OAKLAND, Calif. — The California Attorney General’s Office announced Tuesday that California Attorney General Rob Bonta recently filed an amicus brief challenging what the office described as the Trump administration’s campaign to deny minors access to necessary medical care.
According to the release, Attorney General Bonta “led a coalition of 19 attorneys general in filing an amicus brief opposing the U.S. Department of Justice (U.S. DOJ)’s attempt to obtain personal health information about adolescents who have received gender-affirming care at Lucile Salter Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford (Stanford Children’s Hospital).”
As the California Attorney General’s Office stated in its release, Attorney General Bonta and the coalition argue in the amicus brief that “the criminal grand jury subpoena U.S. DOJ has issued to the Stanford Children’s Hospital seeks to halt gender-affirming care for adolescents in states that have made a commitment to protecting this care.”
They further argue in the amicus brief that this is an infringement on states’ rights to “regulate the practice of medicine and ensure that their residents are not denied access to medically necessary healthcare.”
According to the release, Attorney General Bonta said, “The Trump Administration is dead set on continuing its hateful agenda targeting transgender individuals and threatening providers of medically necessary care.”
Attorney General Bonta continued, “We will not stand by as the U.S. Department of Justice attempts to improperly access Americans’ private health data and infringe on states’ rights. We will fight to ensure we and other states can continue to adopt and enforce policies that safeguard crucial care for our residents. We are committed to protecting medical providers from intimidation tactics and securing transgender individuals’ abilities to live and thrive as their authentic selves.”
As the California Attorney General’s Office stated in its release, the U.S. DOJ issued administrative subpoenas in the summer of 2025 to medical providers throughout the nation that provide minors with gender-affirming healthcare.
Across the country, courts “repeatedly quashed these administrative subpoenas, finding that they served no legitimate investigatory purpose and threatened to undermine states’ sovereign interest in regulating the practice of medicine,” as the release stated.
According to the release, the U.S. DOJ changed tactics last month. It sought the same information from Stanford Children’s Hospital “through a federal criminal grand jury subpoena from the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Northern District of Texas.”
As the release reported, a group of both current and former patients filed a complaint on May 27 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California to prevent Stanford Children’s Hospital from disclosing their protected health information.
Subsequently, on June 8, “plaintiffs filed an amended complaint, a motion for class certification, and an application for a temporary restraining order (TRO) to block U.S. DOJ from obtaining their protected health information,” as stated in the release.
According to the California Attorney General’s Office, the proposed class consists of anyone who received gender-affirming care at a healthcare institution in California while under the age of 18 from Jan. 1, 2020, to May 5, 2026. This includes patients who received this care at Stanford Children’s Hospital.
As reported in the release, the U.S. DOJ has agreed to abstain from two actions. First, it will not “seek to enforce any pending process seeking material containing the protected health information or patient records of any member of the proposed class.” Second, it will not “otherwise seek, receive or accept any material containing the protected health information of members of proposed class until at least June 26, 2026.”
In the amicus brief filed Tuesday, Attorney General Bonta and the coalition “urged the district court to grant the plaintiff’s request for a TRO,” according to the release.
Their main arguments in the brief were that, first, “U.S. DOJ’s subpoena is part of a campaign against gender-affirming care that infringes on states’ rights under the Tenth Amendment of the Constitution to regulate the practice of medicine.”
Second, they argued in the brief that “the subpoena harms states’ ability to protect equality for their residents and ensure that people with gender dysphoria retain access to medically necessary care.”
According to the California Attorney General’s Office, “Attorney General Bonta is committed to defending medical providers and their patients from overreach and intimidation by the Trump Administration.”
The release stated that Attorney General Bonta joined an amicus brief with multiple states in opposition to a U.S. DOJ grand jury subpoena against NYU Langone Hospital. The subpoena “also sought to access the personal health information of patients who have received gender-affirming care.”
According to the release, Attorney General Bonta has also joined other amicus briefs opposing similar U.S. DOJ subpoenas against Rhode Island Hospital, telemedicine platform QueerDoc, the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Boston Children’s Hospital, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and Children’s Hospital Colorado.
Follow the Vanguard on Social Media – X, Instagram and Facebook. Subscribe the Vanguard News letters. To make a tax-deductible donation, please visit davisvanguard.org/donate or give directly through ActBlue. Your support will ensure that the vital work of the Vanguard continues.
