Judge denies DOJ's pursuit of patient
information from UPMC Children's

The DOJ sought anonymized records of minors receiving
gender-affirming care at the Lawrenceville hospital

MEGAN GUZA
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
mguza@post-gazette.com

MAR 3, 2026 1:29 PM

A federal judge in Pittsburgh sharply denied a push from the U.S.
Department of Justice to force UPMC Children’s to turn over the
anonymized records of juvenile patients who’d received gender-affirming
care, saying the pursuit of such information “exceeds the DOJ’s statutory
authority.”

“[The DOJ’s] rhetoric regarding gendering-affirming care reflects callous
indifference if not abject cruelty,” U.S. Chief District Judge Cathy Bissoon
wrote in her opinion, issued Monday.

A representative for the DOJ could not immediately be reached for
comment.

The judge in December shot down the original subpoena from the DOJ that
blanketly requested information on the minor patients who’d received
gender-affirming care from UPMC. She said at the time the department’s
actions contained “more than a whiff of ill-intent,” and she doubled down
on that assessment Monday.
“There is more than a ‘whiff’ of ill-intent,” she wrote. “Arguably, it is closer
to a stench.”

The department tried to quell advocates’ concerns by asking the court to
narrow the scope of the original subpoena, in allowing all patient
information to be anonymous. She rejected that argument, writing that
“the patients have persuaded the court that true and effective
anonymization cannot be achieved.”

Advocates applauded the ruling.

“Not only did the court soundly reject the DOJ’s proposal to accept
anonymized records, but it called out the DOJ’s shameful conduct in no
uncertain terms,” said Mimi McKenzie, legal director of the Public Interest
Law Center, the firm that, alongside the law firm Ballard Sphar,
represented four UPMC families seeking to quash the subpoena.
Those families, Ms. McKenzie said, “should never have had to defend their
most private medical records from this kind of political attack by our
government.”

The DOJ, in its push for anonymized data, argued that the government
often handles sensitive information and “courts have long trusted the
adequacy of those safeguards.”

Judge Bissoon was dubious, calling those assurances “cold comfort.”
“The DOJ’s actions in this area are unprecedented, to say the least,” she
wrote. “Reliance on historical norms, standards and, frankly, decency,
cannot be seen as given.”

The Trump administration in July sent subpoenas to more than 20 doctors
and medical facilities requesting a broad swath of patient-identifying
information for anyone under age 19 who had been prescribed hormones or
puberty blockers by UPMC since 2020.

The DOJ at the time said the subpoenas were in pursuit of uncovering
health care fraud. In a short statement issued alongside the subpoenas,
Attorney General Pam Bondi said: “Medical professionals and
organizations that mutilated children in the service of a warped ideology
will be held accountable by this Department of Justice.”

Judge Bissoon called it “a crusade to eliminate medical care that, until
recently, was in its own eyes legal.”
Gender-affirming care, she wrote, remains legal in Pennsylvania:
“Righteousness and rhetoric, regardless of how fervent, is no substitute for
political- and legislative-process.”

First Published: March 3, 2026, 1:29 p.m.
Updated: March 3, 2026, 7:05 p.m.

Megan Guza is an award-winning reporter who has covered
criminal justice in the Pittsburgh region since 2015, including for
the Post-Gazette since 2022.
mguza@post-gazette.com
@meganguzaPG