After naming Richard/Rachel Levine, a man who parades around in ladyface, as one of its 2022 “Women of the Year,” USA Today is back to remind us that it doesn’t know — or doesn’t care — what a woman is.
Earlier this week, the outlet released its list of 2023 honorees, and the name getting the most attention is that of Minnesota state Rep. Leigh Finke, a pink-haired man who dresses like a woman and has been in office for less than 12 weeks.
Nothing says “we respect women” like elbowing them out of their own awards to laud a man who makes a mockery of womanhood. Finke isn’t the only man coopting the “woman of the year” pedestal. Here are eight other men who have displaced women at their own game.
Rachel Levine
Finke’s predecessor as USA Today’s token male Woman of the Year, Rachel (formerly known as Richard) Levine, failed upward into a cushy Biden administration gig after condemning thousands of nursing home residents to die of Covid in Pennsylvania.
The Federalist Senior Editor John Daniel Davidson is still locked out of Twitter for clearly acknowledging that Levine is a man.
Caitlyn Jenner
Caitlyn Jenner, formerly known as Bruce, was a recipient of one of Glamour Magazine’s Women of the Year awards in 2015. Jenner, a 6’2” former Olympian who began going by “Caitlyn” in 2015, came away with the title of the magazine’s “Transgender Champion.” (One of Jenner’s co-recipients that year was the now-disgraced girlboss fraudster Elizabeth Holmes, whatever that says about the awards committee’s wisdom.)
After Glamour’s decision to name Jenner, a man, among its “women of the year,” James Smith, whose police officer wife was posthumously recognized by the magazine after she died rescuing people from the World Trade Center on 9/11, returned his wife’s award, calling Jenner’s recognition an “insult.”
“Was there no woman in America, or the rest of the world, more deserving than this man?” he asked in an open letter to the magazine.
Laverne Cox
The year before Jenner scored Glamour’s “Woman of the Year” title, the magazine handed it to another man: Roderick Laverne Cox, who now goes by “Laverne.”
Cox’s award from Glamour followed his June 2014 Time Magazine cover, a glowing profile that openly discussed the trans lobby’s attempt to coopt the gay rights movement and boasted about “Fixing Nature’s Mistake.”
MJ Rodriguez
Among Time Magazine’s “Women of the Year” in 2022 was MJ Rodriguez (born Michael Anthony Rodriguez Jr.), a male stage performer who “identifies as an AfroLatina trans woman,” according to Time.
Over the course of the same year, Rodriguez was lauded as the first transgender entertainer to receive a Golden Globe and an Emmy nomination for lead acting.
Laurel Hubbard
Before he began taking experimental hormones, Hubbard competed in men’s weightlifting. After he competed against women at the 2020 Olympics as part of New Zealand’s team, finishing dead last in the super-heavyweight category, Hubbard was nonetheless named “sportswoman of the year” by New Zealand’s University of Otago. The accolade has been around since 1908.
Ebony Harper
California’s Assembly District 7 named Ebony Harper, a man, as its 2021 Woman of the Year. This year, Harper also received a “California Woman Making History” recognition from Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis. He’s the executive director of a group called “California TRANScends.”
Cecilia Chung
Several years earlier, in 2014, another California district honored a man who goes by the name Cecilia Chung as its “Woman of the Year.” Phil Ting, San Francisco’s assemblyman, bestowed the award on him a year after Chung successfully pressured San Francisco officials to make their city the first in the country to pay for uninsured residents’ mutilative sex surgeries.
Bonus: Lia Thomas
Lia Thomas, a man who competed under his given name, William, through his sophomore year of college, was nominated by the University of Pennsylvania for the NCAA’s 2022 Woman of the Year award. While Thomas wasn’t ultimately selected for the national recognition, his nomination kept female Penn students from being tapped — just like his national championship in the women’s 500-yard freestyle a few months earlier displaced his female competitors from the top of the winners’ podium.
After the controversial championship, NBC News was caught doctoring Thomas’s face to look less masculine.
Elle Purnell is an assistant editor at The Federalist, and received her B.A. in government from Patrick Henry College with a minor in journalism. Follow her work on Twitter @_etreynolds.
