Judge Denies Class Status in Transgender Youth Records Probe (1)

A federal judge declined to certify a class seeking to quash the Justice Department’s investigation into medical records of transgender youth.

Judge Julie R. Rubin of the US District Court for the District of Maryland issued the ruling Tuesday hours after hearing arguments on whether to grant class-wide status. During arguments she questioned what precedent there would be for certifying this type of class, what connection patients served at other hospitals had to her court, and what relief would be appropriate if she denied certifying class-action protections.

In January, Rubin blocked a Justice Department subpoena seeking medical information about eight transgender patients from Children’s National Hospital. Eleven families of transgender youth last month filed a suit in the same court seeking class-wide protections for transgender youth who have received gender care from at least 20 hospitals nationwide.

Rubin’s ruling Tuesday would allow all movants to be referred to through their pseudoynyms and that they would not be required to disclose their addresses.

Rachel Berg, senior staff attorney for the National Center for LGBTQ Rights, who argued on behalf of the families in Tuesday’s hearing, pointed to an ongoing case in California where plaintiffs who are also seeking class-action status were granted a temporary restraining order late Monday.

Rubin asked Berg if there were any other instances of where a similar class has been certified.

“There’s no precedent here because there’s no precedent for the government’s actions in this context,” said Berg.

The Trump administration’s DOJ has issued subpoenas to hospitals across the US seeking medical records with sensitive personally identifying information about patients who received gender-affirming care, which has prompted lawsuits in several courts from both patients and hospitals seeking to block the subpoenas.

Scott B. Dahlquist, an attorney for the DOJ, told the judge that certifying a class ahead of a discovery period would impair the department’s ability to continue its work and that the merits for issuing a preliminary injunction weren’t met.

Dahlquist said if the patients’ names were anonymized or redacted as a form of relief, that “I think that’s a condition that we could live with.”

He added that the DOJ takes its obligation to privacy seriously and that there haven’t been any outing or harassment of the individuals in these cases.

“I think that might be best addressed from their perspective, don’t you think?” said Rubin.

Berg said redaction of names wouldn’t be sufficient relief and that the other personally identifiable information could be used to identify the patients.

The plaintiffs are also represented by GLAD Law, and Brown, Goldstein & Levy LLP.

California Proceedings

The arguments come as at least one other court Tuesday is seeking to expand the scope of their case.

Judge P. Casey Pitts of the US District Court for the Northern District of California, San Jose, issued a temporary restraining order late Monday blocking a Stanford children’s hospital from complying with a DOJ subpoena for the health records of transgender minor patients.

The plaintiff’s attorneys filed an amended complaint Monday adding the Justice Department and acting Attorney General Todd Blanche as defendants, after Pitts denied a TRO over the weekend.

Pitts held a status conference Tuesday morning ahead of the original June 10 DOJ subpoena deadline with attorneys for the plaintiffs, the hospital, and the government.

The group agreed to a revised schedule to preserve the status quo while the case continues. The government’s response would be due June 17, the plaintiff reply brief will be due June 22, and the new return date for the subpoena will be extended to June 25.

The cases are In Re Administrative Subpoenas to Children’s Hospitals, D. Md., 8:26-cv-01834, 6/9/26 and Z.A. v. Lucile Salter Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford, N.D. Cal., 5:26-cv-04998, 6/9/26.