In June 2025, the Department of Justice served as many as 20 administrative subpoenas to providers of gender-affirming care across the country, demanding extensive internal documents and confidential patient records as part of a purported investigation into federal healthcare offenses. Two of those subpoenas were issued to Boston Children’s Hospital (BCH) in Boston and Rhode Island Hospital in Providence.
In July 2025, BCH moved to quash the subpoena in the District of Massachusetts. The district court concluded that it was “abundantly clear that the true purpose of issuing the subpoena is to interfere with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ right to protect [gender-affirming care] within its borders, to harass and intimidate BCH to stop providing such care, and to dissuade patients from seeking such care.” It also found that “the Government has failed to show proper purpose and, even if it had, that BCH has demonstrated that the subpoena was issued for an improper purpose, motivated only by bad faith.”
In May 2026, the DOJ moved to enforce its subpoena against Rhode Island Hospital in the Northern District of Texas. In response, the Rhode Island Child Advocate (RICA) — a statutory position in Rhode Island with independent legal authority to protect the rights of children in the care or custody of the state — filed a motion to quash the subpoena in the District of Rhode Island. The court blocked the DOJ from seeking or receiving information under the subpoena, ruling that “the subpoena itself lacks a congressionally authorized purpose, was issued for an improper purpose, and demands the production of records that cannot be obtained consistent with the constitutional privacy rights of Rhode Island children.”
A group of former senior DOJ officials, represented by the Brennan Center and the law firm Anderson & Kreiger, filed friend-of-the-court briefs in both cases before the First Circuit Court of Appeals supporting BCH’s and RICA’s positions. The briefs explain that deviations from DOJ policies and norms evident in the public record support the district courts’ conclusions that the subpoenas were issued for improper purposes.
The briefs do not take a position on gender-affirming care. Rather, they emphasize that the First Circuit cannot allow coercive investigations to take place and that the administration cannot pursue policy goals via improper investigations in place of the legislative process.