NIH is funding many studies premised upon how little research has been conducted on the long-term health risks of cross-sex hormones. Yet HHS is pushing for more transgender ‘care.’
As the Biden administration pushes the Department of Health and Human Services to make “gender-affirming health care” more widely available, HHS’s own National Institutes of Health is funding multiple studies premised upon how little research has been conducted on the long-term risks of taking cross-sex hormones and whether they improve mental health. The NIH research on transgender issues also emphasizes intersectionality and about half has been on HIV prevention.
The NIH Reporter database, which lists active federally funded research projects, shows 74 with “transgender” in the title, totaling more than $26 million of taxpayers’ money annually. Several NIH-funded studies examine specific health risks of cross-sex hormone treatment — such as associated bone loss and possible increased risk of thrombosis, drug overdose, heart attack, and stroke.
Onlyafew studies evaluate the risk of infertility, even though “the impact of long-term cross-sex hormone therapy on reproductive health is largely unknown,” as one such project states and experts have warned. In contrast, seven studies examine stigma and disparities in health care for transgender people, in response to NIH’s Notice of Special Interest in understanding the role of alleged intersectional stigmas and how they harm health.
Manystudiesaddresshigherincidence of sexually transmitted infections in transgender people, and whether hormone therapy might increase that risk. About half of all NIH-funded research on transgender health, including that which has been completed, relates to HIV prevention among the transgender population, totaling approximately $80 million since 1985.
Transgender males “have some of the highest concentrated HIV epidemics in the world, with a pooled global prevalence of 19% and a 49-fold higher odds ratio of acquiring HIV than non-transgender adults,” according to one project summary. Behavioral factors contribute, another project says, but the role of sex hormones needs further study, since they “are known to modulate the immune response, resulting in changes in host susceptibility to pathogens, vaccine efficacy and drug metabolism.”
Many Ongoing Projects Highlight Lack of Research
While suicide prevention is often cited as a major reason to give dysphoric children puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, only one of the current studies is focused specifically on suicide risk, although several emphasize the lack of long-term studies of cross-sex hormones administered to children and their relation to mental health.
Medical professionals “say more specific research is needed to determine whether medically transitioning as a minor reduces suicidal thoughts and suicides compared with those who socially transition or wait before starting treatment,” according to Reuters.
One NIH-funded project summary acknowledges that the long-term effect of puberty suppression on mental health needs further study and will evaluate children already taking puberty blockers.
During puberty, hormones change the structure and organization of the brain. Puberty blockers “may also disrupt puberty-signaled neural maturation in ways that can undermine mental health gains over time and impact quality of life in other ways,” the Nationwide Children’s Hospital project summary says. “The overall impacts” of puberty blockers “have not been systematically studied,” the summary says.
One of the larger NIH-funded transgender studies, funded at $743,000 annually, is at Boston Children’s Hospital. It notes, “Little is known [emphasis added] about how pubertal blockade, the first step in the medical management of a young transgender adolescent, affects bone health and psychological well-being. … In an exploratory aim, we will also consider the effect of pubertal blockade on anxiety, depression, and health-related quality of life.”
Another research project, “Psychological consequences of medical transition in transgender youth,” begun last year at Princeton University and anticipated to end in 2025, notes the lack of quality research in this area:
Five studies to date have longitudinally examined the relationship between one or both of these interventions [puberty suppression and hormone therapy] and mental health in transgender youth. However, these studies have had relatively small samples, none have been able to isolate the effects of endocrine interventions, none have included a cisgender [non-transgender] comparison group, and none have examined the mechanisms by which endocrine interventions might improve mental health.
A longitudinal study that began in 2015 and will run through at least 2026 acknowledges, “Transgender children and adolescents are a poorly understood and a distinctly understudied population in the United States. … Continuing our current research is imperative to expand the scant evidence-base currently guiding the clinical care of TGD [transgender and gender diverse] youth and thus, is of considerable public health significance.”
