A federal judge has temporarily blocked the Trump administration from obtaining sensitive medical records from healthcare institutions in New York City that provided pediatric gender treatments to minors in recent years.

Background

The ruling from US District Judge Katherine Polk Failla is a significant blow to the administration’s ongoing nationwide criminal investigation into the provision of pediatric gender treatments. Numerous courts around the country have viewed this investigation as an improper fishing expedition because the government has struggled to identify potential crimes by providers.

Ruling from the bench, Failla provisionally certified a class comprised of individuals who had received care from a New York City provider over the past six years. She also issued a temporary restraining order that bars investigators from obtaining the records, including through a grand jury subpoena that had been issued to NYU Langone Hospitals in recent weeks.

“The scope of information sought by the government here, which includes medical assessments, diagnoses, informed consent records, and revelation of plaintiffs’ transgender status, is significant,” she said, adding that that type of information is “squarely within the class of intimate materials warranting the strongest constitutional protection.”

“Because I cannot conceive of a crime that would require the breadth of disclosures in the subpoena – identifying and sensitive medical information for an entire class of people for a six-year period – I have to find that the government’s interest does not outweigh the plaintiffs’ interest in privacy,” Failla said.

Original reporting: KRDO (Colorado Springs metro) — read the source article.