Zohran Mamdani pushes back against DOJ’s subpoena for trans youth health records

This story originally appeared on Them.In an amicus brief, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is pushing back on the Justice Department’s effort to obtain the private medical records of transgender minors from NYU Langone Health via criminal subpoena. Mamdani announced on Monday that the New York City Law Department had filed the brief “in support of transgender New Yorkers” last week. The amicus brief supports a motion filed by the ACLU, NYCLU, and Lambda Legal on behalf of impacted trans patients to block the DOJ from obtaining patient information, including names, of minors who had received gender-affirming care from the major New York City hospital system from 2020 onward.“Your medical decisions and personal health information belong to you, not the government,” Mamdani wrote in a post to X on June 15. “Proud to stand with trans and queer young people across New York in defending privacy and dignity for all.”The amicus brief comes after the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Northern District of Texas criminally subpoenaed NYU for the patient information, as well as information about their medical providers, despite medical privacy laws protecting confidential patient details. The DOJ’s subpoena also included requests for information on whether NYU Langone codes gender-affirming medical care under procedure names that do not specifically apply to trans people.New Yorkers urged NYU Langone to not divulge the sensitive details of an already vulnerable group, especially as the Trump administration has repeatedly made moves to ban and criminalize trans minors receiving gender-affirming care. Advocates fear that NYU divulging this private medical information with the DOJ would only add fodder to the Trump administration’s attacks on trans healthcare and endanger young patients. The subpoena “is an attempt to intimidate hospitals to eliminate public health care and push trans people out of public life,” Kei Williams, executive director of the New Pr