The U.S. Department of Justice agreed to stop requiring medical records identifying young patients who received gender-affirming care at 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 parents of transgender children.
The agreement, filed in federal court on Thursday, allows the hospital to retain certain records and redact personal information of other people who underwent gender-affirming treatments, which Trump administration officials have compared to child mutilation despite support for such care from the country's leading medical associations.
Several 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 had been patients at Children's Hospital, said hospital officials ignored his requests for information about whether they had already shared his children's data with the Trump administration, which had been frightening. Upon learning that they had not provided, and now will not provide, “double” relief, he said.
“The escalation of threats to our family has been relentless, and one of the things that compounded this was the uncertainty about what the federal government knew about our children's health care and what they were going to do about it,” she said.
Less clear is whether the deal provides new protections for doctors and other hospital staff who provided care at the clinic and who have also been targeted by the Trump administration.
The settlement follows similar victories for families seeking to block such disclosures by gender-affirming care clinics in other parts of the country, including a ruling Thursday for families of transgender children who received treatment at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Washington, DC.
“What's unique here is that this is a class-action lawsuit,” said Alejandra Caraballo, a civil rights attorney and Harvard law instructor who was not involved in the Los Angeles case. “I cannot understate what a huge victory it is to protect the records of all these patients.”
Some litigation is still ongoing, and families fear that appeals to higher courts could end with different results. There is also Republican-backed legislation moving through Congress to restrict gender-affirming care for young people.
Another parent of a transgender patient at Children's Hospital, who requested anonymity because he fears for his son'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 his subpoena if he wins appeals in other cases.
“There is some comfort, but that doesn't close the book,” 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 those records.”
“This settlement avoids unnecessary litigation based on that fact and further directs Children's Hospital Los Angeles to redact patient information in documents in response 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 all the families who refused to be intimidated into backing down,” Khadijah Silver, director of Gender Justice and Health Equity at Lawyers for Good Government, which helped file the lawsuit, said in a statement Friday. “The government's attempt to review children's medical records was unconstitutional from the beginning. Today's settlement affirms what we have said all along: These families have done nothing wrong and their children's privacy deserves protection.”
Until last summer, the Center for Trans Youth 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 the few that provided puberty blockers, hormones and surgical procedures for publicly insured trans youth.
It was also one of the first programs to be closed 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 executives wrote to staff in an internal email announcing the clinic's closure in June. “[They are] threatening our ability to care for 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 was subpoenaing patient records from gender-affirming care providers, specifically stating that medical professionals were the target of an investigation into “organizations that mutilate children in the service of a twisted ideology.”
California's 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 closed under a push from the White House, raising fears of a de facto ban.
Parents feared that the citations 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 widely supported by the medical establishment and legal in the states where they provide it.
The Justice Department's subpoena to Children's Hospital Los Angeles had initially requested a wide range of personal identification documents, especially requesting 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 asked for records “related to clinical indications, diagnoses, or evaluations that formed the basis for prescribing puberty blockers or hormone therapy,” and records “related to informed consent, patient admission, and parental or guardian authorization 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 submitted by the hospital, on Dec. 8, and told Children's Hospital to redact patients' personally identifiable information 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 identifiable information in the future.
“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 sued, the agreement protects the records of their clients but also of all of the clinic's other gender-affirming care patients. “To date, we have been assured, no identifiable patient information has been received, and this cannot be the case now,” said Amy Powell of Lawyers for Good Government.
Cori Racela, executive director of the Western Center on Law & Poverty, called it a “crucial affirmation that health care decisions belong in exam rooms, not government subpoenas.”
“Young people, families and medical providers have constitutional rights to privacy and dignity,” he said in a statement. “No one's private medical records should become political ammunition, especially those of children.”
The agreement was also welcomed by families of transgender children beyond Southern California.
“This has been weighing on those families specifically in Los Angeles, of course, but for all families,” said Arne Johnson, a Bay Area parent of a transgender child who helps lead a group of similar families called Rainbow Families Action. “Every time one of these subpoenas comes out, it's terrifying.”
Johnson said every victory against the government's demands for family health records feels “like someone is pointing a gun at your child and a hero comes along and takes it out of your hand; it's literally that visceral feeling.”
Johnson said he hopes recent court victories will prompt hospitals to resist canceling care for transgender children.
“Parents are the ones fighting back and they're the ones winning, and hospitals should take the lead,” he said. “Hospitals should fight the same way parents do, so their doctors and other providers can be protected.”
