A federal judge in New York blocked the Department of Justice (DOJ) from obtaining the sensitive medical records of transgender minors from New York City hospitals on Wednesday, granting an emergency temporary restraining order to families and patients who argued the administration’s subpoenas violated their constitutional privacy rights.

The ruling came in Coe v. Blanche, a class action lawsuit filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York by the ACLU, the New York Civil Liberties Union and Lambda Legal on behalf of three New York families with transgender children and two transgender adults who were minors when they began care. All plaintiffs filed under pseudonyms to protect their privacy. The suit challenges a grand jury subpoena issued in May 2026 to NYU Langone Hospitals by an assistant US attorney in Fort Worth, Texas, demanding the identities and health information of any patient who received treatment for gender dysphoria while under 18 from January 2020 through May 2026.

The grand jury subpoenas followed a year-long DOJ effort to obtain the same records from hospitals across the country through administrative subpoenas—efforts blocked by at least eight federal district courts. One court dismissed the government’s reasoning as a “smokescreen,” while another concluded the DOJ “issued the subpoena first and searched for a justification second.”

The plaintiffs argue that the subpoenas violate their Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights to privacy and protection from unreasonable search and seizure. They also sued NYU Langone to prevent the release of records protected by doctor-patient privilege under New York state law. The court’s class definition covers all individuals who received treatment for gender dysphoria as minors at New York City healthcare institutions, including NYU Langone and Mount Sinai, from January 2020 through May 2026.

“Patients and families trust their doctors with their most intimate, private information and should trust in turn that this information will be protected from impermissible and harassing demands for disclosure from the federal government,” Chase Strangio, co-director of the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Rights Project, said. “The Trump administration has not only decided that it knows better than these families and their doctors what their medical needs are, but has also sought to obtain troves of sensitive information about patients in New York.”

“The government cannot abuse its powers to violate the constitutional rights of transgender young people and their families,” said Omar Gonzalez-Pagan, senior counsel and health care strategist at Lambda Legal. “Whether a young person receives any type of medical care is a decision for that patient, their family, and their doctor, not for political appointees to decide, interfere with, or know.”

The judge on Wednesday scheduled a hearing for July 8 to determine whether to issue a preliminary injunction extending the block.