A federal judge blocked the Department of Justice (DOJ) on Thursday from obtaining the identities and medical records of transgender minors treated at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford.
In a preliminary injunction, U.S. District Judge P. Casey Pitts stated that the demand was part of a “bad-faith campaign to intimidate hospitals into halting the lawful provision of gender-affirming care.”
The injunction prohibits the DOJ and Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche from “requesting, receiving, or otherwise obtaining the sensitive health information” about clinical indications and diagnoses of patients who received gender-affirming care at Stanford. It also prohibits information regarding informed consent, patient intake and parent or guardian authorization for minor patients that the grand jury subpoena demanded.
Specifically, the injunction protects a provisionally certified class of all patients who received gender-affirming care at Stanford while under 18 between Jan. 1, 2020, and May 5, 2026 — the day before the grand jury subpoena was issued. The records that the DOJ demanded for those patients numbered in the “tens of thousands,” the hospital’s counsel attested.
In response to the order, the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford remains “committed to protecting the privacy of the patients we serve, complying with all relevant laws and court orders, and delivering the highest quality care,” Lisa Kim, director of media relations at Stanford Health Care, wrote in an email to The Daily.
According to Pitts, the DOJ’s demand would disclose “children’s private health information to officials who expressly intend to deprive them of medical care that their families, doctors, and the California legislature deem necessary and appropriate,” calling this an “obvious harm.”
The patient records, Pitts wrote, have “no discernible relevance” to any federal healthcare offense the Texas grand jury could be investigating, adding that the plaintiffs are likely to succeed based on a Fifth Amendment right to informational privacy.
Stanford is not the first to face — or to fight — such a demand. In the order, Pitts wrote that at least eight federal court decisions across six states had quashed similar administrative subpoenas issued to other hospitals, and that the DOJ’s pivot to a Texas grand jury was “an obvious effort” to shield its tactics from judicial review “in favor of a distant forum that DOJ deems friendly to its political positions,” quoting a Rhode Island federal court. On June 24, a judge in New York granted similar relief to patients of NYU Langone Hospitals, which received a nearly identical subpoena the same day as Stanford.
Pitts declined to certify a broader statewide class or extend the injunction to all California hospitals, writing that there was no evidence the DOJ is currently seeking records from any other institution in the state. However, should plaintiffs “subsequently procure evidence that DOJ is seeking the medical records of minors who received care at institutions other than Packard, they may seek relief on their behalf at that time,” Pitts wrote.
The DOJ’s investigation stems from a January 2025 executive order in which President Donald Trump directed federal agencies to “end” gender-transition-related care for minors, calling it a “dangerous trend” that will be a “stain in our Nation’s history,” and then-Attorney General Pam Bondi’s April 2025 memorandum issuing investigations of providers.
Later, in June 2025, Stanford paused gender-affirming surgeries for patients under 19, becoming one of the first major California providers to limit care, though its pediatric gender clinic continues to provide other services.
The DOJ first sought the records in July 2025 through an administrative subpoena — one of more than 20 issued to gender-affirming care providers nationwide under a directive from Bondi. Stanford produced certain non-patient records and spent nine months negotiating with the DOJ over producing anonymized patient records, but never disclosed identifying patient data, according to a declaration from the hospital’s counsel cited in the order.
On May 6, the DOJ withdrew the administrative subpoena and replaced it with a grand jury subpoena of nearly identical scope issued under the seal of the Northern District of Texas, demanding compliance by June 10.
Thursday’s ruling also follows a recent lawsuit filed on May 27 by six families of underage patients, represented by the National Center for LGBTQ Rights and GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD Law), who sued Stanford to prevent it from complying with the grand jury subpoena. Among a wider range of records, the grand jury subpoena demanded documents “sufficient to identify every patient” who received what it termed “sex-rejecting procedures” at the hospital, along with the clinical indications and diagnoses that formed the basis for their care.
Pitts previously issued a temporary restraining order on June 8 without stating his reasons. This 43-page order now explains them, and the injunction will remain in effect while the case proceeds. The DOJ can appeal the injunction to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
“The federal government is engaging in extraordinary measures, using a secret grand jury process to try and pry into patients’ medical records,” Jennifer Levi, GLAD Law senior director of transgender and queer rights, said in a statement after the June 8 order.
Following Thursday’s order, “Families in California can now sleep at night knowing that this blatant attempt to harass and intimidate them and to dictate how they raise their own children has been stopped,” National Center for LGBTQ Rights Legal Director Shannon Minter said. “Today’s preliminary injunction ruling is a strong indication our case will succeed on the merits.”