HHS Changes Name Of Dr. Rachel Levine On Official Portrait
During the government shutdown, the Trump administration quietly removed the legal name of the former Asst. Secretary for Health and added deadname.
Featured Image: Adm. Rachel Levine’s official portrait
Apparently during the government shutdown, the government wasn’t as shutdown as we thought – somebody found the time and wherewithal to quietly alter the official portrait of Admiral Rachel Levine, who served as Assistant Secretary under President Biden. Dr. Levine is the first openly transgender four-star officer named to our country’s eight uniformed services. Her photo hangs in a line of portraits of prior leaders of Public Health Corps, at HSS department headquarters.
The news was first reported by NPR, which obtained a digital photo showing Levine’s birth name (“deadname”) typed below the portrait, under the glass of the frame. Her spokesperson, Adrian Shanker, responded:
“During the federal shutdown, the current leadership of the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health changed Admiral Levine’s photo to remove her current legal name and use a prior name,” said Shanker, who was previously Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health Policy in the Biden administration. He called the move an act “of bigotry against her.”
The fact that a trans person is being targeted by the Trump administration is no surprise. The only surprise here is the stealthiness of the gesture. It was not celebrated mockingly on Truth Social, gloated over publicly as was done with a similar act of pettiness: in September, a new White House portrait collection displayed a photo of an autopen signing Joe Biden’s name in place of his actual photo. The framed auto-pen image sits between two framed photos of Donald J. Trump on the wall in the new White House “Presidential Walk of Fame.”
Image: Our government hard at work adding gold accents to walls and altering visual legacies of legitimate leaders
HHS spokesperson, Andrew Nixon, told NPR: “Our priority is ensuring that the information presented internally and externally by HHS reflects gold standard science. We remain committed to reversing harmful policies enacted by Levine and ensuring that biological reality guides our approach to public health.”
If by “harmful policies,” RFK Jr.’s underling means Rachel’s work on HIV/AIDS (i.e. championing HIV preventation) and combating the opioid crisis (including making Narcan accessible), then yeah, we’re all about harmful policies.
Related: Trump Administration Forced To Restore Millions In LGBTQ+ And HIV Funding
And if by “gold standard science,” HHS means denying the natural spectrum of biological variation and nuance and decimating HIV and AIDS-related research and global health welfare by cutting off funding for prevention and treatment—then we’re against gold standard science too.
Related: Dr. Rachel Levine Becomes First Openly Trans Person Confirmed To Federal Appointment
Dr. Levine brought decades of bonafide medical experience to her commision in 2021, including longstanding public leadership in Pennsylvania, when she became the first openly transgender official to be confirmed by the Senate and the highest-ranking openly trans government official in U.S. history. She is currently Secretary of Health for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and Professor of Pediatrics and Psychiatry at the Penn State College of Medicine.
Image: Dr. Rachel Levin profile photo, Penn State College of Medicine
