AFA of PA ACTION ALERT
February 18, 2021
Issue
Unqualified Nominee for US Assistant Secretary of Health
Details
As you know President Biden has nominated PA Health Secretary Dr. “Rachel” Levine as US Assistant Secretary of Health. This position will require confirmation from the US Senate. Will Senators take a close look at the handling of the coronavirus pandemic? Will the Senators take a close look at the doctor’s effort to push the transgender ideology on children? They need to know some of the facts!
The following bullet points are direct quotes from Dr. Levine:
- My first thought that something was different with me was when I was a child about five or six years of age and it was a Super Boy comic strip, which I was recently talking to someone about. It was a comic strip in the early ’60s where Super Boy meets a girl alien who he’s rather snarky to. And she turns Super Boy into Super Girl and Clark Kent into Clara Kent, or Claire Kent, and I remember looking at that and going “that’s what I want,” when I was five.
- So, as I reach that magical age of forty, I started to have much more feelings that become more difficult to compartmentalize. I ended up seeing a therapist, actually Sensei Tony Stultz who is in Harrisburg now, who was at the medical center and then a series of other counselors and therapists and began to explore it.
- And I continued to work with him and then a number of other counselors to explore gender identity and expression and who knew how far it would go. And here I am.
- But really as I was experimenting with gender expression and then . . . whatever that line is in terms of transition, I stepped over that line and transitioned right at Penn State Hershey Medical Center as professor of pediatrics and psychiatry and chief of the Division of Adolescent Medicine. That was an amazing experience.
- And Penn State Hershey Medical Center, had a nondiscrimination policy, which included sexual orientation but not gender identity and expression, so I worked with the Office of Diversity and the dean’s office, etc., and my chair at that time to craft a new policy, the quote-unquote, “Levine Policy,” where we included gender identity and expression.
- So . . . what I like to say is . . . in terms of diversity, diversity is so powerful for any organization and diversity in all of its different aspects, including for sexual and gender minorities. And . . . you don’t want to have a tolerant environment, “You know, gee thanks for tolerating me, I really appreciate that.” And . . . an accepting environment is good, but you really wanted to work on a welcoming, and even a celebratory environment for diversity and all of its aspects, including for LGBTQ individuals.
- I became the liaison to his (Note: Dr. Harjit Singh ) office for LGBT affairs. I had been the faculty advisor for the LGBT student group. We started the staff and faulty affinity group. We started quarterly grand rounds or quarterly LGBTQ lecture[s] at the medical center. . . . eventually there was a booth at Pride
- . . . . it was wonderful to work with the Office of Diversity on starting the faculty and staff affinity group. We have always tried to include Allies [supportive non- LGBTQ individuals], of course, which are critically very important for our community, so . . . it’s kind of an LGBTQA group.
- So in my work, over the last number of years at Penn State Hershey I became on the board of Equality Pennsylvania, the statewide LGBTQ advocacy group and eventually I was secretary of the board. I was also on the board, I guess I was vice-president, of the Capital Region’s Stone Wall Democrats and so I had been doing advocacy through that frame. . . .
- I am very pleased to chair the governor’s LGBT work group, which is done under the auspices of the governor’s policy office. Again, we have almost every agency that participates. We work with community groups, . . . stakeholders such as Equality PA, the Pennsylvania Youth Congress, and TransCentral PA. We have worked with the Department of Human Services, within the Department of Health, Department of Corrections, Department of Education, Departments of Commerce, you know, Pennsylvania State Police, the Office of Administration, really all agencies to support LGBT issues in the Commonwealth under the governor’s leadership.
- (After becoming Physician General and, eventually PA Secretary of Health, Levine noted) I had to give up my board memberships as—in terms of conflict of interest, as part of this position, but I still have a lot of networking with really all of our stakeholder community groups that you have mentioned as well as others in Philadelphia. Yeah, it’s been great. . . . As well as nationally, the National Center for Transgender Equality and other national stakeholder groups and advocacy groups.
- I am grateful to my family, I am grateful to my parents—my father who has passed, and my ninety-two-year-old mother—and my sister, and to my kids, and to my ex-wife, and to my current girlfriend . . . .
- I did do transgender medicine for children and adolescence and adults . . . and for evaluation and gender confirmation treatment, and . . . it’s absolutely important for young people to be able to express themselves and to be who they are and it’s a challenging process. . . .
- So one of the things we have been able to work on is for Medicaid in Pennsylvania to pay for gender confirmation treatment and we are working private insurance as well to have more coverage for treatment. And then to create access to treatment, in terms of mental health professionals, psychological professionals, medical professionals, and surgical professionals, to be able to provide that care, and so we need a pipeline to training and have qualified professionals as well. . . .
- The brave new world in terms of gender is gender nonconforming or gender nonbinary, gender-expansive individuals. The latest term I heard was “gender-creative children,” I thought that was great.
Action Steps
This is the person that President Joe Biden had nominated to be the next Assistant US Secretary of Health! For nearly a year Pennsylvanians have been subjected to the policies set forth by Dr. Levine. Those in nursing homes have especially paid a heavy price. Remember Dr. Levine had his mother removed from the York County nursing home where she resides, before requiring PA nursing homes to take patients with COVID even if they were unable to isolate them! According to Johns Hopkins, as of February 18, 2021, the total PA COVID deaths is 23, 284. In PA nursing homes, there have been 12,118 COVID deaths!
Sign the petition asking Senators Bob Casey and Pat Toomey to vote against confirming Dr. Levine, who is clearly not qualified for the US Assistant Secretary of Health position.
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