Six families of underage patients receiving gender-affirming care filed a lawsuit against Stanford Medicine Children’s Hospital last Wednesday, seeking to bar the hospital from sharing the medical records of transgender minors with the federal government. 

“When the federal government can reach across the country, into a hospital that has no connection to the court that issued the subpoena, and pull a child’s entire medical file out of the filing cabinet without so much as a phone call to the parents, every family in America should be concerned,” said Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for LGBTQ Rights, in a press release.

Shortly after his inauguration, President Trump issued an executive order titled “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation,” which directed federal agencies to restrict support for certain gender-affirming medical treatments for people under 19 and to review related policies and funding. The order was blocked by a federal judge in March 2025. In an April 2025 memo, then-Attorney General Pam Bondi ordered Justice Department investigations into providers of gender-affirming care for minors.

As part of the investigation, Stanford and several other institutions received a grand jury subpoena from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas seeking records related to gender-affirming care provided to minors, with a response deadline of no later than June 10, 2026.

The plaintiffs, represented by the National Center for LGBTQ Rights and GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD Law), are asking a federal judge in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California to bar the hospital from complying.

They allege that the subpoena violates their Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights by compelling the disclosure of confidential medical records without sufficient legal justification. All plaintiffs are solely identified by their initials in court documents. 

Stanford Children’s Hospital became one of the first major health care providers in California to limit gender-affirming care last June, citing efforts by the Trump administration as a factor in its decision. Since then, Stanford Medicine has paused all gender-affirming care for patients under 19.  

On Monday, Stanford Children’s Hospital confirmed to The Mercury News that it had received a grand jury subpoena from the Justice Department’s Office for the Northern District of Texas.

The Daily has reached out to the hospital for comment. 

NYU Langone received its own subpoena on May 7 and publicly disclosed the details. The subpoena sought patient identities, treatment records, consent documents and the identities of clinicians involved in gender-affirming care for minors.

The subpoena received by Stanford Medicine Children’s Hospital was “substantively identical,” according to the lawsuit. 

The plaintiffs additionally filed a motion for a temporary restraining order, seeking to prevent Stanford from disclosing their medical records and identifying information while the lawsuit proceeds. The motion requests relief by June 9 at 5:00 p.m., one day before the hospital must turn over the records as directed by the subpoena. 

A hearing for the Temporary Restraining Order is set for Friday.