The new inspirational women to be featured in the She Persisted book series have been announced and among the choices sits Biden’s Assistant Secretary for Health Rachel Levine, a trans-identified male who transitioned to “live as a woman” in middle-age after fathering children.
The chapter book series is inspired by Chelsea Clinton’s 2017 bestseller which celebrated 13 notable women in American history “who never took no for an answer, and who always, inevitably and without fail, persisted.”
A brief glance at the new line-up of inspirational women to be featured in the latest She Persisted book series will likely bring to mind the popular childhood game "one of these things is not like the others." For amongst the brilliant, talented, trail-blazing women to be celebrated by the series, there is of course a man, albeit one who identifies as a woman, whatever that means.
Levine, a trans-identified male who advocates for children to have access to experimental sex changes, now joins the ranks of abolitionist Harriet Tubman, who was born into slavery, escaped then risked her life rescuing numerous others; Virginia Apgar, the world-leading obstetrical and medical researcher who inventor the Apgar score, and Margaret Chase Smith, the first woman to serve in both houses of the United States Congress.
The publisher, Penguin Random House, states on its website that 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 (sic) four-star admiral in the commissioned corps, Rachel Levine faced many obstacles throughout…life. But [Levine] persisted through them all and showed kids of all genders that they can succeed in their dreams too.”
Inside the book aimed at children aged 6-9, the reader learns that “Rachel was born transgender, or trans for short. That means that she was born with a boy body, but on the inside, in her mind and in her heart, she was a girl.”
It goes on to tell young impressionable children that Levine, an adult male, discovered an identity as a “trans girl” at age five while reading a comic book about a superhero named Superboy.
Chelsea Clinton proudly tweeted the new line-up of remarkable women in the upcoming series.
How the inclusion of this individual is supposed to inspire a generation of young girls is anyone’s guess. The message it is sending to them is that no matter how hard they try, no matter how great their achievements, no matter how much they persist, there will always be a man poised to swoop in and steal their glory. Levine’s inclusion shows that the modern trans rights movement has never been about the fight for equal rights. It has never been about lifting a vulnerable minority out of oppression. Rather it can be characterized by a quest for all-out domination, where men who identify as women must be placed on a pedestal and worshiped as being the best and most inspirational women of all time. Twitter users were quick to point out that one of the women was not like the rest, with one suggesting that the only thing Levine could “inspire in little girls is the wish that they'd been able to benefit from being born male.” Another pointed out that the Levine book was placed next to that of surfer Bethany Hamilton, who recently spoke out opposing the inclusion of males in female sports. Hamilton announced her intention to boycott the World Surf League if the rule to include males remains. This supposed civil rights movement of trans demands that women meekly surrender all their hard-won rights on the altar of gender. Women are not permitted to have anything that is exclusively their own anymore. Every intimate space, every scholarship, every award, every sports category, every book series that would once have been preserved for those born female now must be open to the men who claim to be in possession of an innate female essence. Perhaps one of the greatest crimes a person can commit these days is to question how a man arrived at the idea he is a woman because to do so inevitably means a discussion about autogynephilia, the ultimate heresy. The term autogynephilia, literally translated as “love of oneself as a woman,” was coined in the 1980s by sexologist Ray Blanchard, and describes men who are aroused by the image of themselves as women. Those who fit into this category are often very masculine, are married and have fathered children, and many are in more typically masculine professions, such as the military. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Little provokes the anger of trans activists more than mention of autogynephilia, and they will strenuously deny its existence. Blanchard thinks this is because it complicates the task of selling transsexualism. “If a guy decides he’s coming into work as a woman from now on, it’s one thing for him to say: ‘I’m coming to terms with the fact that I’ve always been a woman on the inside,’ and quite another to say: ‘I’ve moved on from just masturbating in women’s clothes to wearing them all the time,'” said Blanchard in Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality. It is impossible to know for sure what pathway Levine took that ended in a declaration of womanhood, but autogynephilia certainly cannot be ruled out. It is surely more plausible than the anti-scientific ideological drivel being fed to young impressionable minds in this latest She Persisted book. “Rachel was born transgender, or trans for short. That means that she was born with a boy body, but on the inside, in her mind and in her heart, she was a girl,” children are told, which is obviously more palatable than what is likely the real story. And of course, it is unclear what having a "girl mind and heart" means, feels like, or how it can be quantified. While Chelsea Clinton and her ilk may see in Levine an inspirational woman who has fought hard to overcome immense challenges and personal hardships in pursuit of acceptance and truth, the rest of us just see a man, mostly likely with a paraphilia, stealing the limelight of some unnamed woman who will forever have to remain in the shadows. Surely our daughters deserve better role models than that.
