A federal judge temporarily blocked the U.S. Department of Justice from seeking NYU Langone Health’s records on children who received gender-affirming care. 

On Wednesday — the medical center’s deadline on a federal subpoena demanding those records — the Manhattan judge, Katherine Polk Failla, gave the department a temporary restraining order until further notice. In a conference call with lawyers, Failla said she was concerned by the extent of information the federal government requested in its grand jury subpoena, issued last month.

Justice Department lawyers had argued the day before that the Trump administration would not prosecute NYU Langone patients who had received gender-affirming care as minors. However, they did not specify how the government would use their healthcare information in its criminal investigation.

“Because I cannot conceive of a crime that would require the breadth of disclosure sought in the subpoena — identifying and sensitive medical information for an entire class of people for a six-year period — I have to find that the government’s interest does not outweigh the plaintiffs’ interest in privacy,” Failla told attorneys, The New York Times reported.

The ruling comes amid an ongoing court battle regarding the Justice Department’s subpoena to NYU Langone, demanding the medical center disclose records “sufficient to identify” children who received gender-affirming care, and staff members involved in the treatment, since 2020. On June 2, a group of transgender minors and former patients sued NYU Langone and the federal department to stop the subpoena, alleging that it violated their constitutional rights. Days later, a judge extended the subpoena deadline from June 10 to June 24.  

Omar Gonzales-Pagan, an attorney at Lambda Legal — a national organization that litigates LGBTQ+ civil rights cases and represents the plaintiffs — said Wednesday’s ruling was “an enormous relief” for the families in court. 

“Today’s order from the court is a victory for the basic privacy of our clients and all families like theirs across New York City,” Gonzales-Pagan said in a press release. “It is no secret that this administration will use every lever in its power to attack transgender people and fulfill its misguided goal to ‘end’ gender-affirming medical care.”

In February, NYU Langone abruptly stopped providing gender-affirming care for minors, cutting access to hormone therapy and puberty blockers, and cited “the current regulatory environment” after the Trump administration threatened to defund hospitals that treated transgender youth. Since last year, the Justice Department has issued administrative subpoenas to over 20 doctors and hospitals, including Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan, that treated transgender youth.  

According to court documents, the Justice Department had previously issued an administrative subpoena to NYU Langone in June 2025, requesting similar information. In May, it withdrew the first subpoena and issued the current criminal subpoena as part of a grand jury investigation taking place in Texas. While administrative subpoenas are issued by federal agencies, criminal subpoenas are court orders and do not require a lawsuit to enforce.

An NYU Langone lawyer said in an affidavit that the medical center had met multiple times with the Justice Department to negotiate last year’s subpoena. They said that when the second subpoena was issued, NYU Langone had already sent some relevant documents to federal officials to comply with the first subpoena, but none that included patient information.

An NYU Langone spokesperson declined to comment. The Justice Department did not immediately respond to WSN’s request for comment. 

Contact Zachary Karp at [email protected].