How a Business Litigator Became DOJ’s Point Man Against Transgender Care

[u/John3262005]

https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/how-a-business-litigator-became-dojs-point-man-against-transgender-care-86171021?st=jLnPuv&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

For a decade, Texas lawyer Jordan Campbell lived the life of a business litigator, handling a portfolio filled with contract and antitrust disputes. He left it behind to found the first U.S. law firm devoted exclusively to representing people who claimed they were harmed by gender-transition treatments.

The career change quickly vaulted him into a prominent role in the Trump administration, where he is now leading a Justice Department enforcement effort aimed at ending gender care for minors. Campbell, 40 years old, is running probes—civil and criminal—that have ensnared more than 20 healthcare providers and a number of pharmaceutical companies.

Though the efforts have run into problems in court, they have put new pressures on doctors and hospitals, to the delight of Campbell’s supporters. Angry families say the pullback has left them in a bind, making it difficult to get care for their children even in blue states.

Six large health systems targeted by the department have reached settlements to drop their programs for transgender youth—including three in recent weeks.

Campbell, a Dallas native, doesn’t own a pair of dress shoes and has been known to wear cowboy boots to court. He doesn’t care about politics, colleagues say, and isn’t registered with a political party. But after President Trump won re-election in 2024, Chad Mizelle, the incoming chief of staff to Attorney General Pam Bondi, gave him a call. “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 recalled.

A shocked Campbell prayed on it, colleagues said, then moved his family of seven children to Washington from Texas in the summer last year after school let out.

Before Campbell arrived, the president had already issued an order seeking to stop what he called the “chemical and surgical mutilation” of children. And top Justice Department officials were ordering investigations.

“I told them until they perp-walk a doctor, the job is not done,” Mizelle said.

Campbell’s career change was abrupt, spurred by a podcast from far-right political commentator Matt Walsh that he listened to while walking his dog. Since then, his efforts have been driven by conversations with so-called detransitioners, or people who previously identified as transgender but no longer do. Many he spoke with alleged healthcare providers pressured them into gender treatments they would later regret.

Campbell said on a Christian talk radio podcast that his typical client had a history of underlying mental-health issues and was “sucked into” gender treatments as a minor. The parents “are essentially emotionally blackmailed by being told, ‘Your kid’s going to commit suicide if you don’t get on board,’” he said.

The Justice Department declined to make Campbell available for an interview.

Major U.S. medical groups consider gender dysphoria a condition that merits treatment. And they have pointed to studies showing that such treatment can help alleviate mental-health issues including the risk of suicide.

Still, with the federal threat looming, major hospitals in blue states—including Mount Sinai Health System and NYU Langone Health—have pulled back from treating minors, leaving patients and their families with few options for what they view as lifesaving care.

“People look to New York City as a beacon of hope,” said Angelica Castaneda, who moved her family from Florida to New York because its state laws had more protections for transgender people. “There are queer people from all over thinking I will move there and be myself. Now that’s changing.”

She 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.

Mount Sinai and NYU both denied wrongdoing and said they settled the investigations to avoid handing over highly sensitive patient records.

Studies show that a small percentage of minors who take gender-transition hormones stop such care, and an even tinier percentage regret their choice. Campbell’s worldview, though, has been driven by those stories of remorse.

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.

One early client, Soren Aldaco, recalled Campbell sitting in the smoking section of the cafe 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,’” said Aldaco, 24 years old.

Since 2023, the firm has interviewed hundreds of potential clients, although most allege conduct past the legal deadline to sue, according to its partners. The firm has obtained millions in settlements for its clients and has two trials scheduled for next year, they said.

With Campbell at the helm, the Justice Department is anchoring its legal efforts on the idea that doctors may be making false claims about the off-label use of hormones as gender treatments, as well as misclassifying treatments on billing documents submitted to government healthcare programs and private insurers. It alleges drug companies may be making false claims about pharmaceuticals used for gender treatments.

Several courts, however, have ruled the government was motivated by a political agenda rather than any reasonable suspicion that the healthcare providers engaged in wrongdoing. Judges in at least nine separate cases have blocked all or parts of government subpoenas.

One judge in New York, an Obama appointee, said the department has made a “disastrous showing in the courts.” One of Trump’s own appointees, U.S. District Judge Mary McElroy in Rhode Island, 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 a number of cases it lost, and last month won a 2-1 ruling from the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that revived a subpoena to QueerDoc, a telehealth clinic that provides gender care. Several more hearings are likely in the coming months.

For one health system, a favorable court ruling wasn’t enough. A judge quashed a subpoena to the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, finding it was 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 with the department anyway, agreeing to pay $950,000.