Transgender Assistant Secretary for Health Rachel Levine says gender-affirming care for minors has the “greatest support” of the Biden administration.
Levine vowed that medical gender change in children will soon be normalized and praised the controversial medical intervention that has been banned in several states at first. Pediatric Grand Rounds session at the Children’s Medical Center in Hartford.
Levine was invited to speak at the event about Florida’s Parental Rights in Education Act and the political implications of gender reassignment surgery being performed at children’s hospitals.
“I think it will not be politically advantageous. It wasn’t particularly in 2022, so I think as we look at all the different elections in 2024, I think the next two years are going to be challenging,” Levine said.
Transgender Assistant Secretary for Health Rachel Levine Says Gender-Affirming Care for Minors Has ‘Most Support’ of Biden Administration
“But I am positive and optimistic and I am hopeful that the wheel will turn after that and that this issue will not be a minefield politically and socially.”
Dr. Stanley Goldfarb of the Do No Harm organization, a national association of medical professionals that combats “woke” activism in the health system, said foxnews that there is no ‘good evidence’ to support these claims.
“Levine’s appearance at Connecticut Children’s Hospital praising ‘gender-affirming care’ for minors and stating that it will be fully accepted is incorrect and must be countered,” Goldfarb said.
“There is no good evidence that children treated with gender-altering hormones or puberty blockers have improved mental health assessments.”
A recent study from the University of Washington showed no change in the psychological well-being of minors, Goldfarb added.
“There may be irreparable harm to children by those who push these radical and ideologically driven treatments,” he said.
“The treatment of minors should be based on rigorous scientific research, not dubious agenda-driven studies or activist demands.”
Rep. Andy Harris, a member of the House Doctors Caucus and co-chair of the Pro-Life Caucus, called Levine’s comments “reprehensible.”
“It is reprehensible for a government official, let alone the US HHS Assistant Secretary, to advocate for child genital mutilation to become standard practice in the US,” he said.
“As a physician, I was proud to co-sponsor the ‘Children’s Innocence Protection Act,’ which would ban harmful medical procedures used to treat gender dysphoria in transgender minors, including puberty blockers and surgeries in which minors alter their bodies to correspond to a sex that differs from their biological sex.
He added: ‘Many paediatricians, particularly pediatric endocrinologists, have expressed serious concerns about the use of puberty blockers, hormone blockers and sexual transition surgeries in minors.
‘These doctors know that these drugs and procedures can affect boys’ bone growth, fertility, and risk of breast and prostate cancer.
‘In the meantime, HHS has pressured providers to provide this care or else they will face discrimination lawsuits. We must protect our children.
The comments come after US President Joe Biden criticized Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, without naming him, calling the state’s actions for transgender youth “almost sinful.”
Florida’s medical boards voted to ban puberty blockers, cross-reference hormones and gender-affirming surgeries in boys in November.
This follows a parental rights bill the governor signed earlier this year that prohibits teachers from giving classroom instruction on ‘sexual orientation’ or ‘gender identity’ in kindergarten through third grade.
Levine said: The children it serves, the youth it serves, the families and all of you as its providers are supported at the highest levels of the federal government. President Biden supports them.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who could announce a run for president at any time, is spearheading a series of laws that would prevent minors from receiving transgender medical care and surgeries.
Biden attacked Florida’s response to transgender youth issues in an interview with former Obama adviser Kal Penn on ‘The daily program’.
“It’s terrible what they’re doing,” Biden said in the video.
‘It’s not like, you know, a kid wakes up one morning and says, you know, I decided I wanted to become a man or I want to become a woman. I mean, what are they thinking?
“What is happening in Florida is, as my mother would say, almost sinful. I mean it’s terrible what they’re doing.
But, the DeSantis health administration in Florida rejected Biden’s comments.
The secretary of the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration, Jason Weida, told DailyMail.com that the fact that people with gender dysmorphia are being pressured by the federal government to undergo surgery as minors it is the real “sin” and is “decades behind other developed countries”.
The president’s attack on DeSantis and initiatives in his state is in preparation for a head-to-head presidential election with the governor who has yet to announce a White House run but is expected to enter the Republican primary in a matter of months. .
Florida Health Care Agency Administration Secretary Jason Weida (pictured) told DailyMail.com that the government pushing young people with gender dysmorphia to undergo surgery is a “sin” and is ” decades behind other developed countries.
“It is not ‘sinful’ to ban child mutilation,” DeSantis tweeted Tuesday.
“It is not acceptable for the federal government to mandate that procedures such as sex change operations for children be allowed.”
Republican lawmakers in Florida introduced several bills this session that activists say are regressive and will strip members of the LGBTQ community of their rights.
“The ‘gender affirming’ model pushed by the Biden Administration is decades behind other developed countries, including Sweden and, more recently, Norway,” Weida told DailyMail.com.
“What is ‘sinful’ is the establishment that promotes harmful surgeries and treatments with long-term effects on minors without accountability or transparency.”
Opponents of the proposed legislation in the Sunshine State say the governor is using the pretext of education and parental rights to implement laws they say are anti-gay and anti-transgender.
One bill, for example, would ban transgender surgeries and medical care, such as puberty blockers and hormone therapy, for children who claim to be the opposite sex from the one they were born with.
Weida said the new Florida laws are consistent with what was found after the state’s Agency for Health Care Administration conducted a 2022 review of services promoted by Biden and the federal government to treat gender dysmorphia in minors.
Last year, the agency conducted a comprehensive review of various services promoted by the federal government to treat gender dysphoria and found that these services — sex reassignment surgery, cross-hormonal, and puberty blockers — are not consistent with standards. widely accepted medical professionals. and they are experimental and investigational with the potential for long-term deleterious effects,’ he said.
Biden told Daily Show guest host Kal Penn that Florida laws relating to LGBTQ rights are “sinful” and “cruel.”
DeSantis published his memoir “The Courage to Be Free: Florida’s Blueprint for America’s Revival” last month and is currently on a book tour that many see as a pre-presidential announcement trip through the states.
The book and the priorities of Florida’s current legislative sessions are seen primarily as a platform on which DeSantis would run his campaign once he launched a 2024 bid for the Republican nomination.
The parental rights in education bill, which the governor signed into law last year, was dubbed the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill by critics because it prevented educators from including discussions of gender identity or sexual orientation.
The law currently includes children in kindergarten through third grade, but the Florida legislature is now considering expanding it to include minors through eighth grade.