Why Deadnaming Matters

Richard Levine was born in 1957 in Wakefield, Massachusetts, an affluent suburb 20 minutes north of Boston. He went to Hebrew school and had a bar mitzvah before heading to the very tony (very expensive) all-boys Belmont Hill School, where he played as a linebacker on the football team. From there he went to Harvard undergrad before heading south for med school at Tulane. While still in school, he married classmate Martha Peaslee; the couple would go on to have two children, one boy and one girl.

Richard’s career got off to a running start with a residency and fellowship at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Manhattan. From there he moved to Penn State Hershey Medical Center, where he established himself firmly as a leader in his field, building both an adolescent medicine division and an eating disorders clinic. But even with a loving family and a meaningful career, something was amiss in Richard Levine’s world. Eight years after his move to Pennsylvania, the doctor began to see a therapist. Another eight years after that, he publicly announced his decision to transition to presenting as a woman. Now, a full decade after that announcement, Richard—now Rachel—stands as Joe Biden’s nominee for the United States’ Assistant Secretary for Health.

The broader situation has evolved dramatically even since Levine’s 2011 transition, when about a quarter of a percent of American adults identified as transgender. A mere five years later that percentage had more than doubled, and now the nation’s (potential) first trans federal official awaits confirmation by the U.S. Senate.

This would have been unimaginable a few years ago—as even supporters acknowledge, boasting of Levine’s “historic” nomination. In fact, long after gay and lesbian politicians broke into legislatures across the country, the idea of a transgender official remained decidedly taboo. In 1992, for instance, Althea Garrison—a black, conservative Republican and perennial candidate for state-level office—squeaked out a narrow election to the Massachusetts House of Representatives. Two days later, the Boston Herald reported that Garrison had been known, in a past life in Georgia, as A.C. Garson—and as a man. Garson/Garrison was defeated by a ten point margin in the next cycle, and despite continued efforts—totaling 32 campaigns to date—the onetime legislator has never managed to win another election.

The glass ceiling sustained cracks at times, but never showed any serious signs of breaking. As late as 2017, “only three elected transgender officials and a smattering of appointed officials” were serving anywhere in the country, according to a glowing Washington Post profile of Levine, then serving as Pennsylvania’s physician general. To understand how the situation has developed at such a breakneck pace, we have to realize how rapidly and readily social conservatives have ceded ground to the progressive left.

Consider the terms of the argument: None of them are ours. Even conservative writers, when addressing what was once a controversial subject, tend only to employ the preferred pronouns and new chosen names of the individuals in question. Deadnaming, they know, is a grave and unforgivable sin. It would be practically unthinkable for any respectable journalist to use “he” or “him” when referring to Dr. Levine, to say nothing of the gendered birth name Richard. This proscription results in bizarre constructions like “She has two children from his marriage to Martha,” and this from the Washington Post, which defies parody even as it stabs at something like humor: “The staid office where Rachel Levine works as the Keystone State’s top doctor is lined with family photos, including one perched high on a shelf that was taken on a vacation long ago, when her children were young and she was a broad-shouldered man named Richard.”