As the summary of one ongoing NIH-funded research project on sex hormones’ effects on the developing brain says, “There is little to no empirical data guiding clinical practices” of cross-sex hormone therapy in early pubertal adolescents, “highlighting the need for further research to address the critical knowledge gap.” The research, funded at $3 million so far to Stanford University, “will provide a much-needed foundation for understanding the longitudinal impact of treatments that are already being used [emphasis added] in clinical settings.”
The project will elucidate “how sex hormone therapy alters sex-specific risk for disease … and [its] impact on neural networks implicated in psychiatric disorders.” The research proposed “has never been conducted in early pubertal adolescents,” the summary reads.
NIH Acknowledges Limited Evidence, FDA Hasn’t Approved
The NIH, the largest public funder of biomedical research in the world, told Reuters that “the evidence is limited on whether these treatments pose short- or long-term health risks for transgender and other gender-diverse adolescents.” Additionally, the Food and Drug Administration has not approved puberty blockers and sex hormones for children’s transgender medical interventions. As Reuters reported:
No clinical trials have established their safety for such off-label use. The drugs’ long-term effects on fertility and sexual function remain unclear. And in 2016, the FDA ordered makers of puberty blockers to add a warning about psychiatric problems to the drugs’ label after the agency received several reports of suicidal thoughts in children who were taking them. More broadly, no large-scale studies have tracked people who received gender-related medical care as children to determine how many remained satisfied with their treatment as they aged and how many eventually regretted transitioning.
Countries such as Finland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom have begun to limit children’s access to transgender health interventions. Early, foundational research from 2011 on transgender medical interventions has been criticized as failing to meet basic research standards.
Before 2012, “there was no scientific literature on girls ages eleven to twenty-one ever having developed gender dysphoria at all,” according to Abigail Shrier’s book “Irreversible Damage.” Studies show most children grow out of gender dysphoria, Shrier says.“There are no good long-term studies indicating that either gender dysphoria or suicidality diminishes after medical transition,” according to Shrier.
Meanwhile, despite all the possible health risks, President Joe Biden has issued executiveorders charging “HHS to work with states to promote expanded access to gender-affirming care.” The administration has issued directives that federal health insurance benefits must “provide comprehensive gender-affirming care.” The administration also opposes “conversion therapy — efforts to suppress or change an individual’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.”
Taxpayers are already paying for transgender procedures, as they are covered by some insurers and Medicaid in some states.
I’ll ask again. WHY ARE THESE MENTAL PATIENT LEFTEST SO HYPER ABOUT MUTILATING AMERICA’S CONFUSED CHILDREN? WHAT IS THEIR END GAME?
HHS’s Office of Population Affairs, which is overseen by transgender Dr. Rachel Levine, states there’s no debate: “Research demonstrates that gender-affirming care improves the mental health and overall well-being of gender diverse children and adolescents.” Other proponents acknowledge a lack of research on these hormones’ effect on brain development, but say the pros outweigh the cons.
Growing Transgender Identification
The number of transgender adults in the U.S. is estimated at 1.4 million to 2 million, with an estimated 150,000 to 300,000 transgender children. The number of American children who started on puberty blockers or hormones totaled 17,683 from 2017 to 2021 and has been increasing, according to Reuters.
From 2019 to 2021, at least 56 patients ages 13 to 17 had genital surgeries, and from 2019 to 2021, at least 776 children that age had mastectomies, not including procedures that weren’t covered by insurance, according to Reuters.
The transgender surgery industry grosses more than $2 billion annually and expects to double that by 2030.
Debate Among Medication Providers
“Puberty delay medications are safe and effective,”according to the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), a pro-transgender organization that sets standards for trans medical interventions. “Every person, including every TGD person, deserves an opportunity to be their true selves and has the right to access medically-necessary affirming care to enable this opportunity,” WPATH says.
When WPATH recently updated its guidance, authors “were acutely aware that any unknowns that the working group acknowledged — any uncertainties in the research — could be read as undermining the field’s credibility and feed the right-wing effort to outlaw gender-related care,” The New York Times reported. The newspaper is in the midst of an internal fight about its coverage of transgender issues, with some saying it has been too critical of transgender medical interventions.
