Rachel Levine Backed Transgender Chemical Castration
Biden HHS Nominee Defended Subjecting Kids to Chemical Castration
BY TYLER O'NEIL
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:
Pennsylvania Health Secretary Rachel Levine (born Richard Levine), President Joe Biden’s pick for assistant secretary of health at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), has long defended experimental transgender “treatments” for children. Levine, who identifies as transgender, has refused to say whether or not he has undergone medical interventions for his own gender identity, telling The Washington Post in 2016 that such “treatment” is a private matter.
Levine, a pediatrician who worked at Penn State Hersey Medical Center from 1993 to 2015 and who teaches pediatrics and psychology at Penn State College of Medicine, has given lectures on how to perform sex changes on children since at least 2012, The National Pulse reported. In 2014, Levine argued that adults should give children latitude to choose their genders. He coached adults, “try not to force them one way or [the] other.”
In 2017, Levine recommended cross-sex hormones for children in their mid-teens. According to a video of his speech obtained by The National Pulse, Levine warned about the dangers of going through “the wrong puberty” and encouraged hormones to prevent the natural process of adolescent development.
“So what if you’re going through the wrong puberty? What if you’re a transgender young woman — meaning male to female — and now your voice is dropping, you’re getting bigger, you’re getting hair everyone, and you’re growing those [testicles]. And what if you’re a transgender young man, and now you have breast development you’re experiencing, it’s terrifying,” Levine argued.
He lamented that “basically, there was no treatment for individuals that were under 18” under earlier guidelines. By 2017, however, new pro-transgender guidelines approved the use of experimental drugs that supposedly “block” the onset of puberty and cross-sex hormones.
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Levine noted that children’s hospitals still do not encourage these kinds of “treatments” for pre-pubertal children but that changes at the onset of puberty.
“The first phase at the young adolescent age is to give what they call a pubertal blocker, medicine to block the progression, low doses that you gradually increase,” Levine explained. The treatment supposedly ensures “that they never go through the wrong puberty. That way for a transgender woman, male to female, their voice doesn’t drop, they don’t have hair… for a transgender man, they don’t have breast development, they don’t have periods.”
“So you block puberty, and then you can, at the appropriate time, send them into puberty consistent with their gender identity,” Levine argued.
Research shows that there are significant risks with sex reassignment surgery, including heart conditions, increased cancer risk, and loss of bone density.
Some endocrinologists have warned about the negative effects of “puberty-blockers” and cross-sex hormones.
“I call it a development blocker — it’s actually causing a disease,” Dr. Michael Laidlaw, an independent private practice endocrinologist in Rocklin, Calif. who consults with Sutter Roseville Medical Center, told PJ Media. The disease in question is hypogonadotropic hypogonadism. It occurs when the brain fails to send the right signal to the gonads to make the hormones necessary for development.
While endocrinologists — doctors who specialize in hormones and the endocrine system — are familiar with the disease and gladly treat it when a patient has been diagnosed, many of them are effectively causing their patients to contract the same disease in an attempt to affirm gender identity, Laidlaw said. “An endocrinologist might treat a condition where a female’s testosterone levels are going to be outside the normal range. We’ll treat that and we’re aware of metabolic problems. At the same time, an endocrinologist may be giving high levels of testosterone to a female to ‘transition’ her.”
Children with gender dysphoria (the condition of persistently identifying with the gender opposite one’s biological sex) are extremely unlikely to continue in that condition after puberty without medical interventions like “puberty-blockers.” Many realize they are not transgender, but instead gay or lesbian — like detransitioner Charlotte Evans, who launched a network for formerly transgender people.
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There is no evidence that transgender surgery improves the mental health outcomes of gender dysphoric people. Men and women who formerly identified as transgender and underwent surgery have grown to reject transgender identity and lament the damage they did to their own bodies.
Last year, Britain’s High Court ruled that children under age 16 lack the ability to consent to “puberty-blocking” drugs and cross-sex hormones that have irreversible life-long effects. Children who undergo such “treatments” often persist in transgender identity and lose their ability to have children later in life, so some refer to cross-sex hormones and “puberty blockers” as “chemical castration.”
Many states are considering laws that would prevent doctors from prescribing these experimental treatments for minors. However, it seems extremely likely Biden and the Democrats in Congress will further these dangerous treatments in legislation and regulations connected to the Equality Act.
By nominating Levine for a key HHS post, Biden has sent a dangerous message about transgenderism in medicine. Medicine, of all fields, should follow the science of biological sex over unclear notions of transgender identity. After all, Levine himself acknowledged that the causes of gender identity — which he defined as “who you feel inside” — remain unclear.
“The hypothesis that I will give you is that the organic basis of gender identity is the expression of neurodevelopment of the brain, which is biological — as opposed to a competing hypothesis that this is somehow psychological or developmental,” Levine said in 2017.
By contrast, biological sex is male or female and it traces back to the “X” and “Y” chromosomes of DNA. Biological sex determines how human beings develop, from the womb to the tomb, and some medicines work well for women when they do not work well for men, and vice versa. These differences justify sex-segregated sports, sex-segregated private spaces, and different rules for men and women in different contexts.
Yet Biden, Levine, and the rest of the transgender establishment are consciously muddying the waters of well-established biological fact. This carries significant consequences for the field of medicine — and it bodes ill for gender-confused children.
Tyler O’Neil is the author of Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Follow him on Twitter at @Tyler2ONeil.
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Rand Paul Confronts Biden Nominee About Support for Hormone Blockers for Minors
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:
During a Senate confirmation hearing, Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul questioned President Joe Biden’s nominee for assistant Health and Human Services secretary, Richard Levine—who changed his first name to “Rachel” after coming out as “transgender,” over Levine’s support for hormone blockers and the “genital mutilation” of minors.
