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  "path": "/article/210823/texas-court-trying-intimidate-new-york-hospital",
  "publishedAt": "2026-05-22T10:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "https://newrepublic.com",
  "tags": [
    "Politics",
    "Transgender Rights",
    "Anti-Trans Legislation",
    "Hospitals",
    "Abortion",
    "Mifepristone",
    "States' rights",
    "thousands of people",
    "one of the earlier mass protests",
    "canceling",
    "executive order",
    "told",
    "urged",
    "contact",
    "announcement",
    "the Department of Justice wants handed over",
    "Reed\nO’Connor",
    "almost certain to give it what it wanted",
    "the same district court",
    "who was most\nlikely to bless their lawsuit",
    "one\nin a series",
    "legal challenges",
    "launching investigations",
    "getting arrest warrants",
    "officially ceased providing\ngender-affirming care",
    "demanded",
    "stopped",
    "permanently blocked",
    "order",
    "blocked",
    "thwarting",
    "at least 20 administrative\nsubpoenas",
    "turned",
    "deemed",
    "decree",
    "opened investigations",
    "lobbying against the ban",
    "began bringing lawsuits",
    "individual providers",
    "a scofflaw who is putting the\nhealth and safety of minors at risk",
    "a Radical Gender Activist",
    "Trump-approved candidate",
    "announced",
    "survey",
    "estimated",
    "what appear to be blue sanctuaries",
    "New York",
    "shield laws"
  ],
  "textContent": "Just a few weeks into Trump’s return to the White House, thousands of people made their way to a Manhattan park close to NYU Langone Hospital. The rally, one of the earlier mass protests against the president’s second administration, was in defense of transgender rights. NYU Langone had begun quietly canceling appointments for gender-affirming care for minors, seemingly in response to a cruel executive order decreeing that the new administration would “rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit these destructive and life-altering procedures.” (The executive order had not, to be clear, made it illegal to prescribe puberty blockers or hormones, Chase Strangio, the co-director of the ACLU’s LGBT & HIV Project, told me at the time; it was mostly a threat to withhold funding.) Speakers at the rally urged everyone to contact the hospital’s management and trustees and demand they stand up to the administration. The hospital’s complying with Trump, the protesters warned, would not protect it.\n\nThey were more than correct. The hospital ended care when it was under no legal obligation to do so, and the Trump administration still did not let up. Earlier this month, a federal court in the Northern District of Texas issued a subpoena to NYU Langone, ordering it “to provide information pertaining to patients under the age of 18 who received gender affirming care,” as well as the names of those who provided that care as far back as January 2020, according to an announcement the hospital posted to its website. Among the records the Department of Justice wants handed over are “documents sufficient to identify each patient who underwent Sex-Rejecting Procedures” (the administration’s term for gender-affirming care), as well as related billing records, insurance claims, and clinical evaluations, along with “complete personnel files” on hospital staff involved.\n\nIn the administration’s ongoing attacks on trans kids, legal experts have said, the subpoena is a marked escalation, in which the federal government is using the secretive grand jury process to extract private health care information from an institution providing gender-affirming care to minors. The Justice Department purposefully pursued this order in a district with no relationship to the underlying issues, but where it would get a judge, Reed\nO’Connor, who was almost certain to give it what it wanted. As GLAD legal director Joshua Rovenger put it at a press briefing on Wednesday, “It’s not law enforcement—it’s harassment dressed up in a subpoena.”\n\nIn essence, a federal court in Texas—where you can count on getting a judge who’s repeatedly ruled in favor of the Trump administration’s mission—has now reached across the country and into the intimate lives of countless young New Yorkers and others who sought care in the state—where Texas arguably had no basis to intervene. If this sounds familiar—if a federal court in Texas with a history of taking cases involving other states’ business seems to ring a bell—you may be recalling a recent abortion story. In 2023, in the same district court, the Northern District of Texas, a group of anti-abortion doctors formed an organization and brought a legal challenge aimed at taking the drug mifepristone, commonly and safely used for medication abortion, off the market. The doctors didn’t provide care in the jurisdiction, nor had they cared for patients anywhere who had used the drug. They chose their location, Amarillo, because it guaranteed they would be assigned a judge who was most\nlikely to bless their lawsuit—another MAGA favorite, Matthew Kacsmaryk. That legal challenge to mifepristone was one\nin a series of attempts to block medication abortion access in states where abortion is banned, but where patients can still receive pills by mail.