By Nate Raymond
May 12 (Reuters) – NYU Langone Health, one of New York City’s major hospital networks, said it received a federal grand jury subpoena from the U.S. Department of Justice seeking information concerning gender-affirming care it provided to minors.
The subpoena was disclosed by NYU Langone late on Monday. It is the first known instance of the Justice Department using a grand jury to obtain information for a criminal probe as part of the Trump administration’s broader crackdown on treatments for transgender youth.
NYU Langone said it was one of several institutions that received a grand jury subpoena on Thursday from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Northern District of Texas. It closed its program for treating transgender youth in February, citing the “current regulatory environment.”
The subpoena seeks information about patients aged 18 and under who received gender-affirming care at its facilities since 2020 as well as the names of individuals at NYU Langone involved in offering such care, the hospital system said.
NYU Langone said it was disclosing the existence of the subpoena pursuant to the New York State Shield Law, a law the Democratic-led state enacted that requires entities that receive legal demands for information about abortion care or gender-affirming care to notify affected patients before complying.
“We understand that these developments may be concerning to our patients, providers, and others,” it said in a statement. “Please know that NYU Langone takes the privacy of your protected health information very seriously and we are evaluating our response to the subpoena.”
A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment.
Republican President Donald Trump, shortly after taking office in January 2025, signed an executive order ending all federal funding or support for gender-affirming care for transgender youth.
The order described such care as a “stain on our Nation’s history” and a “dangerous trend” and directed the Justice Department to prioritize investigations concerning such treatments.
Major U.S. medical groups have expressed support for gender- affirming care and say it is inappropriate and potentially harmful for the physical and mental health of transgender youth for the government to bar them from obtaining treatment.
The Justice Department in July announced it had sent more than 20 subpoenas to doctors and clinics involved in providing gender-affirming care to children nationwide.
Those subpoenas were administrative in nature and were not obtained by going before a grand jury.
Judges quashed some of the administrative subpoenas in whole or part, with several saying the Justice Department was misusing them to harass healthcare providers into ceasing treatments that were legal in their states.
Last week, the Justice Department announced a new tack in its investigations when it filed a lawsuit in northern Texas – a venue favored by conservative litigants – and obtained a court order enforcing an administrative subpoena it issued last year to Brown Health-operated Rhode Island Hospital.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by David Bario and Bill Berkrot)
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