Stanford gets reprieve from subpoenas seeking records about trans kids' care

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California families fighting to keep trans kids’ medical records private won a brief reprieve in federal court Tuesday, after a judge in San José temporarily blocked hospital administrators from handing their files to the federal government in response to a criminal subpoena.The decision bars Stanford’s Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital from producing pediatric records for at least the next two weeks, while U.S.

District Judge P.Casey Pitts weighs whether a Texas grand jury can force the California medical center to hand over its files to the Food and Drug Administration Office of Criminal Investigations in Kansas.

It also blocks the U.S.Justice Department from compelling records from any other California hospital that may be subject to similar subpoenas, the contents and scope of which remain secret.The demand represents a major escalation in the Trump administration’s fight to end gender-affirming care for transgender youth — treatment it calls “sex-rejecting procedures” and has compared to child mutilation.

California As Children’s Hospital Los Angeles scales back healthcare for trans youth, Stanford Medicine has stopped performing gender-affirming surgeries on patients younger than 19.“Part of what is so ominous about this is that the criminal grand jury proceedings are shrouded in secrecy,” said Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for LGBTQ Rights and an attorney for the plaintiffs.“It’s pure intimidation.

It’s designed to make people afraid that they’re going to be criminally prosecuted.” The Justice Department declined to comment on the criminal subpoenas or any related investigation.But Minter and others said the move was unprecedented.

“The federal government has never used subpoenas to go after private medical records, much less criminal subpoenas,” the attorney said.“They’re banking on the public not caring ...