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The Department of Health and Human Services quietly altered the nameplate on the official portrait of Adm. Rachel Levine, changing the displayed name to her prior legal name, Richard Levine. The alteration, which an HHS spokesperson confirmed happened during a recent government shutdown, reignited debates about the role of gender ideology in federal institutions.
HHS spokespeople defended the decision as part of a broader effort to align agency displays and policies with what they called “gold standard science” and “biological reality,” language that signals a clear break with the previous administration’s approach. This is not merely bureaucratic housekeeping — it’s a symbolic reorientation of federal policy away from identity-driven mandates.
Adrian Shanker, who has represented Levine, condemned the change as an act of “bigotry,” while Levine herself declined to deeply engage with the move, saying she would not comment on “this type of petty action.” The reaction from Levine’s camp underscores how politicized even simple administrative decisions have become when ideology is poured into government.
Conservatives should welcome the return of common sense to official federal displays. For years Washington elites elevated partisan identity politics over straightforward, verifiable facts about biology and public health; re-centering policy around objective measures is the right corrective for a federal bureaucracy that drifted into cultural advocacy.
Make no mistake: this is about more than a name on a plaque. It’s about whether federal agencies will continue to impose ideological programs on schools, hospitals, and families, or whether they will respect scientific distinctions that protect women’s sports, medical standards, and children. Restoring these distinctions is not cruel; it is responsible governance.
Americans of every stripe can appreciate honoring public servants for their work without endorsing an activist agenda that upends long-standing medical and social norms. The HHS decision is a modest but meaningful assertion that government should serve the public interest, not the avant-garde of cultural fashion — a principle conservatives will keep fighting to defend.
