Advocates hail DOJ move as win for UPMC patients who sought gender-affirming care

• By Glynis Board, WESA

This article was originally published by WESA. 

The U.S. Department of Justice is dropping its appeal of a federal court ruling that quashed its subpoena issued to UPMC just over a year ago, seeking to access medical records of young people seeking gender-affirming care.

The Public Interest Law Center, which represents the patients and their families along with the law firm Ballard Spahr, released a statement Monday saying that as a result, “that district court ruling is final.” The statement referenced a ruling by Chief U.S. District Judge Cathy Bissoon of the Western District Court of Pennsylvania.

In March, Bissoon reaffirmed her December 2025 denial of the DOJ’s subpoena to UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh for records and rejected the DOJ’s offer to accept anonymized records. Her ruling followed similar findings from judges in Philadelphia, Colorado, and Washington state who said the agency does not have the authority to require sensitive health data.

“Our clients can breathe easier with this litigation behind them,” said Ballard Spahr partner Henry Hockeimer.

Mimi McKenzie, director of the Public Interest Law Center, said in a statement that the Justice Department during the Trump administration has been reaching agreements around the country with healthcare providers to “end gender-affirming care and prop up ‘de-transition’ clinics, at a cost of hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars.

“We hope UPMC does not make that same mistake,” she said.

“Gender-affirming care is legal in Pennsylvania, and gender-based discrimination is not,” McKenzie added. “UPMC must follow the law and not cave to a hostile administration.”

UPMC did not respond Monday to a request for comment about the development, but a UPMC spokesperson has previously noted language in recent legal documents indicating that the health system has not produced any of the information originally requested in the DOJ subpoena.

“The children we represented, their families, and all minor patients from UPMC’s gender-affirming care clinic can now rest easy that their personal information will not be exposed to a hostile administration,” McKenzie said.

“That’s a win for patients. But it came with a great cost,” she added. “They faced the possibility of harassment from the federal government and the fear that their private healthcare records would be in the hands of people who think that transgender and nonbinary people shouldn’t exist.

“And that’s not speculation; that’s based on the statements of Trump’s own people, including the then-attorney general,” she said. “In seeking these records, the administration’s goal was to scare patients from seeking this healthcare and intimidate providers from offering it.”