INTERNATIONAL
State Department Refocuses on LGBTQ Rights Abroad
Administration sets fresh tone on diplomacy following regressive Trump years
BY MATT TRACY
President Joe Biden is
putting LGBTQ rights
back on the international
agenda after the
Trump administration gutted the
State Department’s work to advocate
for human rights abroad.
During a February 4 visit to the
State Department, Biden unveiled
a presidential memorandum directing
US government agencies
abroad to include LGBTQ rights in
US diplomacy.
The State Department, led by
Secretary of State Antony Blinken,
is vowing to “use a broad range of
diplomatic and programmatic tools
and resources” to protect queer
refugees and asylum seekers, fi ght
against the criminalization of LGBTQ
individuals, and “allow swift
US responses to human rights
violations and abuses of LGBTQI+
persons.”
The State Department is also
vowing to work with Congress to
earmark $10 million in 2021 to
provide emergency assistance to
grassroots LGBTQ organizations
and others who are defending human
rights. Complete details on
that plan are still pending.
Biden’s memorandum drew
praise from LGBTQ leaders in
Congress.
“President Biden just let the
world know that America is back,”
out gay Equality Caucus Chair
David Cicilline of Rhode Island
said in a written statement. “After
four years of turning a blind
eye to human rights abuses, the
United States will once again lead
the world towards a kinder, more
compassionate future. The United
States will hold regimes from every
corner of the globe accountable if
they violate the basic rights of LGBTQ+
people living under their jurisdiction.”
Meanwhile, Senator Ed Markey
of Massachusetts and Congressmember
Alan Lowenthal of California
on February 3 introduced the
International Human Rights Defense
Act, which would direct the
State Department to take a comprehensive
Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks speaks during a visit by President Joe Biden to the State Department in Washington on February 4.
approach to improving
LGBTQ rights internationally and
establish a permanent Special Envoy
for LGBTQ Rights. The position
was fi rst created in 2015, but
the Trump administration left that
post vacant.
While the State Department
under former President Barack
Obama stepped up efforts to promote
LGBTQ rights across the
globe, the Trump administration
decimated that work and incorporated
a far-right approach
under former Secretary of State
Mike Pompeo. The Trump administration
purported to launch an
initiative, led by out gay former
acting director of National Intelligence
Richard Grenell, aimed
at decriminalizing homosexuality
— but that was found to be a
hollow shell of a program. Grenell
and the Trump administration
also deliberately appeared to exclude
trans rights from any of
those efforts.
In 2019, Pompeo — who has
long fought against LGBTQ rights
— assembled a panel of religious
conservatives who were tasked
with reassessing the nation’s approach
to human rights. By the
following year, he published a
60-page report questioning the
defi nition of human rights and
seeking to narrow the defi nition
to religious liberty and property
rights. The former administration
even went as far as denouncing
the modern-day understanding of
human rights.
“There is good reason to worry
that the prodigious expansion of
human rights has weakened rather
than strengthened the claims
REUTERS/TOM BRENNER
of human rights and left the most
disadvantaged more vulnerable,”
the head-scratching report noted.
The State Department under
Trump also ran afoul of marriage
and immigration laws by refusing
to recognize the citizenship
of children with binational samesex
parents, though the Obama
administration did the same
thing.
Biden’s latest action adds to the
growing list of early moves by the
new administration intended to
reprioritize LGBTQ rights. He has
already signed executive orders affi
rming LGBTQ employment protections
and reversing the ban on
transgender troops. The State Department
has also brought on out
gay former intelligence offi cer Ned
Price as the agency’s spokesperson.
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