Even elected lawmakers are barred from questioning gender ideology. At the confirmation hearing, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), himself a medical doctor, had the temerity to ask Levine what the would-be assistant health secretary thinks of using drugs or surgery to mutilate or prevent puberty of children in the name of easing their transition to another gender.

Levine, the first transgendered person to be nominated for such a high office, has spoken out on in favor of such controversial treatments. Democrats and their liberal media allies denounced Paul as a mean-spirited hater for merely posing the query.

If having a free society should mean anything, it ought to mean it’s possible to debate contentious issues on which reasonable people (and the experts) can disagree. But we’ve gotten to the point where any debate about the treatment of children is shut down. That’s not only unethical and harmful to our kids — but incompatible with democracy and American ideals.