Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary for Health Adm. Rachel Levine, the highest-ranking openly transgender U.S. government official, insisted during an interview Thursday that children and teenagers can't and shouldn't have to wait to undergo gender transition therapy until they become adults.
"Adolescence is hard, and puberty is hard," Levine, a former Pennsylvania Department Health secretary, said during an interview airing Thursday night on ABC News' "Nightline." "What if you’re going through the wrong puberty? What if you inside feel that you are female, but now you’re going through a male puberty?"
Her comments were part of a program segment, "Identity Denied: Trans in America," which reported on transgender teens who say they are under attack from laws that prevent minors from obtaining gender therapy.
Levine also pushed back on the argument that teens are too young to know about their gender identity and said that the treatment involves therapy, not medical procedures on people who have not yet reached puberty.
"I want to make it clear that for pre-pubertal children, there are no medical procedures done," she said. "The standard of care allows them to explore that with therapy."
Levine also argued that "gender-affirming care is medical care" as well as "mental healthcare," when she was asked about bills that ban such options for people under the age of 18.
"Gender-affirming care is literally suicide prevention care," she said. "The treatment options for gender-affirming care for transgender youth really are evidence-based."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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