The US Senate on Wednesday took the historic step of confirming pediatrician Rachel Levine as US President Joe Biden’s assistant secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services, making her the highest-ranking transgender official to serve in the federal government.
Levine was leading the Pennsylvania Department of Health when Biden tapped her for the national post in January, in a notable first for the LGBTQ community. The pick was also a contrast to policies of former US president Donald Trump that were seen as discriminatory.
The confirmation vote was 52 to 48, with two Republican senators joining all of the Democrats in support of Levine, a professor of pediatrics and psychiatry at Penn State College of Medicine.
Photo: AFP
As assistant secretary at the department, the 63-year-old is to be part of the team leading the fight against COVID-19.
The Senate last week confirmed California Attorney General Xavier Becerra as the new health secretary, the first Latino to head the department.
“Dr Levine becoming the first openly transgender American to earn the confirmation of the Senate is a watershed moment in US history,” Matt Hill, a White House spokesman, wrote on Twitter.
“A government of the people, by the people and for the people — ALL people,” he wrote.
Lambda Legal, which promotes the civil rights of lesbian, gay and transgender people celebrated Levine’s confirmation as marking the “return of science, competence and empathy to one of the most important institutions in our government and at one of the most critical public health moments in our nation’s history.”
Biden was the first president-elect to thank transgender supporters during his election victory speech in Wilmington, Delaware, on Nov. 7 last year.
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