A children’s “chapter book series about women who spoke up and rose up against the odds” and is targeted at kids ages 6 to 9 years old is set to release a book about Rachel Levine, the first openly transgender federal official confirmed by the U.S. Senate in 2021 who is now the new assistant secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
The book, “She Persisted: Rachel Levine” by Lisa Bunker will be released on June 6, 2023, and was inspired by Clinton’s picture book series by the same title that tells the stories of women like Oprah Winfrey, Sonia Sotomayor and Greta Thunberg. Author Lisa Bunker worked for 30 years in public and community radio, before she started writing full time and lists her “geekeries” as “chess, piano, gender, storycraft, and language,” according to her biography.
The book, which includes an introduction from Chelsea Clinton, states it is the “perfect choice for kids who love learning and teachers who want to bring inspiring women into their curriculum” and provides a “list of ways that readers can follow in Rachel Levine’s footsteps and make a difference!”
“As the first openly transgender government official to hold an office that requires Senate confirmation, the first openly transgender four-star officer in uniform service, and the first female four-star admiral in the commissioned corps, Rachel Levine faced many obstacles throughout her life,” the book’s online description reads. “But she persisted through them all and showed kids of all genders that they can succeed in their dreams too.”
Levine transitioned to female in 2011, but was previously married to Martha Peaslee-Levine, with whom she shares a son and daughter, according to the National Women’s History Museum. Levine and her wife divorced in 2013.
Levine has openly advocated for “gender-affirming care” and has called on the government to affirm the country’s youth so as “not to limit their participation in activities in sports and even limit their ability to get gender affirmation treatment in their state,” according to a July statement.
“There is no argument among medical professionals – pediatricians, pediatric endocrinologists, adolescent medicine physicians, adolescent psychiatrists, psychologists, etc. – about the value and the importance of gender-affirming care,” Levine told NPR in May.
Levine was harshly criticized again in December after she called on Big Tech companies to censor “misinformation” that disputed gender-affirming care for children was not of “positive value.”
Fox News Digital’s Lindsay Kornick and Gabriel Hays contributed to this report.