Levine, who was appointed by Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, in 2017 as acting health secretary, had been confirmed three times by a Republican-controlled state Senate to serve as secretary of health and the state’s physician general. Biden has now nominated Levine for the assistant Health and Human Services secretary position.
“Genital mutilation has been nearly universally condemned. Genital mutilation has been condemned by the WHO, the United Nations Children’s Fund, the United Nations Population Fund,” Senator Paul stated. “According to the WHO, gender mutilation is recognized internationally as a violation of human rights,” Paul asserted during his remarks.
Paul then questioned Levine on whether or not he believed that minors should be making decisions to mutilate their sexual organs.
“American culture is now normalizing the idea that minors can be given hormones to prevent the biological development of their secondary sexual characteristics. … Do you believe that minors are capable of making such a life-changing decision as changing one’s sex?”
Levine did not answer the question directly but in response stated that “[t]ransgender medicine is a very complex and nuanced field with robust research and standards of care that have been developed.”
“I will look forward to working with you and your office and coming to your office and discussing the particulars of the standards of care for transgender medicine,” Levine further stated.
In Matthew 19:4, the Bible states that Jesus said, “…Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female.”
Full transcript of the exchange:
Senator Paul: (00:01)
Genital mutilation has been nearly universally condemned. Genital mutilation has been condemned by the WHO, the United Nations Children’s Fund, the United Nations Population Fund. According to the WHO, genital mutilation is recognized internationally as a violation of human rights. Genital mutilation is considered particularly egregious because, as the WHO notes, it is nearly always carried out on minors and is a violation of the rights of children. Most genital mutilation is not typically performed by force, but as WHO notes, that by social convention, social norm, the social pressure to conform, to do what others do and have been doing, as well as the need to be accepted socially and the fear of being rejected by the community.
Senator Paul: (00:48)
American culture is now normalizing the idea that minors can be given hormones to prevent the biological development of their secondary sexual characteristics. Dr. Levine, you have 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. Like surgical mutilation, hormonal interruption of puberty can permanently alter and prevent secondary sexual characteristics. The American College of Pediatricians reports that 80 to 95% of prepubertal children with gender dysphoria will experience resolution by late adolescence if not exposed to medical intervention and social affirmation. Dr. Levine, do you believe that minors are capable of making such a life-changing decision as changing one’s sex?
Dr. Levine: (01:40)
Well, Senator thank you for your interest in this question. Transgender medicine is a very complex and nuanced field with robust research and standards of care that have been developed. And if I am fortunate enough to be confirmed as the Assistant Secretary of Health, I will look forward to working with you and your office and coming to your office and discussing the particulars of the standards of care for transgender medicine.
Senator Paul: (02:05)
The specific question was about minors. Let’s be a little more specific since you evaded the question. Do you support the government intervening to override the parent’s consent to give a child puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and or amputation surgery of breasts and genitalia? You have said that you’re willing to accelerate the protocols for street kids. I’m alarmed that poor kids with no parents, who are homeless and distraught, you would just go through this and allow that to happen to a minor.
Senator Paul: (02:37)
I would hope that you would have compassion for Kira Bell, who’s a 23-year old girl who was confused with her identity. At 14, she read on the internet about something about transsexuals and she thought, “Well, maybe that’s what I am.” She ended up getting these puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, she had her breasts amputated. But here’s what ultimately she says now, and this is a very insightful decision from someone who made a mistake, but was led to believe this was a good thing by the medical community. “I made a brash decision as a teenager, as a lot of teenagers do, trying to find confidence and happiness, except now the rest of my life will be negatively affected,” she said. Adding that the medicalized gender transitioning was a very temporary superficial fix for a very complex identity issue.
Senator Paul: (03:24)
What I’m alarmed at is that you’re not willing to say absolutely minors shouldn’t be making decisions to amputate their breast or to amputate their genitalia. For most of our history, we have believed that minors don’t have full rights and that parents need to be involved, so I’m alarmed that you won’t say with certainty that minors should not have the ability to make the decision to take hormones that will affect them for the rest of their life. Will you make a more firm decision on whether or not minors should be involved in these decisions?
Dr. Levine: (03:56)
Senator, transgender medicine is a very complex and nuanced field. And if confirmed to the position of Assistant Secretary of Health, I would certainly be pleased to come to your office and talk with you and your staff about the standards of care and the complexity of this field.
Senator Paul: (04:13)
Let it go into the record that the witness refused to answer the question. The question is a very specific one, should minors be making these momentous decisions? For most of the history of medicine, we wouldn’t let you have a cut sewn up in the ER, but you’re willing to let a minor take things that prevent their puberty and you think they get that back? You give a woman testosterone enough that she grows a beard, you think she’s going to go back looking like a woman when you stop the testosterone? You have permanently changed them. Infertility is another problem.
Senator Paul: (04:43)
None of these drugs have been approved for this. They’re all being used off label. I find it ironic that the left that went nuts over hydroxychloroquine being used possibly for COVID are not alarmed that these hormones are being used off label. There’s no long-term studies. We don’t know what happens to them. We do know that there are dozens and dozens of people who’ve been through this who regret that this happened and a permanent change happened to them. If you’ve ever been around children, 14-year-olds can’t make this decision. In the gender dysphoria clinic in England, 10% of the kids are between the ages of three and 10. We should be outraged that someone is talking to a three-year-old about changing their sex. I can’t [crosstalk 00:05:27].
Speaker 3: (05:26)
Thank you so much, Senator Paul. Senator Levine, thank you for answering the question. I will turn to Senator Baldwin.