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WhiskeyGrinder

(26,845 posts)
Fri Dec 5, 2025, 07:39 PM Dec 2025

HHS changed the name of transgender health leader on her official portrait

https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/12/05/nx-s1-5633282/transgender-rachel-levine-portrait-hhs

As you walk down a particular hallway on the seventh floor of the Humphrey Building in Washington, D.C., you'll find a line of photographic portraits of all the people from years past who have led the Public Health Corps at the federal Department of Health and Human Services.

Only one of those portraits is of a transgender person: Adm. Rachel Levine, who served for four years as President Biden's assistant secretary for health. She was the first transgender person to win Senate confirmation, and her portrait has been displayed in the hallway since soon after she was confirmed in 2021. The role is a four-star admiral position in charge of the Commissioned Corps of the U.S. Public Health Service.

Levine's official portrait was recently altered, a spokesperson for HHS confirmed to NPR. A digital photograph of the portrait in the hallway obtained by NPR shows that Levine's previous name is now typed below the portrait, under the glass of the frame.

"During the federal shutdown, the current leadership of the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health changed Admiral Levine's photo to remove her current legal name and use a prior name," says Adrian Shanker, former deputy assistant secretary for health policy in the Biden administration who worked with Levine and is now her spokesperson. He called the move an act "of bigotry against her."
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HHS changed the name of transgender health leader on her official portrait (Original Post) WhiskeyGrinder Dec 2025 OP
That is a shameful act against the Admiral. CaliforniaPeggy Dec 2025 #1
I hold the highest respect MysteriousStranger Dec 2025 #2
These people are so depraved. We can't be rid of them and their ilk soon enough. Blues Heron Dec 2025 #3
This petty spitefulness is so very, very creepy leftstreet Dec 2025 #4
They are such small people with such small minds. Biophilic Dec 2025 #5
And they live in such a small world - soldierant Dec 2025 #8
Cruelty Solly Mack Dec 2025 #6
How disgusting and disgraceful mountain grammy Dec 2025 #7
Wtaf is wrong with these people? Danmel Dec 2025 #9
2. I hold the highest respect
Fri Dec 5, 2025, 07:59 PM
Dec 2025

for Admiral Levine. She was an amazing voice of reason here in Pa during COVID.

soldierant

(9,316 posts)
8. And they live in such a small world -
Fri Dec 5, 2025, 10:35 PM
Dec 2025

one in which there is no room for anyone or anything other than their small opinions.

Danmel

(5,761 posts)
9. Wtaf is wrong with these people?
Fri Dec 5, 2025, 11:30 PM
Dec 2025

If kids behaved this way, they'd be evaluated for serious mental health issues. What happened to them to make them so gratuitous mean, they're such assholes.

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