Grabien dropped a concerning video from Admiral Rachel Levine, the chief U.S. public health official on Monday. The video is of Levine, in May, speaking virtually at an event of the Federation of State Medical Boards. But it didn’t get a lot of attention at the time and in light of what we are seeing from things like the Twitter files about censorship and big tech now, it reveals another important piece about government pressure on tech companies as well as the effort to influence even state medical boards and schools.
Levine tells the other medical professionals from the state medical boards that they have a critical role to play, “We must continue to expand and work to address health misinformation.” That doesn’t just include COVID, Levine said, but also another area of “substantial misinformation” that was “directly impacting health equity.” That was the “health equity of sexual and gender minorities.” Levine claimed that they were facing “substantial misinformation” about “gender-affirming care” and anti-LGBTQI+ actions that were “dangerous to the public health.” The “positive value” of “gender-affirming care for youth and adults” is “not in dispute,” Levine argued.
Admiral Rachel Levine calls for tech companies to censor all gender related so-called “misinformation” to protect the “health equity of sexual and gender minorities.” pic.twitter.com/ZGZyniumCc
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) December 26, 2022
We all need to work together to get our voices out in the front line. We need to get our voices in the public eye. And we can — we know how effective our medical community can be talking to communities, whether it’s at town halls, schools, conversations with others, and we need to use our clinicians’ voice to collectively advocate for tech companies to create a healthier, cleaner information environment. During a moment when public trust in our leaders and our information is very challenged, the healthcare worker community, the medical community does I believe maintain a high degree of trust, and we have to utilize that and we have to utilize it effectively.”
Levine is not just saying accord people who want to transition the ability to transition, Levine is attacking “misinformation” and saying they’re leaning on tech companies to enforce their will. Levine also talks about reaching out to schools to push this as well.
What qualifies as misinformation and who gets to decide that? It’s the top government public official declaring what qualifies as a “healthier, cleaner information environment” and telling the boards they need to collectively convey that to the tech companies.
Is saying that Levine was born a biological male “misinformation”? But that’s the truth and that’s science. When the government is telling you what it is that you are required to believe and now pressuring tech companies to ensure that “healthier, cleaner” narrative, that’s censorship and that’s problematic constitutionally.
Levine claims that the “positive value” of “gender-affirming care for youth and adults” [translation: potentially changing/cutting off body parts] is not in question. This is a claim that Levine has made before and as we pointed out, it isn’t true that everyone agrees with it. So “science” doesn’t mean questioning whether it’s a good thing for a 14-year-old to get body parts removed or to take puberty blockers, to Levine and the Biden team. “Science” means complying with what the government says. Levine is reaching out to make sure that this narrative isn’t just part of the federal government mantra, but goes out to the states as well.
We already have seen in the Twitter files how that is problematic when government becomes enmeshed with social media and the effort to control speech. We saw how under the old Twitter, the satire site Babylon Bee was suspended from Twitter for calling Levine a man. It was that ridiculous suspension that sparked Elon Musk’s interest in buying Twitter thus ultimately leading to the changes and freer speech that we are now seeing today on the site. Was that suspension part of the effort to ensure the “healthier” environment the Biden team is dictating?
