(VitalNews.org) – Admiral Rachel Levine, a senior official in the Biden administration who happens to be transgender, has posted messages on the administration’s official Instagram account to the effect that Pride Month should be extended to a “Summer of Pride”.
Levine, who in addition to being a Navy Admiral, is the Assistant Secretary for Health for the United States Department of Health and Human Services, also posted similar messages on Twitter.
As a pediatrician, Levine has been heavily criticized for refusing to limit “gender-affirming” medications and surgery on pre-pubescent children. This is despite an increasing body of evidence pointing towards the life-long damage that may be caused to young children.
In 2021, Levine was named the first openly transgender admiral at the four-star level in any of the eight uniformed services in the US. According to a press release at the time, this makes the biologically male Levine the highest-ranking officer in the US PHS Commissioned Corps and “its first female four-star admiral”.
Before serving in the Biden administration, Levine served as the Health Secretary for Pennsylvania and became controversial for supporting General Tom Wolf (D) in what was considered to be a series of over-reaching edicts during the pandemic. Levine’s appointment to four-star admiral status was greeted with enormous fanfare by the HHS, who deemed it to be a “historic” occasion and an opportunity for the department to be more inclusive to “vulnerable and underserved minorities.”
Although there have been no official moves to extend Pride Month into a Summer of Pride, the Biden administration has been supportive of the LGBTQIA+ movement and of transgender people in particular, calling them “brave,” “stunning” and “inspirational” over the course of the last couple of years.
Pride Month was originally a commemoration of the Stonewall riots of the late 1960s when police clashed with gay activists outside the Stonewall pub in Greenwich Village. Since then, it has been embraced as a month-long celebration across not only federal departments but also military and diplomatic institutions.
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