A federal judge has quashed a subpoena the Trump Justice Department issued to QueerDoc, a firm that specializes in telemedicine for transgender individuals, saying the administration was attempting to “intimidate and coerce” the firm to stop offering its services.
U.S. District Judge Jamal Whitehead, a Biden appointee to the court in Washington state, rejected the department’s claims that QueerDoc was prescribing off-label uses of drugs as puberty blockers for juveniles.
He said the subpoena was really a fishing expedition in a quest “to rifle through thousands of patient records hoping to find something — anything — to justify its predetermined goal of ending gender-affirming care.”
He said it was startling to think that the department had assigned “multiple” FBI agents to probe the small firm, which convinced him the subpoena was less about violations of federal law and more about badgering QueerDoc itself.
“When a federal agency issues a subpoena not to investigate legal violations but to intimidate and coerce providers into abandoning lawful medical care, it exceeds its legitimate authority and abuses the judicial process,” Judge Whitehead wrote.
QueerDoc was one of more than 20 companies to receive a subpoena this summer as Attorney General Pam Bondi probed clinics and doctors that perform what it called “transgender medical procedures” on children.
In a statement after Judge Whitehead’s ruling Monday, the department defended its investigation.
“As Attorney General Bondi has made clear, this Department of Justice will use every legal and law enforcement tool available to protect innocent children from being mutilated under the guise of ‘care,’” the department said.
At the time it issued the subpoenas, the department said it was carrying out President Trump’s orders discouraging gender treatments for minors.
The Washington Times has reached out to QueerDoc for this article.
The firm bills itself as a telemedicine service that offers “gender affirming medical care,” including hormone treatments, puberty blockers and surgery referrals. It serves 10 states and says it is staffed by “queer and gender diverse providers.”
The company states that it has a limit on the age at which it is willing to start the treatments.
The Justice Department’s subpoena demanded the company’s personnel files; billing and insurance records; and names, addresses, Social Security numbers and treatment histories for those prescribed puberty blockers or hormone therapy.
The judge called that a “staggering” scope, and said some of those requests had nothing to do with the off-label prescribing the government said it was probing.
Allan Gordus, a Justice Department lawyer, said QueerDoc’s website appears to offer misleading claims about what puberty blockers do and the ability to reverse the treatments. The company also admits that it sometimes uses false billing codes to obscure the fact that it is prescribing gender treatments, he said.
“There is evidence that QueerDoc may have an intent to defraud and mislead,” he told the judge in a filing late last month.
He pointed to an interview by QueerDoc’s founder, Crystal Beal, who said they felt “compelled to defy anti-trans law” by offering their services even in states that attempted to make it illegal.
Judge Whitehead said Mr. Gordus’ assertions came too late in the case and, anyway, only deepened his own conclusion that the subpoenas were “pretextual.”
“The devotion of ‘substantial national investigation’ resources with ‘multiple FBI agents’ to investigate a small telehealth provider that neither manufactures drugs nor submits insurance claims underscores that this investigation targets the provision of gender-affirming care itself, not any legitimate federal violation,” the judge wrote.
Judge Whitehead’s ruling is already reverberating with some of the other subpoenas issued.
In Philadelphia, patients of Children’s Hospital, who had battled a subpoena arguing it could disclose their private data to the government, submitted Judge Whitehead’s decision to the judge overseeing their case.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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