Rachel Levine, the Assistant Secretary for Health at the Department of Health and Human Services, known for being the highest-ranking transgender official in the Biden administration, is again at the center of controversy. This time she is under scrutiny for supporting an Alaska clinic that actively promotes replacing the name “mother” with the term “egg producers” in K-12 science classes.
The incident occurred on August 6, when Levine visited the Identity Alaska clinic, a community center and health clinic that provides resources and health care to the LGBTQ community. On that visit, the trans secretary appointed by Joe Biden praised the clinic and its workers for working toward a “more equitable” future.
“These inspiring people work tirelessly to create a more equitable future, where all those living in the U.S. have equal access to lifesaving medical care,” Levine said.
The clinic in question is a controversial institution because it explicitly pushes radical ideas about biological sex on its website, specifically in the “gender-inclusive biology” resource section.
In the section of the biology curriculum (which does not respect traditional science but is an adaptation with a gender perspective), life science teachers are recommended to use “child-friendly definitions” of terms related to gender and sexuality.
An inclusive guide with controversial terms
The Identity Alaska plan maintains inclusive language and recommends teachers use several terms and phrases that are uncommon in everyday life.
For example, teachers are encouraged to instruct children that doctors “assign” sex at birth based on a “guess” rather than the biological fact of having ovaries or testicles.
The guide also recommends that teachers use narratives usually associated with gender ideology: “I want everyone to get used to using accurate language for body parts and functions without assuming that there are only two sexes and that everyone within a particular sex is the same. It’s important to be able to communicate about our bodies in accurate ways.”
As the guide progresses, the language becomes increasingly radical, even calling for the replacement of “mother” with the terms “gestational parent,” “birth parent,” “egg producer” or “carrier” when discussing reproduction.
Also, the guide recommends that teachers, instead of saying “when the mother gives birth,” use “when the baby exits the womb.”
The language of the Identity Alaska guide sometimes becomes quite abstract. For example, to tell a child that he looks like his parents, they recommend that teachers say, "You received a mix of genes from sperm and egg.”
Levine’s support for the LGBTQ health center is one of the many controversies generated by the federal government’s health secretary, who has also been widely questioned for supporting the provision of services for sex change operations in minors, arguing that the treatment is “lifesaving.”