A draft of the WPATH chapter for adolescents included minimum recommended ages for hormone treatments and breast removal or augmentation, but after criticism from providers and transgender activists, “it was determined that the specific ages would be removed to ensure greater access to care for more people,” WPATH said.
The final guidelines also walked back a recommendation that preteens and teenagers should provide evidence of several years of persistently identifying as transgender, to differentiate from kids whose change in identification is recent, and changed it to a vaguer “sustained” gender incongruence. “In the end, the chapter sided with the trans advocates who didn’t want kids to have to wait through potentially painful years of physical development,” according to the Times.
The final guidelines acknowledged that because of the limited long-term research, treatment without a comprehensive diagnostic assessment “has no empirical support and therefore carries the risk that the decision to start gender-affirming medical interventions may not be in the long-term best interest of the young person at that time.”
Reuters found that gender facilities across the country are not conducting recommended months-long assessments before administering hormones to children. Parents of 28 of 39 minors who had sought transgender interventions told Reuters they “felt pressured or rushed to proceed with treatment.” Gender-care professionals also said some of their peers are “pushing too many families to pursue treatment for their children before they undergo the comprehensive assessments recommended in professional guidelines.”
Studying Causes of Gender Dysphoria
Some of the taxpayer-funded studies may bring clarity to the issue of gender dysphoria by examining its causes. One study will examine social media’s influence on children becoming transgender. A second will study “the life history calendar to examine young transgender women’s trajectories of violence, mental health, and protective processes.”
Another government-funded study will help determine how chromosomes, sexual organs, and hormones combine to create sex differences. Another will “uncover genetic underpinnings of female sexual orientation.”
This byline marks several different individuals, granted anonymity in cases where publishing an article on The Federalist would credibly threaten close personal relationships, their safety, or their jobs. We verify the identities of those who publish anonymously with The Federalist.
President Joe Biden will direct the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to expand access to “gender-affirming” care at a Pride month event Wednesday, the White House said. Biden will issue an executive order telling HHS to strengthen efforts to ban conversion therapy and increase access to sex change treatment for transgender Americans, including for children. The order will also target legislation passed in some Republican-led states to limit the promotion of LGBT material to children, such as Florida’s parental rights law.
Breaking: President Biden has signed an executive order blocking federal funding for conversion therapy. https://t.co/iXbzR6vhO0
The executive order explicitly endorses “gender-affirming” care, a euphemism for treatments, oftentimes irreversible, that facilitate a sex change, such as hormone therapy or sex-change surgeries. The Biden administration has staunchly supported providing those treatments to children.
“The President’s Order charges HHS to work with states to promote expanded access to gender-affirming care,” the White House said in a fact sheet. “The Department of Justice has intervened and filed statements of interest in lawsuits across the country challenging state laws that seek to ban transgender children from accessing gender-affirming health care and participating in school activities as unconstitutional.”
Biden will sign the order surrounded by LGBT childrenfrom Texas and Florida, two states which
Assistant Secretary for Health Rachel Levine, the first openly-transgender American to serve in a Senate-confirmed position, reportedly endorsed the order in a statement: “Today’s executive order continues the Biden Administration’s work against prejudice and makes it easier for people living in this country to live their lives openly and freely without fear of harassment, scorn or attack.”
March 18 marks one year since pro-abortion radical Xavier Becerra was confirmed as President Joe Biden’s appointee for secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Although both men claim to be faithful Catholics, they have launched unprecedented attacks on people of faith by eliminating vital conscience and religious freedom protections and funneling millions of taxpayer dollars to the abortion industry.
At the HHS Accountability Project at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., we have been keeping tabs on HHS personnel and policy. The oft-heard maxim “personnel is policy” is no exception for HHS, the largest federal agency by budget. While Becerra was AWOL on the Covid fight, he was outright zealous on culture war issues, leading HHS’s singular focus on pushing pro-abortion and anti-religion policies on the American people.
Here are the top 10 lowlights for year one.
1. Dismantling HHS’s Conscience and Religious Freedom Division
One of Becerra’s early acts as secretary was to strip the Conscience and Religious Freedom Division within the HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR) of its independent ability to investigate violations of conscience and religious freedom laws. The division was created during the Trump administration to guarantee enforcement rather than neglect of laws that protect these fundamental and inalienable rights.