\n\nAfter _Dobbs,_ one might imagine that such efforts were unnecessary: Since that ruling, any state that wants to ban abortion can. But apparently this power is not enough. Some states with bans have begun trying to extend the reach of the laws outside their borders. They’re bringing legal challenges meant to prevent their residents from accessing abortion; they’re launching investigations into providers who may serve their residents; they’re getting arrest warrants for out-of-state providers; and they’re seeking federal intervention in order to block care they find objectionable.\n\nA similar cross-state strategy is being applied now to intimidate health care providers into complying with bans on gender-affirming care for minors in other states. The strategy also targets patients, compelling states to turn over private medical information or engage in other forms of surveillance. It is becoming clear that simply living in a state with protective laws does not mean you can access care without fear of intimidation, if you can access care at all.\n\n\n\n\nBy the time the criminal subpoena made it to NYU Langone, the hospital had already officially ceased providing\ngender-affirming care to minors. In fact, it had failed to restore care even after the New York attorney general demanded it do so. It is far from alone in this decision. Since Trump returned to office, more than 40 hospitals have stopped providing gender-affirming care, according to STAT News.\n\nMeanwhile, the Trump administration has repeatedly lost when its anti-trans demands were challenged in court. A few weeks before the NYU Langone subpoena, a district court judge permanently blocked a decree from Health and Human Services head Robert F. Kennedy Jr., in which the administration (again) threatened to withhold funding from hospitals that provided gender-affirming care to minors. This week, a federal court order allowed a Colorado hospital to restore gender-affirming care for minors, while a legal challenge to the ban proceeds. Another federal judge recently blocked an administrative subpoena that would have forced a Rhode Island hospital to turn over the medical records of youth who received gender-affirming care—following a wave of similar decisions thwarting the Justice Department’s efforts to seek such information after it issued at least 20 administrative\nsubpoenas since last summer. These mounting losses may be why the Department of Justice has turned to grand jury subpoenas, such as the one NYU Langone has now received, and a friendlier court.\n\nThe current administration did not invent these intimidation tactics. Before Texas lawmakers outright banned gender-affirming care for minors in 2023, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton was experimenting with a variety of legal threats against providers and parents meant to accomplish what a ban would, or worse. He unilaterally deemed gender-affirming care for minors to be “abuse” (five years ahead of Robert F. Kennedy’s similar decree, in December 2025, broadly defining such care as unsafe) and directed state agencies to investigate parents of trans kids, should they help their own children access care. He opened investigations into two Texas hospitals, claiming they were violating unspecified state laws, and demanding that they turn over the same kinds of records now being demanded of NYU Langone. By the time gender-affirming care was banned in Texas, it was already nearly impossible to access. In 2021, some Texas families I met as they were lobbying against the ban and other anti-trans laws had already arranged care out of state, or had moved out of the state entirely.\n\nBut for officials seeking to end gender-affirming care in Texas, the state’s ban was not enough. Paxton began bringing lawsuits against individual providers who allegedly continued offering gender-affirming care to minors, referring in court filings to one provider as “a scofflaw who is putting the\nhealth and safety of minors at risk,” and another as “a Radical Gender Activist.” This week, Paxton, now a Trump-approved candidate for John Cornyn’s Senate seat, and the DOJ announced their latest victory in such efforts: They have forced the largest children’s hospital in Texas into creating a so-called “detransition” clinic that, as Paxton put it, “will help provide free care to those who have been victimized by twisted, morally bankrupt transgender ideology.” The hospital must also pay $10 million in fines and damages and revoke the medical privileges of five physicians.\n\nIn the case of NYU Langone, we are seeing a number of extreme, lawless trends collide: Providers and patients are being intimidated with the malicious collection of private health care information; and states are attempting to apply their bans on stigmatized health care to states that have no such bans—that have, in fact, protective laws meant to ensure patients’ rights and patients’ access.\n\nSince November 2024, nearly one in 10 transgender people reported having moved to a different state, in a survey conducted by NORC and the Movement Advancement Project—an estimated 400,000 people. They are seeking refuge in what appear to be blue sanctuaries like New York, where shield laws protect providers of both gender-affirming care and abortion care. If, despite such laws, federal law enforcement and a grand jury in Texas are allowed to reach into New York state, what does that mean? Is anywhere safe? Is anyone? These are the questions these legal threats are forcing us to live with. The attacks, said Cynthia Weaver, litigation director at Human Rights Campaign, “create instability that can have detrimental, cascading impact on trans people’s health and well-being.” Whether or not the attacks succeed in court, the fear is already real. It cannot be rolled back with a court order.",
  "title": "The Texas Court Trying to Intimidate a New York Hospital"
}