More than 20 subpoenas from the Justice Department demand hospitals and clinics hand over private records of patients under 19 who received gender-affirming care. Subpoenas seek billing documents, doctors' notes, voicemails, encrypted text messages, birth dates, Social Security numbers, and home addresses dating back to 2020. The subpoenas target providers in states where care remains legal and in states with bans. Attorney General Pam Bondi accused medical professionals of "mutilating children in the service of a warped ideology" and directed prosecutors to pursue fraud and federal female genital mutilation statutes. Major U.S. medical associations support gender-affirming care as evidence-based and lifesaving. Advocates and legal experts call the action an unprecedented abuse threatening medical privacy and access to care.
According to The Washington Post, one subpoena sent to the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia in June ordered staff to turn over virtually every kind of record connected to gender-affirming treatment: billing documents, doctors' notes, voicemails, encrypted text messages, and even the birth dates, Social Security numbers, and home addresses of patients going back to 2020. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced the subpoenas last month, accusing medical professionals of "mutilating children in the service of a warped ideology."
Every major U.S. medical association, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, and the Endocrine Society, supports gender-affirming care for transgender adults and minors, stressing that it is evidence-based and, for many young people, lifesaving. According to the , seven people familiar with the subpoenas said they targeted providers in both states where care remains legal and states where bans have been enacted.
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