Assistant secretary for health Admiral Richard L. Levine, U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps. Chris Sean Smith, U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons, and Willthacheerleader18, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.
NPR reports that Assistant Secretary for Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Admiral Rachel Levine’s official portrait at HHS was altered during the government shutdown, with his former name typed under the photo. The department said it is committed to ensuring that “biological reality guides our approach to public health.”
Rachel Levine was born Richard L. Levine. This has been public knowledge for years and is widely reported in mainstream profiles. NPR avoided stating this directly, referring to him as “her” and mentioning his “previous name,” even though it clearly means Richard Levine. This is some combination of lazy journalism and a last-ditch effort to support gender lunacy by refusing to acknowledge that Admiral Rachel is actually a man named Richard.
Levine was the first transgender person confirmed by the Senate and former assistant secretary for health under Biden. His spokesperson described the change as an act of bigotry. According to NPR, an HHS staff member criticized the change as disrespectful and part of what they see as a broader effort by the Trump administration to erase transgender people from federal policy.
NPR claims that Trump campaigned heavily on anti-transgender messaging and, since taking office, has reversed protections for transgender and intersex people across multiple agencies. However, this is biased framing. The Trump administration is not against transgender people. It simply requires individuals to serve in their birth gender.
The U.S. government’s policies on gender identity and transgender status depend on the department and on who is president. Under President Trump (both terms), federal policy has centered on biological-sex classification across most agencies, reversing many gender-identity rules from the Biden years. This includes guidance at the Departments of Health and Human Services, Education, Justice, Labor, and State.
Agencies have removed gender-identity rules created under Biden, restored sex-based definitions in civil-rights enforcement, and revised administrative documents, data systems, and regulatory language to align with biological-sex categories.
At the Pentagon, Trump reinstated a version of his earlier transgender-service restrictions, meaning individuals who identify as transgender may not serve unless they meet standards for their biological sex and are not undergoing or requiring gender-transition medical treatment. The administration frames these rules as necessary for readiness, medical clarity, and national security.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is a civilian agency, but some of the people who work in public health across HHS are members of a uniformed service: the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps (USPHS). The USPHS is one of the nation’s eight uniformed services, alongside the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Space Force, Coast Guard, and NOAA Corps. It is not part of the Department of Defense.
During the Biden years, the USPHS followed gender-identity policies similar to civilian agencies, allowing service according to gender identity. Under the Trump administration, however, uniformed-service policies were brought back into alignment with biological-sex standards.
It is unclear whether Richard will be required to wear a male uniform or meet male grooming standards. If this were the armed services, he would have to, but the uniformed services under HHS are a gray area. It is also possible that Richard will sue the U.S. government, opening a new area of law with far-reaching ramifications for gender ideology.
If a court ultimately finds Richard in the right or in the wrong, the ruling could become a precedent shaping future litigation on the limits of gender identity in federal service.
The ACLU has filed a major federal lawsuit, Orr v. Trump, challenging President Trump’s January 2025 executive order requiring all federal identification documents, including passports, to reflect a person’s sex “at conception.”
Within 24 hours of the order, the State Department began holding pending applications from transgender, intersex, and nonbinary people and issuing new passports marked with their birth sex. The ACLU argues that this policy violates constitutional guarantees of privacy, equal protection, and the right to travel, and unlawfully compels speech by forcing people to carry identification that outs them.
The case has moved quickly through the courts. A federal judge granted temporary relief to several plaintiffs, but on November 6, 2025, the Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to enforce the policy while litigation continues. The lawsuit represents one of the most significant challenges to the administration’s biological-sex identification rules, with plaintiffs arguing the policy places them at risk of harm every time they travel or use official identification.
Irrespective of lawsuits or future outcomes, the case of Admiral Richard Levine raises serious questions about whether someone who rejects biological reality should hold a senior health position in the U.S. government.
It also underscores the Trump administration’s wholesale rejection of transgender ideology and the collapse of left-leaning narratives when confronted with facts.
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