Trans Official Rachel Levine Featured in Children’s Book on “Women Who Persisted”
Plus: South Dakota bans "gender-affirming" treatments for minors and swimmer Lia Thomas reportedly exposed "male genitalia" to competitors
Transgender Biden administration official Rachel Levine is the subject of an upcoming children’s book on “women who persisted.”
Levine, assistant secretary for health to the Department of Health and Human Services, has made history as the first openly transgender federal official in a position that requires Senate confirmation and also became the first transgender four-star officer in uniform service after being appointed head of the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps by President Joe Biden in 2021.
However, Levine has been the subject of controversy on more than one occasion, including for being named the “first female” four-star admiral in the commissioned corps as well, a title which many argued was undeserved for a male admiral.
Nonetheless, the one-time husband and father of two will be included as the latest woman highlighted by the series, which is based on Chelsea Clinton’s book “She Persisted.”
The upcoming installment that centers on Levine comes with an introduction from the former First Daughter, who is of course the only child of Bill and Hillary Clinton.
“She Persisted: Rachel Levine” will be available on June 8.
Link: Trans Official Rachel Levine Featured in Children’s Book on “Women Who Persisted”
South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem has signed a bill that bans most “gender-affirming treatments for minors in the state, becoming the latest state to do so as the issue continues to be one of the flashpoint issues of our time.
Noem signed the “Help Not Harm” bill on Monday, which bans the use of hormones, puberty blockers, or surgery to minors for the sake of treating gender dysphoria, which is defined in conventional parlance as “the distress caused by a sense of conflict between the assigned sex at birth and the person's gender identity,” as NBC News put it.
Healthcare providers can face the potential loss of their medical license if they do not comply as well as be open to civil suit.
The law includes exceptions to children who are intersex, which is due to a chromosomal abnormality, or who are being treated for a reason other than gender dysmorphia.
Providers who are already administering treatments to minors have until December 31 to taper their patients off puberty blockers and hormone therapy.
The bill makes South Dakota the sixth state in the nation to ban such treatments for children, along with Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Tennessee, and Utah. Florida state medical boards have also banned “gender-affirming” care for minors.
Link: South Dakota Bans Most “Gender-Affirming” Treatments for Minors
Controversial transgender swimmer Lia Thomas reportedly exposed his genitalia to female competitors at a match last year, according to one woman who was forced to race against him and has since turned into a vocal advocate for female athletes.
Thomas became one of the focal points of the debate over transgender athletes last year after joining the UPenn women’s swimming team following three unremarkable seasons on the men’s team.
Thomas’ formidable wins against female competitors quickly garnered headlines, even as frustrated teammates anonymously told media their concerns over sharing a locker room with the still-intact male teammate or women who were passed over to place him on the team went ignored.
Now, Riley Gaines, who began to speak out in favor of preserving the integrity of female-only athletic spaces after tying with Thomas for fifth place in a national swimming competition, says that she and her peers were forced to share a locker room with the biological man at the match, with no prior warning.
"We were not forewarned beforehand that we would be sharing a locker room with Lia. We did not give our consent, they did not ask for our consent, but in that locker room we turned around, and there’s a 6’4" biological man dropping his pants and watching us undress, and we were exposed to male genitalia," Gaines told Fox News earlier this month.