In another attempt to distract the public from the dismal job he is doing, President Joe Biden wheeled out a token “transgender” staff member and gave her him the promotion of four-star admiral of the U.S. Public Health Services Commissioned Corps (USPHS). We mean, of course, Rachel Levine, the assistant secretary for health.

Levine now has the honorary title of four-star admiral with the added accolades of ostensibly being the first “woman” to achieve such rank. Levine leads 6,000 Public Health Officers. His statement upon receiving this promotion declares: “This is a momentous occasion and I am pleased to take this role for the impact I can make, and for the historic nature of what it symbolizes. May this appointment be the first of many like it as we create a more inclusive future.”

This is deeply insulting on three counts.

Let’s get one thing straight. “Rachel” Levine is really Richard. He is not a woman and therefore cannot truly claim to be the first female four-star admiral. To quote journalist Abigail Shrier: “Biological sex matters because truth matters. Any society that abandons sex-based protections for women and girls plunges into demoralization and darkness.” These gender dysmorphic individuals are continually and unfairly celebrated for their delusion. As comedian Dave Chappelle puts it: “You have to look at it from a woman’s perspective. … Caitlyn Jenner … was voted woman of the year. Her first year as a woman. Ain’t that something? … I’d be mad as sh*t if I was a woman.” He’s correct. Women should be irate because it is yet another attempt by the Left to erase women. And yet too many women aren’t objecting, or if they are, they are being silenced.

The way gender dysphoria is handled today is not good. As Shrier explains:

22 states enacted conversion therapy bans, making it impossible for therapists to offer trans-identified youth any alternative to transition; nearly every medical accrediting organization adopted “affirmative care,” solemnly promising to suspend all medical judgment and rubber-stamp transitions, even by minors; gender ideology wormed its way into public school, laid eggs, and hatched endless confusion; schools across the country, with the explicit approval of the Obama administration, began conspiring to conceal minors’ declared gender identities from their parents; and hundreds of pediatric gender clinics cropped up to meet a sudden demand, heedless of the dangers, peddling phony mental health benefits and dismissing international warnings.

Gender dysphoria often is not treated because it’s unpopular with the woke. People suffering from it are instead said to be “living their truth.” Apply that same logic to any other mental health disorder and both the condition and the patient worsen. The irony of having someone with an untreated mental disorder as admiral of U.S. Public Health Services is not lost.

But the title of “admiral” is laughable in and of itself. Should his name be lauded among the ranks of men who actually served and sacrificed for this country? Levine has not done military service, though he has surely sacrificed. Sacrificed the elderly in nursing homes by sending “stable” COVID patients back to infect the healthy ones during the pandemic. His COVID policies directly resulted in the deaths of thousands as he presumably knew they would since he moved his own mother out of her nursing home.

As a biological female, a man taking away another potential women’s achievement under the delusion of being a female is infuriating. But looking at Levine as a human who is struggling, I also feel pity and compassion — unlike his own political party. This is especially pertinent in light of the fact that his party is using him as a circus sideshow to distract the public from the rest of the chaos.