When the US Department of Justice searched for doctors and clinician information providing gender -confirming young transgender patient care, officials not only asked for policies. They also required information about individual patients.
Attorney General Pam Bondi on July 9 The report announced that the department had sent more than 20 calls to doctors and clinics providing supervision. This request reflected the efforts of President Donald Trump’s administration to stop the treatment of transgender youth even in states where it is legal.
Bondi said the requests were part of “Health Care Fraud, False Claims and More” research. So far, no taxes have been announced, but the probes had a harsh influence on the availability of care.
The specificity of the requests was not announced until this week the court filed a court in a separate claim.
Lawyers say the requests are invasive and unnecessary.
“The confidentiality of doctors and patients turns it into the government’s observation,” said Jennifer Levi, Senior Transsequate and Queer Rights Director of Glad Law.
At least one of the inquiries aims for patient names and social security numbers
June 11th. The court summons sent to the Philadelphia Children’s Hospital was included in the legal application of Monday’s application from Minnesota, Oregon and Washington states before the administration’s attempts to ban patients under 19 years of age.
The 18 -page document required a wide list of documents.
Among them: Documents to determine “by name, birth date, social security number, address and parent/guardian information” for which puberty blockers or hormone therapy were assigned.
The requests also included the staff of the hospital staff, information on the patient’s use procedures and the insurance settlement codes the hospital used for gender approval.
The date specified was July 9.
It is unclear whether the summons sent to other providers were identical.
Neither the hospital nor the Judicial Department responded to the requests to comment on Thursday.
Care of gender approval emerged as part of a political and legal struggle
Gender approval supervision includes numerous medical and mental health services to help a person’s sexual identity, including when they are different from the sex they were prescribed at birth. These include counseling, medicines that block puberty and hormone therapy to perform physical changes, as well as surgery to transform chests and genitals, although they are rare for minors.
Most major medical groups say that the possibility of treatment is important for those with gender dysforias and see that sex is existing in a spectrum.
Although extensive, if not universal, medical consensus, political situation is controversial.
From 2021 At least 27 states have passed laws restricting minors in supervision or forbidden, and the US Supreme Court ruling in June. Approved the right of states to have such a policy, at least under certain conditions.
Trump signed one executive order defining sex just a man or woman – and as an indispensable – and another who seeks to terminate the federal funding of patients under 19 years of age. He also sought to prohibit members of the transgender military service and maintain transgender athletes from certain sports competitions.
And the administration has published a document doubting about the transgender youth treatment standards and offers to rely only on conversation therapy, not a medical intervention.
Investigation is one of the reasons why some clinics have stopped care
At least eight major hospital and hospital systems announced in July that they suspend or limit gender care, even if they are in states where it is not forbidden.
The Philadelphia Children’s Hospital is not among those who announced that they restricted care, although the place where it directed patients for surgery – Penn Medicine – said in May that it no longer meets them under 19 years.
A group of democratic public officials across the country appeals to the Trump administration, claiming that this is frightening to the health care providers to stop supervision.
Glad Levi said the investigation is just one of many factors that encouraged the providers to change their policies.
“It cools,” she said.