The Trump administration is backing away from its attempt to obtain private medical records connected to young transgender patients who received gender-affirming care through UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh.
The U.S. Department of Justice has moved to voluntarily dismiss its appeal of a federal court ruling that blocked its subpoena seeking patient information from UPMC. The patients and families who intervened to fight the subpoena do not oppose the dismissal.
The move brings a significant legal victory for Pittsburgh families who spent more than a year fighting to keep sensitive healthcare information out of the federal government’s hands.
It also leaves standing a forceful rebuke from Chief U.S. District Judge Cathy Bissoon, who repeatedly rejected the Justice Department’s attempts to obtain the records.
The dispute began after the Justice Department issued a sweeping subpoena seeking sensitive medical and personal information from UPMC patients in 2025.
Patients and their families intervened in federal court to prevent their information from being disclosed. They were represented by the Public Interest Law Center and Ballard Spahr.
In December 2025, Bissoon quashed the subpoena. The Justice Department subsequently proposed obtaining anonymized records instead, but the judge rejected that effort as well.
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As QBurgh reported in March, Bissoon found that even supposedly anonymized information could put patients at risk of being identified.
Her ruling also included an extraordinary condemnation of the federal government’s treatment of transgender people.
Bissoon wrote that the administration’s rhetoric surrounding gender-affirming healthcare reflected “callous indifference, if not abject cruelty.”
Addressing the government’s motivations for seeking the records, Bissoon wrote that the circumstances carried more than a “whiff” of ill intent.
“Arguably, it is closer to a stench,” she wrote.
In a public statement released Monday by the Public Interest Law Center, legal director Mimi McKenzie said the end of the appeal means the patients whose records were at stake no longer have to fear that their personal information will be turned over to the administration.
“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 in the statement.
But McKenzie emphasized that reaching this point came at a substantial cost to the families involved.
“That’s a win for patients. But it came with a great cost,” she said.
For more than a year, families faced the possibility that deeply personal healthcare information about their children could be obtained amid a much broader federal campaign targeting gender-affirming healthcare and transgender people.
According to the Public Interest Law Center’s statement, McKenzie characterized the government’s effort to obtain the records as part of an attempt to frighten patients away from gender-affirming healthcare and intimidate medical providers offering it.
The Fight Over UPMC Isn’t Over
The end of this particular court battle does not resolve another major issue facing transgender young people and their families in Pittsburgh: UPMC’s decision to stop providing gender-affirming medical care to patients under 19.
UPMC ended that care on June 30, 2025, citing the threat of federal criminal prosecution against clinicians. The decision left families searching for alternatives.
It also triggered sustained resistance. Families and activists organized protests and public actions while young patients and their families described the consequences of suddenly losing access to care. Five former patients also filed a discrimination complaint with the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission.
Parents have also questioned whether UPMC did enough to resist federal pressure. In September 2025, Pittsburgh-area parents publicly demanded that UPMC challenge the subpoena and protect their children’s medical privacy.
UPMC eventually entered the court fight, but stopped short of challenging the subpoena itself. In a November court filing, UPMC asked that no records be released while the families’ challenge was pending, while taking a neutral position on the subpoena itself.
The legal effort to quash the subpoena was pursued by patients and their families.
McKenzie used Monday’s public statement to warn UPMC against yielding to further pressure from the Trump administration.
“Gender-affirming care is legal in Pennsylvania, and gender-based discrimination is not,” McKenzie said. “UPMC must follow the law and not cave to a hostile administration.”
The Justice Department abandoning its appeal protects the sensitive records at the center of this case. It does not restore the gender-affirming healthcare UPMC stopped providing to young patients last year.
For Pittsburgh’s trans community, those are two separate fights.
In one, families successfully stood between the federal government and their children’s private healthcare information.
The larger fight over whether transgender young people in Western Pennsylvania can reliably access medically appropriate, gender-affirming healthcare close to home remains unresolved.