On the seventh-floor hallway of the Humphrey Building in Washington, D.C., a row of portraits honors leaders of the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps. Among them is Adm. Rachel L. Levine, the only openly transgender person in that line; she served four years as the Biden administration’s assistant secretary for health and was the first openly transgender official confirmed by the Senate. Her portrait has hung there since soon after her 2021 confirmation. The assistant secretary for health carries a four-star admiral rank and oversees the Commissioned Corps.
A department spokesperson confirmed to NPR that HHS recently altered Levine’s official portrait. A digital photograph obtained by NPR shows a prior name now typed on a label under the framed photo, positioned beneath the glass.
“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,” said Adrian Shanker, Levine’s spokesperson and a former deputy assistant secretary for health policy in the Biden administration. He called the change “an act of bigotry against her.”
Levine told NPR she was honored to serve as assistant secretary for health and declined to comment further on what she described as a “petty action.”
When asked who authorized the change and why, HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon replied: “Our priority is ensuring that the information presented internally and externally by HHS reflects gold standard science. We remain committed to reversing harmful policies enacted by Levine and ensuring that biological reality guides our approach to public health.”
The current assistant secretary for health is Adm. Brian Christine, a urologist from Alabama confirmed by the Senate in October.
An unnamed HHS staff member, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, called the name change “disrespectful,” saying it reflects “the erasure of transgender individuals by this administration.”
The move comes amid a broader political backdrop in which President Trump and other Republicans spent heavily during the 2024 campaign opposing transgender rights, sometimes using Levine’s image in ads. Since returning to office, the administration has taken steps at multiple federal agencies to restrict protections for transgender and intersex people, including actions at the Departments of Health, Justice, and Education. At the Pentagon, policies led to transgender service members being discharged without benefits; at the State Department, prior passport policies were reversed. The president has also publicly characterized transgender people as a danger to society.
Shanker described the alteration of Levine’s portrait as unprecedented. He highlighted Levine’s public health work on COVID-19, syphilis, HIV/AIDS and the opioid epidemic, and urged HHS leaders to concentrate on pressing public health challenges rather than actions he characterized as vindictive.