Judge orders DOJ to give more info on subpoenas targeting trans minors' medical care

Children's Hospital of Philadelphia staff warned of "traumatic" effects if forced to provide patient information to the Trump admin. DOJ called the claims "meritless."

CHRIS GEIDNER
AUG 21, 2025

A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the Trump administration to provide information in two weeks about the scope of the Justice Department’s unprecedented investigation into the provision of gender-affirming medical care for those under 19 across the country — including in states where the provision of such necessary care is legal.

The order from U.S. District Judge Mark Kearney came in a challenge filed by one of the hospitals targeted in the Justice Department’s attack on the provision of such care for minors. DOJ’s actions broke widely on Wednesday in multiple news reports, although Kearney’s Wednesday order is first being reported at Law Dork.

The Justice Department has been — since at least from when Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a memorandum in late April — looking into the provision of gender-affirming medical care for minors under several questionable-at-best authorities, including laws prohibiting female genital mutilation and the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act’s ban on “misbranding.”

As Casey Parks and David Ovalle reported at The Washington Post on Wednesday afternoon, however, that investigation took a turn in June, when the Justice Department issued subpoenas to nearly two dozen medical providers involved in such care. Although the existence of the subpoenas had been known since July, the Post was the first outlet to report on the contents of one of those subpoenas, which the Post reported had been filed in court in Washington state.

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