Upholding the privacy rights of vulnerable children, U.S. District Court Judge Mary S. McElroy this evening quashed the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) subpoena for the sensitive private medical records of young patients who have received medical treatment for gender dysphoria at Rhode Island Hospital. In doing so, the judge also blasted the DOJ as having been “proven unworthy . . . at every point in this case” of the trust expected of federal prosecutors, saying they “misrepresented and withheld information” from the court.
The decision comes after an emergency motion was filed last week by attorneys for the Lawyers’ Committee for Rhode Island (LCRI) and the American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island (ACLU) on behalf of Rhode Island’s Child Advocate. The DOJ’s request to enforce the subpoena for these records was filed by the DOJ and approved, without opportunity for response, by a judge in Texas, not Rhode Island, all in one day at the end of April.
In quashing the subpoena, the judge stated that it “lacks a congressionally authorized purpose, was issued for an improper purpose, and demands the production of records that cannot be obtained consistent with the constitutional privacy rights of Rhode Island children.” The opinion notes that seven other courts across the country have quashed identical subpoenas issued to other providers of medical care for gender dysphoria.
The motion filed by the Child Advocate noted that the medical records being sought by the subpoena “contain the most intimate details imaginable: children’s mental health struggles, experiences with bullying or discrimination, family dynamics, sexual development, gender identity, trauma histories, suicidal ideation, and deeply personal conversations with physicians and therapists.” The judge agreed that “DOJ’s request for intimate medical details from one of this country’s most vulnerable populations constitutes a drastic overreach of its investigative authority.”
During yesterday’s hearing, and in her written decision, Judge McElroy also made clear she believes the DOJ misled the court by not providing all of the facts of the interactions between RI Hospital and the DOJ before the subpoena was issued. She called “unsettling” the “discrepancy between the honorable conduct expected of federal prosecutors and DOJ’s tactics in this case.”
All major medical organizations recognize gender dysphoria — which occurs when there is a conflict between the sex a person is assigned at birth and the gender with which they identify — as a medical condition that can cause significant distress and that appropriate medical care can effectively treat, including in minors.
The motion to quash was filed on behalf of Child Advocate Katelyn Medeiros by LCRI cooperating attorneys Kevin Love Hubbard, Miriam Weizenbaum, and Amy Romero, and ACLU of RI cooperating attorney Lynette Labinger.
A copy of the decision and case documents can be found here.