Becerra’s first budget proposal would have effectively eliminated this division as a standalone entity, despite Becerra having promised Congress that “the work [of the Conscience and Religious Freedom Division] will not change.” He, along with OCR political staff (such as political ideologue Laura Durso), refused to even consult with the dedicated career professionals of the division while they methodically removed conscience and religious freedom protections from the American people.
These developments were foreshadowed by transgender activist Dr. Rachel Levine who, prior to being elevated to the number-three position at HHS, proclaimed the division should be “either disbanded or certainly redirected.”
2. Removing OCR’s First Amendment Enforcement Power
Becerra removed OCR’s authority to enforce conscience and religious projections under the bipartisan Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) and the First Amendment. A leaked memo revealed this move came at the request of Lisa Pino, the Biden-appointed director of OCR. She is tasked with enforcing civil rights protections in health and human services, not finding ways to remove them.
Remember, it was HHS under Obama that went after the Little Sisters of the Poor and lost under RFRA. Now Becerra has removed the only internal entity that would hold HHS accountable to the law.
3. Pushing a Ridiculously ‘Woke’ Budget
The Biden-Becerra HHS budget for fiscal year 2022 removed references to “conscience,” “religion,” and “Conscience and Religious Freedom Division.” But don’t worry, the new budget replaces references to these constitutional and statutory rights HHS is responsible for enforcing with a bunch of woke terms like “equity” — the Biden administration’s preferred priority.
4. Backing Forcing Nuns to Pay for Abortion
While Becerra was attorney general of California before becoming HHS secretary, OCR issued two notices of violation against Becerra and his state for violating federal conscience protections by forcing nuns (and others) to provide insurance coverage of abortion. Apart from the clear conflict of interest with Becerra leading the very office that previously found him in violation of the law, OCR under Becerra “reassessed” the conscience violations, magically finding there were none.
5. Abandoning Nurse Illegally Forced to Participate in Abortion
In 2019, OCR found a hospital had violated a nurse’s conscience rights by forcing her to participate in an abortion over her known conscience objection. When the hospital refused to change its policies to comply with the law, the federal government sued the hospital in federal court.
But on Becerra’s watch and despite his many promises to continue enforcing federal conscience laws, the Biden administration quietly dismissed the case without any settlement, agreement, or compensation for the nurse. Because federal conscience protection laws do not provide a private right of action, she cannot sue on her own and the violating hospital has been let off with impunity.
6. Relentlessly Pushing Abortion With Federal Resources
In response to Texas’ law protecting unborn children with beating hearts from abortion, the Biden-Becerra HHS announced, despite prohibitions on federal funds going to abortion, ways the department could “bolster access to safe and legal abortions in Texas.” HHS is awarding $10 million in additional funding to increase access to abortifacients for those affected by the Texas law.
OCR issued pro-abortion guidance explaining how a federal conscience protection law can protect abortion providers and patients seeking abortions. If HHS’s actions weren’t clear enough, Becerra stated, “We are telling doctors and others involved in the provision of abortion care, that we have your back.” Becerra and OCR clearly don’t want to enforce the law for those who do not want to participate in abortion.
7. Directly Funding Big Abortion
Becerra, who has oddly and repeatedly refused to acknowledge that partial-birth abortion is illegal, led HHS’s charge to fund Big Abortion. In 2021, Planned Parenthood received more than $5.4 million in taxpayer funds from HHS, an amount that is sure to increase over the next three years.
In an effort to further fund Planned Parenthood, the Biden-Becerra HHS ignored democratic norms to rush through new Title X regulations. Title X is a federal program that provides grants for a range of family planning services, but per the statute, such services cannot include abortion.
The new regulations, however, remove the requirement of physical and financial separation between Title X projects and abortion services, require abortion counseling and referrals, and remove conscience protections for Title X providers. Planned Parenthood had dropped out of the Title X program under those regulations, forfeiting that funding stream, but under the new regulations the abortion giant is expected to receive significant Title X funding.
