Lawsuit: Oregon Health Authority withholds data on transgender treatment on minors

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(The Center Square) – An Oregon man is suing the Oregon Health Authority after it refused to release public data related to transgender treatments on minors.

Plaintiff Paul Terdal said in a statement obtained by The Center Square: “The Oregon Health Authority refuses to give me health data that’s supposed to be public and that it has widely shared with others before.”

The Oregon Health Authority (OHA) is a state agency that seeks to ensure the “physical, mental, and social well-being through partnerships, prevention, and access to quality, affordable health care.”

Terdal says that “the reason for [the OHA's] sudden change, according to the available evidence, is that these officials don’t agree with statements I have made to the press and legislators about the prevalence and efficacy of aggressive gender treatments for children – treatments that the Authority’s own experts say is lacking in evidence.”

For instance, as stated in the lawsuit, Terdal’s past use of health data “led to significant public advocacy challenging and undermining the [OHA’s] position on gender-identity treatments.”

Terdal said in the statement obtained by The Center Square: “Oregon’s officials don’t have to agree with me, but they simply cannot use the power of the state to punish me or to deny me information that will help Oregonians make up their own minds.”

“While I continue to hope that the Authority releases these records, its denial violates the First Amendment of the Constitution, and this lawsuit was necessary to vindicate my rights,” Terdal said.

When reached, the Oregon Health Authority told The Center Square they do not comment on pending litigation.

According to the lawsuit, Terdal requested data earlier this year as he has before through the state’s All Payer All Claims (APAC) program, this time to “conduct research as to the efficacy and incidence of gender-related medical treatments for children.”

By Oregon law, health data from the OHA’s public-use data reporting program APAC must be made available, the lawsuit said.

The Oregon Health Authority has fulfilled requests for public-use data files for years, according to the lawsuit, but told Terdal in March 2025 that they could not give him the information he required due to discovering that OHA’s data release system was in violation of HIPAA.

If this were true, however, the HHS, the media, and those whose data had been exposed would need to be notified, and this has not happened, the lawsuit said.

The plaintiffs allege that the Oregon Health Authority “withheld data from Terdal to keep him from challenging” its treatment position.

The lawsuit says that the OHA “decided that Oregon should take the position that these gender treatments are safe, effective, and indeed ‘life-saving,’ even though the medical evidence paints a far murkier picture.”

“By withholding the public-use data files from Terdal to skew public debate on the important issue of child gender treatments, the [OHA] is violating the First Amendment,” the lawsuit said.

The defendants also “deprived Oregon families of information they need to make the best decisions they can for their children,” by withholding the data, the lawsuit said.

Terdal is asking the court for a declaration that OHA’s withholding of APAC public-use data files violates the First Amendment and for an injunction prohibiting OHA from withholding the data files from Terdal, according to the lawsuit.

According to the lawsuit, Terdal is a liberal Democrat, managing member of a consulting company, as well as an advocate for the rights and needs of children with mental and behavioral health issues.