No, HHS Assistant Secretary Rachel Levine isn't performing pagan rituals in the woods

Admiral Rachel Levine HHS Selena Fox pagan veteran

Courtesy Admiral Rachel Levine via x.com; footage still via instagram @selenafox

The doctored footage has been circulating on social media lately in which Levine's head was digitally placed onto the body of a woman wearing robes and a pentacle necklace.

A video that claimed to show Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services Rachel Levine performing a pagan ritual is fake, fact-checkers have confirmed.

The doctored footage has been circulating on social media lately, primarily Twitter/X, in which Levine's head was digitally placed onto the body of a woman wearing robes and a pentacle necklace. The woman in the video could be heard chanting: "Equinox power of equinox right, equinox balance of day and night."

The fake video was first shared on Twitter/X by an account that wrote alongside it: "Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services Dr. 'Rachel' Levine is also a High Pagan Priestess. Get behind me, Satan."

The woman in the video is not Levine, the fact-check unit at Agence France-Presse has found, but rather content creator Selena Fox, the founder and high priestess of a nature spirituality church in Wisconsin, Circle Sanctuary.

"This was not done by me and was not done with my permission. No one contacted me to ask permission," Fox told the outlet. "It's my original content, and the glasses that got added to my face are not glasses I would wear."

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Adam Sarvana, director of communications for Levine, also confirmed to AFP that "ADM Levine is not the person in that video."

As the video circulated online, users celebrated that Donald Trump's appointment for Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., would be replacing Levine, despite Levine not being the current Secretary of Health and Human Services — that's Xavier Becerra.

Kennedy, who is an anti-vaxxer, has a long history of embracing conspiracy theories, and has been rebuked by his famous family. Kennedy believes, among many other falsehoods, that the environment turns children transgender (it doesn't), that vaccines cause autism (they don't), and that HIV does not cause AIDS (it does).

Levine, the first out transgender federal official confirmed by the U.S. Senate, has long been subject to attacks based on her identity. She previously served as physician general and assistant health secretary for Pennsylvania before she was appointed as the state's health secretary by Gov. Tom Wolf in 2018.

Fox said that she is not transgender, but that she's passionate about equality for all. She even posted a ritual for Transgender Day of Remembrance on Nov. 20.

"I think it's important for people to be aware of anti-trans hatred and bigotry and to stop it," Fox contiued. "I don't appreciate this misuse of cyberspace and harming my religious freedom, my freedom of expression, and my creative work."