Courts block subpoenas in nine cases while six health systems settle
Jordan Campbell, a 40-year-old former Texas business litigator, is leading a Justice Department enforcement effort aimed at ending gender-transition care for minors, according to the Wall Street Journal. The civil and criminal probes have reached more than 20 healthcare providers and several pharmaceutical companies, and six large health systems have settled to discontinue their transgender youth programs — including three in recent weeks.
The Justice Department declined to make Campbell available for an interview. The probes have nonetheless put new pressures on doctors and hospitals, drawing support from Campbell’s allies and criticism from families who say the pullback has left them unable to obtain care for their children, the Journal reported.
Campbell’s path to the Justice Department was unconventional. For a decade he handled contract and antitrust disputes as a business litigator in Texas before leaving the practice to found what became one of the first U.S. law firms devoted exclusively to representing people who said they had been harmed by gender-transition treatments. He left Brown Fox, the boutique firm where he thought he would remain for years, and co-founded Campbell Miller Payne in 2023. The firm has filed medical-malpractice lawsuits on behalf of 15 clients, plus two wrongful-death cases on behalf of the families of transgender people who died, one from suicide and the second from alleged medical negligence, its partners said. Since 2023, the firm has interviewed hundreds of potential clients, though most allege conduct past the legal deadline to sue, and has obtained millions in settlements for its clients; two trials are scheduled for next year, the partners told the Journal.
Campbell, a Dallas native, doesn’t own a pair of dress shoes and has been known to wear cowboy boots to court, the Journal reported. He doesn’t care about politics, colleagues say, and isn’t registered with a political party.
Campbell’s pivot was prompted, he has said, by a podcast from political commentator Matt Walsh — described by the Journal as “far-right” — that he heard while walking his dog. Since then, his efforts have been driven by conversations with so-called detransitioners — people who previously identified as transgender but no longer do — many of whom alleged healthcare providers pressured them into gender treatments they would later regret. In a subsequent appearance on a Christian talk-radio program, Campbell described his typical client as having a history of underlying mental-health issues and being “sucked into” gender treatments as a minor. He characterized parents as “essentially emotionally blackmailed by being told, ‘Your kid’s going to commit suicide if you don’t get on board.’”
After President Trump won re-election in 2024, Chad Mizelle, the incoming chief of staff to Attorney General Pam Bondi, called Campbell with a recruitment pitch. “My pitch to him was, ‘Hey, would you be willing to leave that practice and come do that on behalf of the United States?’” Mizelle told the Journal. Campbell prayed on it, colleagues said, then moved his family of seven children from Texas to Washington in the summer of 2025.
By the time Campbell arrived, the president had already issued an executive order seeking to stop what he called the “chemical and surgical mutilation” of children, and top Justice Department officials had begun ordering investigations. “I told them until they perp-walk a doctor, the job is not done,” Mizelle said.
The legal theory animating the campaign is that doctors may be making false claims about the off-label use of hormones as gender treatments, and may be misclassifying treatments on billing documents submitted to government healthcare programs and private insurers. The department has also alleged that drug companies may be making false claims about pharmaceuticals used for gender treatments.
Judges in at least nine separate cases have blocked all or parts of government subpoenas, finding the government was motivated by a political agenda rather than any reasonable suspicion that the targeted providers had engaged in wrongdoing, the Journal reported. One New York judge, an Obama appointee, said the department has made a “disastrous showing in the courts.” U.S. District Judge Mary McElroy in Rhode Island, one of Trump’s own appointees, said the department “has proven unworthy of this trust at every point in this case.” McElroy referred Campbell and a junior colleague for potential disciplinary proceedings; the Justice Department said the allegations were without merit.
The government is appealing several of the losses. Last month, a 2-1 ruling from the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals revived a subpoena to QueerDoc, a telehealth clinic that provides gender care. Several more hearings are likely in the coming months.
Even where courts ruled in the providers’ favor, some institutions chose to settle. A judge quashed a subpoena to the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, finding it apparent from Trump administration rhetoric that the demand for patient information “carries more than a whiff of ill-intent.” Earlier this month, the medical center settled anyway, agreeing to pay $950,000. Mount Sinai Health System and NYU Langone Health — both major New York systems — settled to avoid handing over highly sensitive patient records, according to the institutions. Both denied wrongdoing.
Major U.S. medical groups consider gender dysphoria a condition that merits treatment and have pointed to studies showing such treatment can help alleviate mental-health issues including the risk of suicide. Studies show a small percentage of minors who take gender-transition hormones stop such care, and an even tinier percentage regret their choice, the Journal reported; Campbell’s worldview has been driven by those stories of remorse.
Families affected by the pullback say they have few remaining options, even in states with strong legal protections for transgender people. “People look to New York City as a beacon of hope,” Angelica Castaneda, who moved her family from Florida to New York because of state-level protections, told the Journal. “There are queer people from all over thinking I will move there and be myself. Now that’s changing.” Castaneda said that while she didn’t know if her 8-year-old transgender daughter would seek such care in the future, it was important the option remain on the table.
One early Campbell client, Soren Aldaco, now 24, recalled the lawyer sitting in the smoking section of the café where she worked, intently listening to what she alleged was a botched double mastectomy. “Other lawyers were like, ‘We don’t want to touch that,’” Aldaco said. The Justice Department’s enforcement effort has drawn continued courtroom pushback from federal judges even as six large health systems have settled to drop their transgender youth programs.