8. Comingling Insurance Payments for Abortion
Last summer, HHS rushed through new insurance regulations that, contrary to the text of the Affordable Care Act, no longer require separate insurance payments for abortion services, allowing those payments to be comingled with payments for other covered services. Besides violating the law, combined payments create a lack of transparency and accountability. Consumers with conscience objections to abortion will no longer be on notice that their insurance plan covers abortion or that they are subsidizing abortions, including for any adult children on their plan.
9. Rescinding Faith-Based Waivers
Prompting a congressional inquiry, the Biden-Becerra HHS gratuitously rescinded waivers previously issued to faith-based adoption and foster care agencies in Michigan, South Carolina, and Texas that allowed the agencies to qualify for HHS grants while operating in accordance with their deeply held religious beliefs. In the press release announcing the rescission, Becerra unironically stated: “At HHS, we treat any violation of civil rights or religious freedoms seriously.”
Please. This action comes on the heels of a unanimous ruling by the Supreme Court affirming the constitutional right of foster-care agencies to act according to their religious beliefs on human sexuality in certifying foster parents.
10. Issuing Totalitarian Anti-Conscience Rules
HHS announced its new interpretation and enforcement of Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act that would force health-care professionals to perform gender transition surgeries and provide minors with harmful and sterilizing puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones. A new rule codifying this interpretation is anticipated in April and would likely not exempt providers with medical or conscience objections. HHS is also planning to rescind conscience regulations that protect health-care professionals from being forced to assist with abortions and protect others from having to pay for abortions.
Rachel N. Morrison is an attorney and fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, where she works on EPPC’s HHS Accountability Project.
Rachel Levine, a trans-identified nominee for Assistant Secretary in the Department of Health and Human Services, testifies at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee on February 25, 2021, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. Levine previously served as Secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Health. | Caroline Brehman-Pool/Getty Images
Twitter has suspended the account of a Republican congressman who posted a tweet noting that President Joe Biden’s U.S. Assistant Secretary of Health, Rachel Levine, who identifies as transgender, is a man. Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., was suspended Saturday after posting a tweet in response to Levine — who went by the name Richard before he began identifying as female — becoming the first trans-identified four-star officer in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps.
Banks has been temporarily blocked from using his Twitter account until he agrees to delete the tweet calling Levine a man, according to NBC News. In the now-deleted tweet posted Tuesday, Banks lamented that “the title of first female four-star officer gets taken by a man.” Twitter claimed that the tweet violated its hateful conduct policy, which prohibits tweets that engage in “misgendering or deadnaming of transgender individuals.”
For his part, Banks took to his Instagram account to post a statement denouncing the actions of Twitter, saying that the social media site was censoring “a basic truth.”
“My tweet was a statement of fact. Big Tech doesn’t have to agree with me, but they shouldn’t be able to cancel me. If they silence me, they will silence you,” he warned.
“We can’t allow Big Tech to prevent us from telling the truth. When Republicans take back the House next year, we must restore honesty to our public forums and hold Big Tech accountable.”View this post on Instagram
Levine was the previous secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Health and was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in March to be assistant secretary for the Department of Health and Human Services in a 52-48 vote.
In a tweet still visible as of Monday morning, Banks criticized the hailing of Levine as the first “female” four-star officer at the corps, arguing that it disrespected biological females.
“Calling someone that was born and lived as a man for 54 years the first ‘female’ four-star officer is an insult to every little girl who dreams of breaking glass ceilings one day,”tweeted Banks on Oct. 19.
HHS deputy secretary Andrea Palm swears in Levine, with @Surgeon_General Vivek Murthy (a vice admiral himself) as witness.
Levine now the first openly transgender four-star officer across any of the eight uniformed services, which include Army, Navy and Air Force. pic.twitter.com/ne2xBdsFk9
“May this appointment today be the first of many more to come,” stated Levine. “Diversity makes us stronger.”
