One of the more absurd aspects of our age, which is absolutely filled to the brim with absurdities, is not only the left’s insistence that any man who claims to be woman, and any woman who claims to be a man, must be treated and referred to as such. Even worse is the fact that even allegedly conservative “news” outlets, including some that duly reported on how the transgender madness was a sick fantasy and worse, went right along with alacrity, referring to burly dudes as “she” the moment they stepped out in a skirt. Now, however, President Donald Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services has struck a blow for reality and sanity, amid howls from the fantasy-addicted community.
Fox News reported Monday that HHS “has altered the official portrait of a transgender former Biden administration official to display the individual's birth name, rather than adopted name.” The official portrait in question is of Rachel Levine, who was assistant secretary of health during the dark days of the Biden regime, and was hailed as the first female four-star admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps (PHSCC) despite not actually being a female.
Rachel Levine was originally named Richard Levine. He changed his name in order to reflect his new alleged identity as a woman, or his new identity as an alleged woman. In reality, Levine was a man all along. He was and is a man who has for some time now been playing out in public his fantasy of being a woman, and demanding that everyone play along on pain of charges of “transphobia” and the threat of professional and personal ruin.
Now HHS is no longer playing along. “Up until the government shutdown this year,” Fox reported, “Levine's portrait plaque in the HHS offices featured the name ‘Rachel Levine,’ but it now displays the official's birth name, ‘Richard Levine.’" (Throughout its report on this change, Fox carefully avoided using any pronoun at all for Levine. In a story from Jan. 2021, however, Fox dutifully referred to Levine as “she,” as if he had been an actual woman.)
The left was, of course, furious. The gay publication PinkNews headlined its story on this “Trump administration deadnames trans admiral Rachel Levine on official government portrait.” It quoted Adrian Shanker, “former deputy assistant secretary for health policy and who worked with Levine,” asserting that “to officially deadname Levine is an act ‘of bigotry against her.’”
Levine himself tried to give the appearance of taking the high road: “My focus has been and continues to be on public health and health equity. I’m not going to comment on this type of petty action.” And indeed, to some it may indeed seem petty. After all, people change their names all the time, for all sorts of reasons. Ordinarily it’s a matter of simple courtesy to call someone what he or she wants to be called. And Richard Levine insisting on being referred to as Rachel Levine doesn’t make him any more of a woman than he was already. He was a guy named Richard and now he is a somewhat ridiculous guy named Rachel.
However, the name “Rachel Levine” in this case is also a political statement. It is a demand that the sane community acquiesce to the demands of the insane no less unmistakably than all the business about choosing one’s pronouns is.
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And that’s how HHS explained its decision to resume referring to Rachel Levine as Richard. HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon said: "Our priority is ensuring that the information presented internally and externally by HHS reflects gold standard science. We remain committed to reversing harmful policies enacted by Levine and ensuring that biological reality guides our approach to public health."
A user of the far-left Twitter/X imitation called Bluesky fumed: “I love that they give some ridiculous excuse about ‘gold standard science’, too. As if names are part of our DNA or something.” This seems to be another one of the left’s deliberate exercises in missing the point. Names are indeed changeable and not part of our DNA, but biological sex is actually part of our DNA, and to pretend that Richard Levine is a woman is an exercise in politicized delusion, not in the recognition of biological reality.
Accordingly, HHS has taken a heroic stance in an age in which the minds of millions of people are still clouded with the transgender nonsense. May there be many more steps toward sanity before this administration is through.
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