US Deputy Secretary of Health Rachel Levine has stated that President Joe Biden’s administration strongly supports gender affirming care for minors. Levine promises that gender reassignment for children will soon be normalized in the country. During a speech at Connecticut Children’s Medical Center, Levine stated that he does not expect it to be politically advantageous, but that he hopes the wheel will turn in the near future and that the issue will not be a social and political minefield. Levine is the first openly transgender federal official in the US and has previously urged allowing sex reassignment therapy for minors.
However, Levine’s statements were not welcomed by all. Stanley Goldfarb, a member of Do No Harm, a national association of medical professionals, said that Levine’s appearance at Connecticut Children’s Hospital praising “gender affirming care” for minors and claiming that it will be fully accepted is wrong and should be countered. According to Goldfarb, there is no credible evidence that children treated with sex-altering hormones or puberty blockers have better mental health evaluations.
Levine’s statements come after President Joe Biden called the ban on gender-affirming treatments for minors in the US state of Florida “close to sin.” The state’s Medical Board voted in November to restrict hormone therapy, puberty blockers, and sex reassignment surgeries on children and adolescents, and this week the measure went into effect.