Still, as trans kids and advocates had predicted and feared, certain health care providers began complying with Trump’s order in advance. Some trans kids were dropped from care months ago. In February, several thousand community members protested at NYU-Langone, demanding that hospital leadership restore medical transition care for adolescents. In April, Attorney General Pam Bondi announced that the Justice Department would investigate providers of youth gender-affirming care—by misusing a law against female genital mutilation. The Federal Trade Commission tried another tactic, reframing health care such as hormones and puberty blockers—if offered to young trans people—as “fraud,” and threatening their own investigations.
Finally, last week, after months of such threats, the Department of Justice subpoenaed UPMC—one of the “more than twenty” subpoenas the department said it has issued. Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro joined a lawsuit challenging these subpoenas, filed August 1 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, alongside California, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin. The lawsuit charges the Trump administration with targeting trans people “relentlessly” and “unlawfully,” refusing them “longstanding, medically necessary, often lifesaving care.” The administration has done this, the lawsuit continues, by intimidating providers with threats of civil and criminal prosecution. It adds, “These threats have no basis in law.” In fact, this intimidation has “coerced” hospitals and health care providers to potentially violate their state’s own antidiscrimination laws.
At UPMC, staff were advised to preserve patient records, among other documents that could be responsive to the subpoena, according to an email obtained by The New Republic. (The UPMC legal staff listed as the senders of this email did not respond to a request to authenticate it before publication.) Staff were also told not to speak about the subpoena. “We are treating the existence of this subpoena as confidential to reduce the potential impact on our patients and employees,” wrote Mark Tamburri, UPMC’s chief legal officer. “In anticipation of potential future investigations and/or litigation, I am directing you to preserve materials beyond the scope of the current subpoena.” Documents to be preserved included “patient records, including identity, clinical indications, diagnoses, assessments, informed consent, patient intake, parent or guardian authorization, disclosure of off-label use, disclosure of potential risks, adverse events, side effects, or medically unfavorable consequences or outcomes,” as well as “diagnosis/ICD codes and use of those codes (e.g., for transsexualism, gender dysphoria, gender incongruence, gender identified disorder, or potential alternatives).”
