Breaking: Rhode Island's Child Advocate sues to block DOJ subpoena on Rhode Island Hospital

A federal judge in Texas ordered the hospital to turn over information about gender-affirming care provided to minors by May 14. Another in Rhode Island set a May 12 hearing.

May 04, 2026

Rhode Island’s Child Advocate went to court on Monday, asking the federal court in Rhode Island to quash the Justice Department’s subpoena seeking invasive, individualized information about transgender minor patients receiving gender-affirming medical care.

“This unprecedented intrusion into the private medical information of children, many of whom are among the most vulnerable in our state’s care, cannot be justified by any legitimate law enforcement purpose,” the lawsuit stated.

The lawsuit identified seven court decisions — including two from 2026 — quashing all or part of the Justice Department’s subpoenas, which were issued to providers of gender-affirming medical care for minors in July 2025.

U.S. District Judge Mary McElroy has ordered the Justice Department to respond by 2 p.m. Thursday. McElroy, a Trump appointee who was initially nominated to the bench during the Obama administration, scheduled a Zoom hearing in the matter for 2:30 p.m. May 12. The hearing will be open to the public remotely via YouTube.

As Law Dork covered over the weekend, after eight months, the Justice Department quietly went to the Northern District of Texas on April 30, seeking an order requiring Rhode Island Hospital, which is affiliated with Brown University, to provide the requested documents. U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor granted the request later that day, without seeking — let alone waiting for — any response from Rhode Island Hospital. DOJ only made public the action with a news release on May 1.

While Rhode Island Hospital, through Brown University’s spokesperson, said they were reviewing the matter, the state’s Child Advocate, Katelyn Medeiros, was working with lawyers to act.

On Monday morning, working with lawyers from the Lawyers’ Committee for Rhode Island and the ACLU Foundation of Rhode Island, Medeiros filed an emergency motion to quash the subpoena.

“The subpoena must be quashed because it was issued for an improper purpose: to eliminate medical care for gender dysphoria at a federal level, rather than to investigate any legitimate federal crime,“ the lawyers wrote.

In the request, Medeiros asks for the subpoena to be quashed or, alternatively, for an order that the hospital not comply — at least as to patient information.

For all these reasons, the Child Advocate respectfully requests that the Court protect the rights of Rhode Island's children and quash the Subpoena in its entirety. In the alternative, the Child Advocate requests that the Court order Rhode Island Hospital not to comply with the Subpoena, or at a minimum not to provide any infor- mation regarding names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, addresses, par-ent/guardian information, diagnoses, clinical assessments, consent forms, billing rec- ords linked to identified patients, or other personal health information.

In key part, the motion explained:

The Subpoena issued to RI Hospital, and more than 20 identical subpoenas DOJ served on health care providers that provide medical care for gender dysphoria to patients around the country, are not isolated law enforcement actions; rather, they are components of a coordinated federal campaign by the Trump Administration to target transgender individuals and eliminate access to gender-affirming medical care nationwide, even where such care is lawful and protected under state law.

Highlighting the three patient-specific provisions of the subpoena, the motion addressed the effects of this effort:

In other words, for a population of children that already lacks trust in the legal and medical systems, DOJ now seeks unfettered access to everything from their So- cial Security numbers and addresses to the intimate details about their state of mind, their sexual orientation and gender identity, and the course of treatment they chose with their physician and custodians. And DOJ has stated that it will not just scruti- nize that information but that it may share that information with others.

Addressing her reason for intervening, Medeiros’s lawyers explained the important role of the Child Advocate relating to the Rhode Island Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF):

In an accompanying declaration, Medeiros also stated that “multiple children in the custody or care of DCYF received gender-affirming care from Rhode Island Hospital“ during the time covered by the subpoena.

As such, in the motion, Medeiros addressed standing by noting that she “seeks to protect the constitutional privacy rights of identifiable children in the state of Rhode Island’s care whose medical records are sought by the subpoena” and that Rhode Island law “expressly empowers” her to take legal actions “‘to secure and ensure the legal, civil, and special rights of children’ in DCYF care or custody.“

Then, in what will certainly become a pertinent part of what happens now with this request, here is what the motion said about venue:

Moreover, this Court is unquestionably the proper venue in which the Child Advocate should bring this motion to quash. The Child Advocate, and the children in DCYF custody or care on whose behalf she brings this motion, are all located in Rhode Island. RI Hospital, to whom the subpoena was issued, is located in Rhode Island and carries on business only in Rhode Island. The records DOJ seeks to obtain are all located in Rhode Island. And DOJ served the subpoena on RI Hospital in Rhode Is-land, with instructions to produce records in Washington, D.C. See, e.g., 18 U.S.C. § 3486(a)(3) ("The production of records relating to a Federal health care offense shall not be required under this section at any place more than 500 miles distant from the place where the subpoena for the production of such records is served."). The Child Advocate was not a party to, and had no notice of, the Texas proceeding, and has had no opportunity to be heard on the Subpoena in any court.

In short: We weren’t a part of whatever DOJ did in Texas and shouldn’t have to go there to challenge this subpoena.

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