Banks is not the first person to face repercussions from Twitter for asserting that Levine is a biological male. On Jan. 20, the day of Biden’s inauguration, radio host Michael Brown sent out a tweet asking, “Will I get punished by Twitter for saying that, in God’s sight, ‘Rachel’ Levine (nominated by Biden to be his assistant secretary for HHS) is a man?” Shortly after that, Brown was locked out of his account for 12 hours.
A recent report from a media watchdog reveals that censorship of conservative politicians is not an uncommon phenomenon. The Media Research Center found that censorship of Republican members of Congress outnumbers censorship of Democrats in Congress by a ratio of 54 to 1. Follow Michael Gryboski on Twitter or Facebook
To great public fanfare, Joe Biden has anointed Rachel Levine a “four-star admiral” in the Public Health Service (PHS). The public relations campaign in support of Levine has emphasized his status as the first transgender four-star “admiral” in the “eight U.S. uniformed services.” That PR campaign is misleading, and it is part of a dangerous effort to undermine the military. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) kicked off the propaganda campaign, leading with the “four-star transgender” meme: On October 19, it announced “the nation’s first openly transgender four-star officer across any of the eight uniformed services of the United States. (emphasis here and below is added). HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra reinforced the theme: “Admiral Levine’s historic appointment as the first openly transgender four-star officer is a giant step forward towards equality as a nation.” The U.S. surgeon general touted Levine as “first openly transgender four-star officer to serve in any of the uniformed services.”
The media parroted the party line. Here is The New York Times: “She [sic] is also the first openly transgender person to become a four-star officer in any of the nation’s eight uniformed services.” USA Today’s contribution was virtually indistinguishable: “Rachel Levine becomes first openly transgender 4-star officer across uniformed services.”Here’s The Washington Post: “Rachael Levine, openly transgendered health official sworn in as four-star admiral in Public Health Service.”
This roll-out and publicity barrage leave little doubt that Levine’s primary qualification for his instant promotion is his transgender status. What’s worse, it will damage U.S. military recruitment and morale, thus damaging U.S. national security.
Yes, the Public Health Service is one of the eight “uniformed services” but, notwithstanding the uniforms and its bureaucrats designated as “admirals,” it is not part of the “armed forces.” The U.S. armed forces are the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, Coast Guard, and Space Force. The other two government departments in the category of “uniformed services” are the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Commissioned Officer Corps and the Public Health Services Commissioned Officer Corps. In addition to their Navy-like uniforms, these two also are headed by bureaucrats designated “admirals.”
Four-star is the highest rank in the U.S. military. Although nine five-star admirals and generals served in World War II, the five-star rank was retired upon the death of Gen. Omar Bradley in 1981, leaving four-star generals as the highest rank. The four-star designation calls to mind such historical and accomplished military men as Admiral William Halsey Jr., who commanded the Pacific Fleet in the fight-to-the-death against Japan (and was promoted to five-star rank only after the end of the war), and such notables as Gen. George Patton, recipient of two distinguished service crosses for heroism in battle and the American commander most feared by the Germans in World War II.
Even Patton was a “mere” three-star general when he commanded the Third Army in its drive through Europe into the heart of Germany, and was only awarded his fourth star less than a month before the war’s end. Thus, while maneuvering his Third Army to relieve Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge, Patton would have been outranked by now-Admiral Levine.
In short, promotion to the four-star level normally indicates decades of military service, often in dangerous and life-threatening circumstances, and military achievements of the highest order. Levine does not remotely merit any comparison with these or any of the other accomplished four-star officers, whether admirals or generals.
The administration’s publicity campaign seeking to present Levine as an accomplished four-star admiral is a fraud, particularly coupled with the references to all the uniformed services, as if they are somehow comparable. Although now designated as an “admiral,” Levine commands no sailors, no submarines, and no ships. At least the admiral managing the NOAA has ships and aircraft to command.
Unlike Navy admirals, Levin did not become an admiral after decades of service, including overseas deployments, time away from family, and the hazards that accompany military service. Nor did he attend Annapolis or any other service academy, or even Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) or officer candidate school. He was never an ensign, lieutenant, commander, captain, or even a vice admiral.
