Rachel Levine answers Sen. Rand Paul's criticism in CBS interview

In one of her first on-camera interviews with a national news outlet since being confirmed as U.S. assistant secretary of health in late March, Rachel Levine discussed Sen. Rand Paul’s criticism of her during her confirmation hearing.

Speaking on “60 Minutes Plus” on CBS’s streaming service Paramount Plus, Levine discussed her support for gender-affirming care, which came up at her Senate confirmation hearing during questioning by Paul, a Republican from Kentucky, on Feb. 25.

Paul compared gender reassignment surgery with genital mutilation.

“Genital mutilation has been nearly universally condemned. Dr. Levine you have supported both allowing minors to be given hormone blockers to prevent them from going through puberty as well as surgical destruction of a minor’s genitalia,” Paul said during the hearing.

Dr. Rachel Levine made history as the first openly transgender Senate-confirmed federal official.

On @paramountplus, she spoke with @sethdoane about the spate of anti-trans bills in the U.S. and about grappling with her gender identity in her youth. https://t.co/G6tf5ZEltG pic.twitter.com/sE2LwjO1dt

— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) June 21, 2021

In the interview Levine told CBS’s Seth Doane that Paul was completely mistaken.

“Genital mutilation is a extremely damaging procedure done on young women. And gender-affirming care has a well-established literature, professional groups and is an evidence-based medical practice. And so the two do not equate in any way.”

Doane went on to point out that genital surgery on trans minors in America is extremely rare, according to the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, a group that advises on trans healthcare.

“I think that the medical and psychological experts really are working with robust literature and standards of care about this. And that it should not be politicized,” said Levine.

Levine, who made history as the first openly transgender Senate-confirmed federal official when she was sworn in as the U.S. assistant secretary for health, also discusses beginning her transition later in life. She told Doane she knew something was different from a very young age.

“I knew something was different in terms of my concept of gender, probably at a very young age, but certainly as a teenager. Many young people will have a sense that something’s very different when they’re 5, 6, 7 years old. Maybe even younger.”

Levine, a pediatrician and the state’s former physician general, was appointed to her former post as Pennsylvania’s secretary of health by Gov. Tom Wolf in 2017. She is a graduate of Harvard University and Tulane Medical School, and she is the president of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.