Two parents of trans children who received gender-affirming care at Mount Sinai Health System said representatives of the hospital network called them on Thursday and said their children’s health information would be shared with the federal government.
“ I was blindsided by this because we're not even receiving care there anymore,” said Dawn Gabriel, one of the parents.
She said her 17-year-old son received gender-affirming care at Mount Sinai until the health system informed her earlier this year that it was discontinuing such services for minors.
The other parent, who asked not to be identified out of concern for their family’s safety, said a Mount Sinai social worker told them during a three-minute phone call that the records would be shared in response to a federal subpoena.
The parents said Mount Sinai did not reveal when the records would be released or provide any additional details.
Mount Sinai declined to comment.
Reports of the Mount Sinai calls come amid concerns from trans New Yorkers and LGBTQ+ advocates that NYU Langone could be required to share similar patient information with the Trump administration in response to a federal grand jury subpoena the health system received last month.
The subpoena issued to NYU Langone requests documents on patients under 18 who received treatment for gender dysphoria at the health system over the past six years, as well as the personnel records of their medical providers.
Gabriel said Mount Sinai told her the records would be anonymized, but she is not confident that would adequately protect her son’s privacy.
“ I'm worried,” Gabriel said. “My son has a passport with the correct gender marker. Is this going to affect him when he has to get it renewed because they have his private medical records?”
She added that her husband is concerned the Trump administration will come after the parents of trans kids, too.
The DOJ did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday and has previously declined to say why it is seeking records related to minors who received gender-affirming care.
However, the Trump administration has repeatedly raised concerns about providing so-called “sex-rejecting” procedures such as puberty blockers and hormone therapy to minors.
A group of trans New Yorkers, some of whom are being represented through their parents, filed a class-action lawsuit against NYU Langone and the U.S. Department of Justice earlier this week seeking to block their health information from being shared with the Trump administration.
That complaint states that, “upon information and belief, DOJ has sent virtually identical federal grand jury subpoenas to other healthcare institutions in New York City, including Mount Sinai Health System.”
But it has not yet been confirmed that Mount Sinai received such a subpoena, said Karen Loewy, senior counsel for Lambda Legal, one of the nonprofit law firms that filed the class-action suit. She said her firm has only heard rumors to that effect.
Still, she said the class-action lawsuit was intentionally written in such a way that it would also apply to people who received gender-affirming care at Mount Sinai or other NYC institutions as minors and were at risk of having their medical records shared with the Trump administration.
The lawsuit asks a federal judge to declare the NYU Langone subpoena and any similar subpoenas unconstitutional and to block the DOJ from requesting such information from NYU Langone or other health care institutions.
NYU Langone has not yet said whether it will comply with its federal subpoena. The hospital system was initially given until June 10 to respond, but a federal judge on Thursday pushed the case's emergency hearing to June 22 and delayed any production of records sought through the subpoena until at least June 24.
