Democratic New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani firmly believes that your health is your business not the government’s—and he’s willing to fight for that stance.
Mamdani is pushing back on the Justice Department’s effort to obtain the private medical records of transgender minors from NYU Langone.
Last month, elected officials and LGBTQ+ advocates took to the streets of New York in protest of the subpoena of NYU Langone Health (as well as several other hospitals throughout the country). The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas ordered the release of medical records for youth who received gender-affirming care from the hospital, plus information about their doctors, despite these records being protected under medical privacy laws.
New Yorkers urged NYU Langone to not divulge the sensitive details of an already vulnerable group, especially as the Trump administration has repeatedly made moves to ban and criminalize trans minors receiving gender-affirming care. Advocates fear that NYU divulging this private medical information with the DOJ would only add to the Trump administration’s attacks on trans healthcare and endanger underage patients.
The subpoena “is an attempt to intimidate hospitals to eliminate public health care and push trans people out of public life,” Kei Williams, executive director of the New Pride Agenda, said during a rally on May 13.
Mamdani announced on Monday, June 15 via a post on Twitter that the New York City Law Department had filed an amicus brief “in support of transgender New Yorkers” last week.
The amicus brief supports a motion filed by the ACLU, NYCLU, and Lambda Legal on behalf of impacted trans patients to block the DOJ from obtaining patient information, including names, of minors who had received gender-affirming care from the major New York City hospital system from 2020 onward.
“Your medical decisions and personal health information belong to you, not the government,” Mamdani wrote in a post to Twitter on June 15. “Proud to stand with trans and queer young people across New York in defending privacy and dignity for all.”
The amicus brief supports the motion for a temporary restraining order on behalf of three trans minors and two trans adults who were minors when they received gender-affirming care from NYU Langone against the DOJ. In it, city attorneys assert the importance of keeping this information private.
“When a patient’s personal health information is disclosed without their consent, it gives rise to a profound and visceral sense of violation,” the brief reads. “Sadly, when the subpoenas here are considered alongside the federal government’s larger campaign against gender-affirming care, it would seem that fostering that sense of violation is part of the point.”
The move comes after federal judges across the country have attempted to block similar motions in their states that would give the DOJ access to confidential information. A federal judge in Rhode Island blocked the DOJ’s attempt to gain access to confidential records of trans patients in May; another judge in Maryland blocked a DOJ subpoena in June. In California, another judge blocked a similar request by the DOJ. Last but certainly not least, Colorado’s Children’s Hospital has gotten the backing of a federal judge in order to quash the subpoena.
Unfortunately, in the months since, doctors at Children’s Hospital have stopped providing gender-affirming services—even after the hospital was forced to continue providing it through legal measures—in fear of losing their licenses or having legal action brought against them in the way of criminal charges.
Photos courtesy of social media
