It would be easy to read this as a story about the shell of a semi-human Rand Paul being nasty to Dr. Rachel Levine, who is the first transgender person to be nominated for a position requiring Senate confirmation. But instead, read this as the amazing story about how Dr. Levine took Rand Paul’s BS and returned it with kindness and patience.
To his statement that:
“American culture is down normalizing the idea that minors can be given hormones,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said on Thursday, likening standards of care for transgender minors to castration and female circumcision and blaming increasing rates of trans-identified youth on “the social pressure to conform and do what others do.”
Dr. Levin responded by:
[thanking] Paul for his “interest” in the question of transgender medicine, calling it “a very complex and nuanced field with robust research and standards of care that have been developed” by pediatricians.
and
“If I’m fortunate enough to be confirmed, I will look forward to working with you and your office and coming to your office to discuss the particulars of the standards of care for transgender medicine,” Levine said. Levine, who currently serves as Pennsylvania’s secretary of health, is a pediatrician and former state physician general whose handling of the coronavirus pandemic in Pennsylvania has drawn widespread praise, did not address the substance of the question, or attempt to correct Paul’s apparent misunderstanding of medical transition for transgender youth.
Class and grace in the face of assholery. [nb, Dr. Levine is a physician certified by an actual board, not one she created, made up a take-home exam for, and staffed with friends and family.
Grace and class, she. A better human than me, that’s for sure. I’d have told him where to stuff it.
[Edited title. I didn’t realize it pulled in the article title. Edited to reflect the tone I wanted]
) that they even project that onto their victims.