Transgender Rachel Levine, Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services Secretary under Biden, is a biological man who makes a not-terribly convincing woman. But even after an election where such reality denial on the left was firmly rejected by voters, the tax-funded network National Public Radio continues to play along.
As Trump’s second inauguration looms, NPR performed an “exit interview” with Levine on the January 6 Morning Edition, and the headline delivered the story's warped sensibility, turning the Biden-installed trans activist into a passive victim: “Dr. Rachel Levine focused on her job at HHS. Still. anti-trans politics followed her."
NPR health policy correspondent Selena Simmons-Duffin sympathized a with Levine's view that children should be encouraged to undergo, under the benign phrase “gender-affirming care,” medical procedures to align themselves with their preferred sex.
Levine is the highest ranking, out transgender person ever to serve in the federal government.
In the nearly four years that she's been at the Department of Health and Human Services, there has been an explosion in anti-trans legislation. Twenty-five more states followed Arkansas in banning gender-affirming care for youth. Other laws focus on bathroom use in schools and public buildings, or bar transgender kids from participating in sports aligned with their gender identity.
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All this time, Levine has, pretty quietly, been working away at HHS in Washington, D.C. She sat down with NPR for an exit interview in late December. She has a friendly, low-key personality and a pragmatic sensibility. She loves Joni Mitchell, and she brings her lunch from home -- today, it's a turkey wrap.
After a long section of Levine talking about childhood vaccines, NPR gushed:
This is the meat-and-potatoes of her job -- enthusiastically and clearly explaining why public health measures are important. She speaks proudly of the efforts of her office on climate change, on the HIV epidemic and on "food is medicine" initiatives….
She shrugs off the fact that her image was used in the anti-trans advertisements that dominated the final weeks of the presidential campaign. "It was very challenging, but I'm a resilient person and I'm fine."
Simmons-Duffin smoothed down the conflict between Levine’s opinions on transgender youth and scientific reality.
She told NPR in 2022 that "there is no argument among medical professionals [...] about the value and importance of gender-affirming care." Since then some high-profile medical professionals have called for caution in this medical field, including British pediatrician Hilary Cass. Those physicians are often cited by lawmakers seeking to ban this care. Cass was mentioned recently during Supreme Court arguments about whether such bans are constitutional.
"There is still widespread agreement about the medical utility of transgender medicine and transgender medicine for young people," Levine maintains. "There is always ongoing research to study any of our medical protocols, and that would include transgender medicine….”….That is separate from what's happening with the proliferation of anti-trans state laws, she says. "This is really a politically and ideologically motivated effort developed by a think tank in Washington in order to attack the LGBTQI+ community, starting with the trans community," she says. "And unfortunately, it has been very successful."
Journalist Ben Ryan noted on X that NPR neglected to mention “how Rachel Levine put political pressure on WPATH to remove age restrictions on gender-transition treatment.” (WPATH stands for World Professional Association for Transgender Health.) Even the New York Times noticed back in June 2024.
Simmons-Duffin had previously handed over the NPR microphone to Levine in 2022, when Levine was engaged in a road trip to, in the words of NPR anchor Mary Louise Kelly, “urge medical students to fight political attacks against trans young people and their families.”
