Health Law Daily Wrap Up, GENERAL HEALTH CARE NEWS—W.D. Wash.: DOJ subpoena to gender affirming care provider gets quashed, (Oct 31, 2025)

By Donielle Tigay Stutland, J.D.

“The record before the Court establishes that DOJ’s subpoena to QueerDoc was issued for a purpose other than to investigate potential violations of the FDCA or FCA.”

The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington granted a motion to quash a subpoena issued by the Department of Justice (DOJ) to a gender-affirming care health provider. The court concluded that the DOJ’s subpoena to provider QueerDoc, PLLC, was issued for a purpose other than to investigate potential violations of the FDCA or FCA. Wrote the court, “The Executive Orders, the Attorney General’s directives, the mismatch between the stated investigative focus and QueerDoc’s operations, and the breadth of the document requests collectively demonstrate that the subpoena serves to pressure providers to cease offering gender-affirming care rather than to investigate specific unlawful conduct.” The court denied the healthcare providers motion to seal the proceedings, indicating that despite legitimate safety concerns, transparency in judicial proceedings remains paramount when challenging executive power (QueerDoc, PLLC v. U.S. Department of Justice, No. 2:25-mc-00042-JNW (W.D. Wash. Oct. 27, 2025)).

Background. QueerDoc is a small telehealth provider that offers gender affirming care in ten states, including Washington. QueerDoc asserts that it is a healthcare provider that prescribes medications, not a manufacturer or distributor of pharmaceutical products, and states that it does not participate in federal insurance programs or submit insurance claims, though it provides patients with super bills they can submit independently.

In January 2025, President Trump issued two executive orders: Order 14168, "Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government” and Executive Order 14187, “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation.” The second order directed DOJ to “prioritize investigations and take appropriate action to end deception of consumers, fraud, and violations of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.”

On June 11, 2025, DOJ served QueerDoc with an administrative subpoena under Section 248 of the Health Insurance Portability & Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), which authorizes subpoenas to aid “[i]n any investigation of... a Federal health care offense.” The subpoena contained fifteen document requests seeking materials from January 2020 to present.

The requests included:

• “Complete personnel files for each employee, contractor, or affiliate of the Company” (Request 1);

• “All documents, including billing records, insurance claims, internal protocols, or guidance, concerning the use of ICD (i.e., International Classification of Diseases) diagnosis codes” (Request 2);

• All communications with pharmaceutical manufacturers regarding the use of puberty blockers or hormones in connection with gender affirming care for minor patients (Requests 7–9);

• “Documents sufficient to identify each patient (by name, date of birth, social security number, address, and parent/guardian information) who was prescribed puberty blockers or hormone therapy” (Request 11);

• All medical records, diagnoses, and treatment documentation for these patients (Requests 12–13);

• All documents relating to billing or coding practices for gender-related care (Requests 4–6, 14–15).

QueerDoc moved to quash the subpoena and seal the proceedings. One day later, DOJ issued a press release stating it had “sent more than 20 subpoenas to doctors and clinics involved in performing transgender medical procedures on children.”

Motion to Seal. The court first addressed QueerDoc’s move to seal the proceedings from public view, citing safety concerns and the sensitive nature of the medical information at issue. The court denied the motion to seal because, despite legitimate safety concerns, the court concluded that transparency in judicial proceedings remains paramount when challenging executive power. The court outlined that “’compelling reasons supported by specific factual findings’” is required to overcome the strong presumption of public access to court records. The Local Civil Rules require the party seeking to keep materials under seal to show: (1) “the legitimate private or public interests that warrant the relief sought”; (2) “the injury that will result if the relief sought is not granted”; and (3) “why a less restrictive alternative to the relief sought is not sufficient.”

While QueerDoc presented evidence that disclosure might harm its business and cause patients to seek other providers, the court found those concerns rest on “hypothesis or conjecture” rather than specific facts showing how public access to this litigation—as opposed to the investigation itself—would cause harm.

Although the court denied QueerDoc’s motion to seal, the court noted that it will permit redaction of specific patient and provider identifying information in any future filings, consistent with Local Civil Rule 5.2 and HIPAA privacy protections

Motion to Quash. The court next analyzed QueerDoc’s motion to quash the administrative subpoena, arguing that DOJ has weaponized its investigative authority to advance the Administration’s stated policy goal of eliminating gender-affirming care.

First, the court outlined that the Ninth Circuit permits judicial review of administrative subpoenas allegedly issued for an improper purpose. DOJ argued that judicial review of administrative subpoenas is “quite narrow” and that courts should not examine the government’s motivations behind a facially valid investigation. QueerDoc in response asserted that controlling precedent authorizes courts to examine whether a subpoena was issued for an improper purpose or in bad faith. QueerDoc cited United States v. Powell, for the proposition that administrative subpoenas must be issued “pursuant to a legitimate purpose.” In Powell, the court held that an administrative subpoena may not be enforceable if it “would be an abusive use of the court’s process[.]”

The court highlighted that, “while the government need not justify its decision to open an investigation,” once a recipient makes an adequate showing of bad faith or improper purpose, courts may examine whether the agency is “‘pursuing the authorized purposes in good faith.’”

The court concluded that based on the timeline of the Executive Orders and the DOJ’s memos and actions, “This is not speculation about hidden motives—it is the Administration’s explicit agenda.” The court wrote, “No clearer evidence of improper purpose could exist than the Government’s own repeated declarations that it seeks to end the very practice it claims to be merely investigating.” The court also touched on the “mismatch” between DOJ’s stated investigation and QueerDoc’s actual operations further as evidence of the subpoena’s pretextual nature. The court continued, “This mismatch is not just a technicality. It suggests that DOJ issued the subpoena first and searched for a justification second. No legitimate investigation would demand thousands of patient records from an entity that cannot, by definition, commit the violations being investigated.”

The court also stressed that the subpoena was overbroad in its request. As the Ninth Circuit has recognized, “[a]n administrative subpoena... may not be so broad so to be in the nature of a ‘fishing expedition.’” The court concluded that “that DOJ’s subpoena to QueerDoc was issued for a purpose other than to investigate potential violations of the FDCA or FCA.” The court granted the motion to quash.

The case is No. 2:25-mc-00042-JNW.

Judge: Whitehead, J.

Attorneys: Brittney M. Nagle (Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP) for QueerDoc PLLC. Patrick Runkle, U.S. Department of Justice, for U.S. Department of Justice.

Companies: QueerDoc PLLC

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