A top Biden healthcare official sought out justification for performing sex change operations on children during the official’s previous role leading a state health agency, according to newly obtained emails.
Dr. Rachel Levine, currently the assistant secretary for health at President Joe Biden’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), asked in a 2017 email exchange if any scientific literature was available to support “bottom” surgeries for minors, according to emails obtained by activist Megan Brock and shared with the Daily Caller. Dr. Nadia Dowshen of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia replied she was “not aware of existing literature.”
🚨Bombshell email🚨
In 2017, @SecretaryLevine asked CHOP Gender Clinic Co-Founder, Nadia Dowshen, for literature to support gender confirmation surgery protocols in minors. This was the response:
“Hi Rachel, I’m not aware of existing literature but it is certainly happening.” pic.twitter.com/gyh0kQgjuG
— Megan Brock (@MegBeileen) November 21, 2022
“I know that we had discussed at US PATH the possibility of gender confirmation surgery for young people under 18 years of age. This could include top surgery for trans young men and top and bottom surgery for trans young women,” Levine said in an email to Dowshen dated May 4, 2017. “Is there any literature to support this protocol? Please let me know if you have any references.”
Dowshen replied that she was “not aware of existing literature but it is certainly happening.”
“I think we’ve had more than 10 patients who have had chest surgery under 18 (as young as 15) and 1 bottom surgery (17),” Dowshen continued. “We are trying to work with HUP and Drs Rumer, McGinn to start to try to get some pre-post data for top surgeries for youth under 18. I can also have one of my RAs do a lit search to make sure not missing anything and would be interested if you find anything since a lot of our youth are being denied coverage for top surgery if under 18.”
Brock, a parent from Pennsylvania previously involved in activism against school shutdowns, filed a Right-To-Know request from the Pennsylvania Department of Health in October and received a response Friday, Nov. 18.
Brock said she was alarmed by a story that gender clinics were hosting trainings in Philadelphia schools, prompting her to file the RTK request.
“I find it very alarming that minors with gender dysphoria are being encouraged to make permanent, fertility-ending changes to their bodies, particularly when there is credible research showing that the majority of gender dysphoria cases will resolved by the end of adolescence, without medical or surgical interventions,” Brock told the Daily Caller.
Levine was serving as Physician General of Pennsylvania at the time of the exchange, and would become Secretary of Health in the state just months later. Now, Levine serves in the Biden administration as the first transgender person in a Senate-confirmed position.
Levine has been a staunch advocate for “gender-affirming care,” a euphemism for sex change operations and treatments which manipulate the hormones and physical appearance of individuals with gender dysphoria. Levine recently told a group of LGBT youth that the people at the “highest levels” of the Biden administration support this care for minors.
Biden’s HHS has thrown its support behind sex changes for children as well, despite intense disagreement in the scientific community on how kids with gender dysphoria should be treated. The U.S. is far more lenient than most other countries in the Western world regarding gender-confirmation treatment for kids. (RELATED: They Say There’s ‘No Argument’ About Letting Kids Have Sex Changes — But Plenty Of Scientists Are Pushing Back)
The Daily Caller reached out to HHS for comment from Levine but did not receive a response. Dowshen did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication.