Adm. Levine celebrates trans joy on Transgender Day of Visibility
The day after Sunday’s Transgender Day of Visibility observance, the Washington Blade connected with Adm. Rachel Levine, a pediatrician serving as assistant secretary of health at the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services. “Trans joy means authenticity and being comfortable in your own skin and being able to be who you are,” said Levine, who is the highest-ranking transgender official in U.S.
history. “With my transition, I was able to be my authentic self,” she remembers. “At that time, I was still a professor at the Penn State College of Medicine, and an attending physician at the Penn State Hershey Medical Center in pediatrics and adolescent medicine, but then I had this unique opportunity to become the physician general of Pennsylvania for then-Gov.
Tom Wolf, and then two and a half years later to become the Secretary of Health.” “So it has been a tremendous journey, which has been very rewarding,” Levine said, adding that it has been “an honor” to work for the Biden-Harris administration under HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra — all allies of trans, nonbinary, and gender expansive folks and of the LGBTQ community more broadly.
