President-elect Joe Biden announced Tuesday that he has appointed Dr. Rachel Levine to be deputy secretary of health in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. If confirmed by the Senate, Levine would be the first openly transgender federal official in a Senate-confirmed role, according to the Biden-Harris transition team.
Levine, who is Pennsylvania’s health secretary, is currently leading the state’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Dr. Rachel Levine will provide the consistent leadership and essential experience we need to get people to suffer from this pandemic (regardless of their zip code, race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability) and meet health needs our country’s public at this critical time and beyond, ”Biden said in a statement. “It’s a historic and deeply qualified election to help lead our administration’s health efforts.”
Vice President-elect Kamala Harris described Levine as “a remarkable public servant with the knowledge and experience that will help us contain this pandemic and protect and improve the health and well-being of the American people.”
Biden-Harris transition team
Levine, a graduate of Harvard College and Tulane University School of Medicine, completed her training in pediatrics and adolescent medicine at Mt. Sinai Medical Center in New York City. She is also a professor of pediatrics and psychiatry at Penn State College of Medicine and serves as president of ASTHO, the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.
The Republican-controlled state Senate confirmed her three times as Pennsylvania’s secretary of health and as the state’s attorney general.
The doctor is also an “author on the opioid crisis, medical marijuana, adolescent medicine, eating disorders and LGBTQ + medicine,” according to the statement.
In a recent interview with CBS News ’Melissa Quinn, Levine spoke about Pennsylvania’s effort to ensure that urban and rural areas have equitable access to the COVID-19 vaccine.
“Pharmacies will be very important and necessary, but not enough,” Levine said. “It’s not the vaccine that’s the problem. It’s the vaccination. We have to get people to administer it. We have to carry the vaccines in our arms.”
The Pennsylvania Equality Project celebrated its nomination and said in a statement to CBS Philly: “[W]We could not be more excited for her and our community to have such amazing and inspiring representation at the highest levels of our government. Well deserved Dr. Levine – well deserved! We are confident that you will work as much to protect Americans as you did in Pennsylvania for many years. “
Levine became the target of anti-transgender harassment and online attacks, in his prominent role at the forefront of the state’s coronavirus response. She shouted the officials at a press conference in July.
“To the perpetrators and perpetrators of these actions, if your apologies are sincere, I accept them. But an apology is the beginning, not the end, of the conversation,” Levine said.
“As for me, I don’t have room in my heart for hatred and frankly I don’t have time for intolerance.”