For the first time in American history, an openly transgender person has received Senate confirmation to a federal position. That position is Assistant Secretary for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the person who was voted in was Dr. Rachel Levine, born Richard in 1957. The Senate voted 52-48 in favor of his confirmation. Republican Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska joined Democrats in the vote.
The 63 year old Dr. Levine, who has fathered two children before his transition in 2011, was elected by Pennsylvania Governor-elect Tom Wolf to be the Physician General of the state in 2015, a position she held until 2017. He was then appointed by Gov. Wolf as Secretary of Health, a position he was unanimously confirmed for.
It wasn't until February this year when President Joe Biden formally nominated the transgender Dr. Levine to be the Assistant Secretary for Health at the DHHS, a move that is aligned with his agenda to further "diversify" his administration and push the Equality Act.
The choice to confirm Dr. Levine as Assistant Secretary for the DHHS has not come without criticism. The Gateway Pundit reported that as Pennsylvania's secretary of health, Dr. Levine made biased decisions for his 95 year-old mother, who was removed from a nursing home and made to live safe and well away from other COVID-19 stricken patients at a hotel.
At the time, COVID-19 was ravaging nursing homes after Democrat policies forced COVID-19 patients back into long-term care facilities.
When asked by a reporter why Dr. Levine chose to move his mother out of the elderly care facility, he clarified that his mother was "actually a resident of a personal care home, not a nursing home" and that such nursing homes are regulated by the Department of Human Services, not the Department of Health." He even passed on the blame to his 95 year-old mother, who he claimed to have requested for the transfer to a hotel.
In February, Dr. Levine failed to respond when asked if he supported puberty-blocking hormones and genitalia mutilation in the guise of sex change surgery during a debate with Repubican Senator Rand Paul at the nominee's confirmation hearing before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. According to Breitbart, Sen. Paul drilled into Dr. Levine, who "supported both allowing minors to be given hormone blockers to prevent them from going through puberty, as well as surgical destruction of a minor's genitalia"
Sen. Paul stressed that 80% to 95% of pre-pubertal children with gender dysphoria "will experience resolution by late adolescence" in the case that they are not provided with medical intervention and social affirmation. He pointedly asked, "Dr. Levine, do you believe that minors are capable of making such a life-changing decision as changing one's sex?"
Instead of directly answering the question, Dr. Levine reponded by saying that "transgender medicine is a very complex and nuanced field" and promising to work with Sen. Paul to determine the "standards of care for transgender medicine" if and when she gets voted into the position.
Dr. Levine now has the chance to showcase his expertise on such transgender medicine issues.
