It’s CELEBRATION TIME, folks! We’ve got some good news! Reset the “days since good news” counter from 569 to zero! I’m gonna hit a backflip, please preemptively call an ambulance! Actually, never mind, I’m sure that will just pop back into place. Cancel the ambulance, I can’t afford it… I’m an American, after all.
If you, like me, have been forced by an ancient Pharaoh’s curse to keep up with the news, you must surely be aware that Trump’s Department of Justice was weaponized to virulently attack transgender people—in particular, trans youth—when he first returned to office. The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, once considered a premier destination for young lawyers seeking to make their bones and earn themselves some glory, has seriously relaxed their applicant requirements and started offering huge bonuses to anybody willing to harass immigrants and gender-affirming care providers in open court.
The Justice Department has faced many setbacks in their efforts to intimidate trans healthcare providers, with little progress to show in their culture war against trans Americans. Last year, in Pennsylvania, families targeted by the Justice Department sued to prevent them from receiving their trans kids’ medical records via subpoena. The court decided that the subpoena was blatant overreach, describing Justice Department rhetoric as reflecting “callous indifference, if not abject cruelty.”
The government appealed that decision, but on Monday, they decided to drop the appeal. In a shockingly brief motion to voluntarily dismiss, the Justice Department declared its desire to withdraw from the case, with both parties paying their own accrued costs. Assuming the court accepts the motions, the initial block of the probe will remain in effect, and become the final ruling in this case.
Mimi McKenzie, director of the Public Interest Law Center, which represented the targeted families in their court battle against the Justice Department, told the Pennsylvania Capital-Star:
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. That’s a win for patients. But it came with a great cost. They faced the possibility of harassment from the federal government and the fear that their private healthcare records would be in the hands of people who think that transgender and nonbinary people shouldn’t exist. And that’s not speculation; that’s based on the statements of Trump’s own people, including the then-attorney general. In seeking these records, the administration’s goal was to scare patients from seeking this healthcare and intimidate providers from offering it.
What changed, exactly? It’s hard to say. During their crusade against trans healthcare providers, which has lasted nearly a year and a half now, the Justice Department has produced very few results. A handful of big name providers have shuttered their doors to young trans patients, either temporarily or permanently, and that tremendous harm cannot be overlooked.
At the same time, most or all of the subpoenas they’ve sent to hospitals in the hopes of scraping the private information of young trans patients and their families have been shut down, and the Department of Health and Human Services has themselves recently deprioritized targeting trans youth healthcare.
We would be fools, of course, to think HHS or the Justice Department are done targeting trans kids and their families. More likely, they will simply pivot to a new strategy, since their current battle plan isn’t gaining them the ground they hoped for.
Still, the families of trans kids in Pennsylvania can breathe easier for now, and that’s damn sure worth celebrating.
