Rachel Levine Biography – Rachel Levine Wiki
Rachel Levine also referred to as Rachel Leland Levine is an American pediatrician and four-star admiral in the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps (PHSCC) who has been the United States assistant secretary for health since March 26, 2021. She is a professor of pediatrics and psychiatry at the Penn State College of Medicine, and previously served as the Pennsylvania physician general from 2015 to 2017, then as secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Health from 2017 to 2021.
She is one of only a few openly transgender government officials in the United States and is the first to hold an office that requires Senate confirmation. On October 19, 2021, Levine became the first openly transgender four-star officer in the nation’s eight uniformed services with her commission as a four-star admiral in the United States Public Health Service.
She had a fellowship at New York City’s Mount Sinai Hospital from 1988 to 1993 where she trained in pediatrics. After moving from Manhattan to central Pennsylvania in 1993, she joined the staff at Penn State Hershey Medical Center. During her tenure there, she created Penn State Hershey Medical Center’s adolescent medicine division and eating disorders clinic. She was in charge of the latter when she was nominated for the position of Pennsylvania Physician General in 2015.
Levine briefing COVID-19 measures with Gov. Tom Wolf at the Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center in June 2020. In 2015, she was nominated by Pennsylvania Governor-elect Tom Wolf to be Pennsylvania’s Physician General. In her capacity as Physician General, she signed an order that allowed law enforcement officers to carry the anti-overdose medication naloxone. She has credited the drug with saving the lives of almost 1,000 opioid users who had overdosed. She served as Physician General until 2017.
In July 2017, Governor Wolf appointed her as Secretary of Health, and she was unanimously confirmed by the Pennsylvania State Senate.
During 2020 and until January 23, 2021, Levine led the public health response on COVID-19 in Pennsylvania as the state secretary of health. She worked closely on a daily basis with the FEMA director and led a daily press briefing.
On February 13, 2021, President Joe Biden formally nominated Levine to be assistant secretary for health. Her confirmation hearing was on February 25 with the Senate HELP Committee. On March 17, the committee voted 13–9 to advance the nomination to a full Senate vote. On March 24, the Senate voted 52–48, with two Republicans joining all members of the Democratic caucus, to confirm her nomination. She is the first openly transgender person to hold an office that requires Senate confirmation; earlier transgender federal officials like Amanda Simpson held offices that did not require Senate confirmation. On October 19, 2021, she was commissioned as a four-star admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps (PHSCC), becoming the first openly transgender four-star officer in any of the United States uniformed services. She is the first female four-star admiral in the PHSCC.
She is Jewish and grew up attending Hebrew school. Levine earned a high school diploma from Belmont Hill School in Belmont, Massachusetts. Levine graduated from Harvard College and the Tulane University School of Medicine and completed a residency in pediatrics and fellowship in adolescent medicine at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in Manhattan, New York.
Rachel Levine Age
She was born on October 28, 1957.
Rachel Levine Wife
She married her ex-wife, Martha Peaslee Levine, in 1988, during Levine’s last year of medical school, and divorced in 2013. They had two children together who are adults.
Rachel Levine Children
She has two children, her daughter Dayna, and son David.
Rachel Levine Transition
She transitioned in 2011. She spoke about her gender transition at a conference for transgender people in Swatara Township, Pennsylvania in March 2015.
“All I knew is I wanted to be a girl, or I was a girl or female,” she said while describing her feeling as a child. She explained that she threw herself into schoolwork, then her career, in order to “compartmentalize” troubling feelings about her gender. Levine described how she had a midlife crisis during her 40s and started seeing a therapist and attending meetings at TransCentralPA. “What it comes down to is I decided to live my life with no secrets … with no fear,” Levine said.
Rachel Levine Parents
She is originally from Wakefield, Massachusetts. Her parents, Melvin and Lillian Levine, were both lawyers. She has a sister, Bonnie Levine, who is four years older.