Others have documented Levine’s failures in the public health arena. In view of that record, no one can even claim that he is the best person to head PHS out of the hundreds of thousands of physicians in the United States. That is why the PR campaign emphasized his purported gender status. There is no doubt that he is most famous for claiming to be a woman, after 33 years of marriage and fathering two children with a real woman.
Americans should consider the cumulative effect that this and similar boneheaded decisions have on military retention and morale and whether they are done by design. Consider for a moment the perspective of, for example, an Army major or Navy lieutenant commander with 10 to 15 years of service. Or perhaps consider a Marine gunnery sergeant or Army master sergeant with the same amount of service.
Let us assume that he is in one of the special operations units, such as the Army Special Forces, Recon Marines or SEALS, since they are still engaged in combat. Such an officer or NCO has worked extremely hard to receive each promotion. He has been at war for his entire adult life and probably has between 6 and 10 combat deployments, which amount to years away from his family. He may have been wounded, perhaps multiple times. At the bare minimum, he and his family have had to cope with horrendous personal and family stress, among other issues. Now he sees a man with no military experience summarily appointed to six grades above him to the rank of four-star admiral—the equivalent of General Patton, for Pete’s sake—purely as a political sop.
Does anyone in this administration conceive of the damage to morale that this can cause? Do they care? This tells American servicemen and women that their sacrifices are not appreciated, their service is not valued, and that they will not be treated with equal fairness.
Are we going to see a rash of resignations in reaction to this one incident? No. But it most assuredly is another blow at the foundation of the military, another effort to use it as a lab for social experimentation and to force political conformity upon those who remain.
This is part of the effort to purge the military of non-leftists and to seed the ranks with “woke,” politically conscious officers and NCOs who will hew to the “progressive” party line. It is part of the pattern that includes Biden’s purge of Trump appointees from the service academies’ boards, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s search for alleged“domestic terrorists” in the ranks, and Gen. Mark Milley’s focus on the“white rage” supposedly permeating the services. It is part of leftist ideology’s ever-growing danger to the U.S. military and therefore to the country.
John Lucas is a practicing attorney in Tennessee who has successfully argued before the U. S. Supreme Court. Before entering law school at the University of Texas, he served in the Army Special Forces as an enlisted man and then graduated from the U. S. Military Academy at West Point in 1969. He is an Army Ranger and fought in Vietnam as an infantry platoon leader. He is married with four children.
Governor Tom Wolf listening aa Secretary of Health Dr. Rachel Levine speaks to reporters. Governor Tom Wolf and Secretary of Health Dr. Rachel Levine provided an update on the coronavirus known as COVID-19 and outline ongoing efforts to mitigate the virus in Pennsylvania. The Department of Health anticipates that there …
PITTSBURGH (AP) — A federal judge on Monday struck down Gov. Tom Wolf’s pandemic restrictions that required people to stay at home, placed size limits on gatherings and ordered “non-life-sustaining” businesses to shut down, calling them unconstitutional.
U.S. District Judge William Stickman IV sided with plaintiffs that included hair salons, drive-in movie theaters, a farmer’s market vendor, a horse trainer and several Republican officeholders who sued as individuals. Stickman, an appointee of President Donald Trump, wrote in his ruling that the Wolf administration’s pandemic policies have been overreaching, arbitrary and violated citizens’ constitutional rights.
The governor’s efforts to slow the spread of the coronavirus “were undertaken with the good intention of addressing a public health emergency,” Stickman wrote. “But even in an emergency, the authority of government is not unfettered.”
Courts had consistently rejected challenges to Wolf’s power to order businesses to close during the pandemic, and many other governors, Republican and Democrat, undertook similar measures as the virus spread across the country.
Wolf has lifted many of the restrictions since the lawsuit was filed in May, allowing businesses to reopen and canceling a statewide stay-at-home order. But his administration has maintained capacity restrictions and limitations on alcohol sales at bars and restaurants. The state has also imposed a gathering limit of more than 25 people for events held indoors and more than 250 people for those held outside.
A spokesperson for Wolf said the administration was reviewing the decision.
Pennsylvania has reported that more than 145,000 people statewide have contracted the virus since the beginning of the pandemic. More than 7,800 people have died.
American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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