Back in May, a Pittsburg radio station received heavy criticism after reporter Marty Griffin called Pennsylvania Secretary of Health Dr. Rachel Levine “sir” at least three times during a media conference call.
Dr. Levine, who is biologically male but transitioned several years ago, was aghast.
“Please don’t misgender me,” Levine told Griffin, telling him it was “really insulting.” Liberal virtue-signalers predictably expressed outrage that Griffin dared to think that the obviously male-sounding Levine was a “sir.”
On Monday, Jenna Ellis, a senior legal adviser to President Trump’s campaign, referenced Levine in a tweet that read: “This guy is making decisions about your health.”
This guy is making decisions about your health.https://t.co/gaqGBbXbOC
— Jenna Ellis (@JennaEllisEsq) August 10, 2020
Once again, the left-wing outrage mob came out in full force to defend Levine, who is, according to The Hill, one of only a handful of openly transgender public officials in the United States.
Changing one’s sex is biologically impossible. The World Health Organization considered transgenderism a mental illness until 2018; political correctness forced them to change their position. Gender in humans and most other mammals is determined by sex chromosomes. Females have two X chromosomes, while males have an X and Y chromosome. Plastic surgery and hormone treatments do not change one’s sex chromosomes.
Nevertheless, the left attempts to bully those who don’t believe that changing one’s gender is possible by calling them bigots and accusing them of committing hate crimes.
“Jenna Ellis is a bigot and Dr. Levine is a patriot — plain and simple,” said Alphonso David, the president of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) said in a statement. “Dr. Levine illustrates character and patriotism while Ellis cannot even define those terms.”
Undeterred by the attacks, Ellis told The Hill that the Human Rights Campaign “thinks it can define character and patriotism while it apparently can’t even define male and female.”
Washington Post reporter Dave Weigel responded to the so-called controversy by posting a screenshot of her tweet next to a photo of a “Trump Pride 2020” shirt.
“I have a lot of pride too that Donald Trump is your President! Great shirt,” Ellis tweeted in response. Mic drop!
I have a lot of pride too that Donald Trump is your President! Great shirt! https://t.co/VENrkogH0d
— Jenna Ellis (@JennaEllisEsq) August 10, 2020
Naturally, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf, who appointed Levine to his position in 2017, came to Levine’s defense:
To @JennaEllisEsq and whoever else needs to hear this: Misgendering a transgender person is hate speech and it’s unacceptable.
— Governor Tom Wolf (@GovernorTomWolf) August 10, 2020
Another criticism of Ellis came from Brad Polumbo, a contributor at the Washington Examiner. “Gross behavior,” he said of Ellis’s tweet. “If you have substantive criticisms of the PA health secretary’s handling of COVID-19, it’s not hard to make them without taking cheap ad-hominem shots.”
Gross behavior. If you have substantive criticisms of the PA health secretary’s handling of COVID-19, it’s not hard to make them without taking cheap ad-hominem shots. pic.twitter.com/DJdpLIjq42
— Brad Polumbo 🇺🇸⚽️ 🏳️🌈 (@brad_polumbo) August 11, 2020
The problem with Polumbo’s comment is that Levine’s transgender status has insulated him from criticism for his policies which have resulted in thousands of unnecessary deaths in the state. Like New York, Pennsylvania ordered long-term care facilities to admit coronavirus-positive patients despite warnings that it would unnecessarily cost lives. Approximately 67 percent of Pennsylvania’s COVID-19 deaths are linked to state-licensed long-term care facilities. That’s on Levine. He should have resigned or been fired. I suspect that Governor Wolf figured that making Levine the fall guy for the policy would be more damaging to him politically (because Levine is transgender) than keeping him on as health secretary and defending the policy.
But the policy itself is only part of the story.
While Governor Andrew Cuomo tried to cover up the full extent of New York’s deadly policy forcing long-term care facilities to accept coronavirus-positive patients, Dr. Levine enforced his state’s policy while also pulling his 95-year-old mother out of such a facility during the outbreak—an undeniable admission that his policy had deadly consequences.
“My mother requested and my sister and I, as her children, complied to move her to another location during the COVID-19 outbreak,” Levine said during a press conference in May. “My mother is 95 years old. She is very intelligent and more than competent to make her own decisions,” he added.
According to a Pennsylvania Department of Health spokeswoman, Dr. Levine’s family had been made aware of residents at the facility testing positive for COVID-19 when the mother was removed. Both the deadly policy and Levine’s moving his mother out of the facility were criticized by those who noted that other families did not have the same options to do so, be it due to financial or logistical reasons, or because public health officials advised against moving elderly family members out of those facilities into multi-generational homes, where they believed they were at a higher risk of infection.
Of course, Levine has managed to be shielded from criticism and calls for his resignation because of his transgender status.
Dr. Levine was born Richard Levine in 1957. He made the decision to “transition” in 2011. He was previously married and has two children.
Dr. Paul R. McHugh, the former psychiatrist-in-chief for Johns Hopkins Hospital, has said that transgenderism is a “mental disorder” meriting mental health treatment, and that those who promote sex reassignment surgery are enabling that disorder. As McHugh explained, it’s disordered for an individual to believe he or she is different from the biological reality of the body. McHugh compared it to anorexia, where “dangerously thin” individuals believe themselves to be overweight. In that situation, we acknowledge that the person is suffering from mental illness.
Bottom line: Dr. Levine shouldn’t be making decisions about the health of Pennsylvania residents. He mandated long-term care facilities accept coronavirus-positive patients, resulting in a huge outbreak of COVID-19 in the state amongst that population, while at the same time taking his mother out of such a facility. Levine’s gender dysphoria should disqualify him from having any role as a public health official.
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Matt Margolis is the author of the new book Airborne: How The Liberal Media Weaponized The Coronavirus Against Donald Trump, and the bestselling book The Worst President in History: The Legacy of Barack Obama. You can follow Matt on Twitter @MattMargolis
Image credit: Gov. Tom Wolf via Flickr, CC BY 2.0