told Children’s Hospital to redact the personally identifying information of patients in other records it was still demanding.

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

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

According to the attorneys for the families who sued, the settlement protects the records of their clients but also all of the clinic’s other gender-affirming care patients. “To date, they assured us, no identifiable patient information has been received, and now it cannot be,” said Amy Powell, with Lawyers for Good Government.

Cori Racela, executive director for Western Center on Law & Poverty, called it a “crucial affirmation that healthcare decisions belong in exam rooms, not government subpoenas.”

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

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

“This has been hanging over those families specifically in L.A., of course, but for all families,” said Arne Johnson, a Bay Area father of a transgender child who helps run a group of similar families called Rainbow Families Action. “Every time one of these subpoenas goes out, it’s terrifying.”

Johnson said each victory pushing back against the government’s demands for family medical records feels “like somebody is pointing a gun at your kid and a hero comes along and knocks it out of their hand — it’s literally that visceral of a feeling.”

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

“Parents are the ones that are fighting back and they’re the ones that are winning, and the hospitals should take their lead,” he said. “Hospitals should be fighting in the same way the parents are, so that their doctors and other providers can be protected.”