https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/03/rachel-rachel-bruce-bawer/
If you consult the mainstream news media on a regular basis, you’ve probably heard that last Thursday was a red-letter day in American history – an occasion for dancing in the streets from Bangor to Burbank, and for socially distanced champagne toasts from Key West to Ketchikan. Why? Because, for the first time ever, a transgender nominee for a government office was up for Senate confirmation. That nominee was Dr. Rachel Levine, President Biden’s pick for Assistant Secretary for Health.
Is Rachel a great, or even a competent, physician? Who cares? It’s 2021, and Rachel is trans!
Rachel’s birth name was Richard, though there’s no way you could tell that from, say, Wikipedia. (In fact, on the “talk” page for Rachel’s Wikipedia entry, you can see anxious contributors earnestly debating how to deal with the ticklish fact that Rachel had a bar mitzvah, not a bas mitzvah.) Now aged 63, Rachel transitioned a decade ago and was divorced a couple of years later. Neither Rachel’s ex nor their two children appear to have attended the hearing.
Importantly, Rachel is not only a trans person; Rachel is a trans activist, a self-described champion of transgender youth. Meaning what? Meaning, among much else, that Rachel supports giving puberty blockers to children who say they’re the opposite sex, and is open to ordering “gender-confirmation” surgery to kids under age 18 with or without parental permission.
Rachel’s last job was as Health Commissioner in Pennsylvania. There were national headlines when it emerged that Rachel’s mother had been removed for her safety from a care home even as Rachel was ordering elderly hospital patients who’d tested positive for COVID back into nursing homes. Like Andrew Cuomo’s similar move in New York, this action doubtless contributed to the state’s elevated toll of COVID deaths in such establishments – a matter that Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) brought up at the hearing.
But hey, Rachel is trans!
Because Rachel’s appointment broke a glass ceiling, the Democrats treated the hearing as a celebration. But Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) had to spoil the party. Noting Rachel’s support for puberty blockers and the “surgical destruction of a minor’s genitalia,” Sen. Paul, who is a physician, pointed out that genital mutilation is internationally considered “a violation of human rights” and that “80 to 95% of prepubertal children with gender dysphoria” snap out of it “by late adolescence” if left alone. This being the case, asked Sen. Paul, “do you believe that minors are capable of making such a life-changing decision as changing one’s sex?”