National
Clinton unveils ‘blueprint’ to achieve ‘AIDS-free generation’
MSM identified as key population in global epidemic
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday unveiled the global AIDS blueprint (Blade photo by Chris Johnson)
The Obama administration unveiled on Thursday a “blueprint” for confronting the global AIDS epidemic that includes as one of its goals targeting populations that are most vulnerable to HIV/AIDS — including men who have sex with men.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton touted the plan during a ceremony at the State Department as a tool to achieve the vision of an “AIDS-free generation” that she previously articulated a year ago.
“Now, make no mistake about it: HIV may well be with us into the future,” Clinton said. “But the disease that it causes need not be. We can reach a point where virtually no children are born with the virus, and as these children become teenagers and adults, they are at a far lower risk of becoming infected than they are today. And if they do acquire HIV, they have access to treatment that helps prevent them from not only from developing AIDS, but from passing the virus on to others.”
The blueprint seeks to advance the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, which was started under former President George W. Bush. Among the five goals listed in the blueprint is “going where the virus is” to seek out populations that are most at-risk for contracting HIV/AIDS, including people who inject drugs, sex workers, those trafficked into prostitution — as well as men who have sex with men.
The plan offers statistics on the prevalence of HIV/AIDS infection in the LGBT community overseas:
In certain studies, HIV prevalence among MSM has been found to be as high as 25% in Ghana, 30% in Jamaica, 43% in coastal Kenya and 25% in Thailand. Among transgender people, HIV prevalence is thought to be even higher. Data presented at the 2008 International AIDS Conference in Mexico showed HIV prevalence of over 25% among transgender people in three Latin American countries and prevalence ranging from 10% to 42% in five Asian countries.
Other goals outlined within the blueprint are boosting prevention and treatment through methods such as condom distribution and male circumcision; promoting sustainability, efficiency and effectiveness, such as through the distribution of generic drugs; encouraging financial contributions from other countries facing the HIV/AIDS epidemic; and employing science-based efforts to guide efforts.
During the 19th International AIDS Conference in July in D.C., Clinton announced she had directed U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator Eric Goosby to develop the “blueprint” in time for World AIDS Day this year.
HIV/AIDS experts had varying reactions to the plan, although generally they were pleased that the U.S. government is taking an additional step forward in confronting the global epidemic.
Kenneth Mayer, co-chair of the IDSA Center for Global Health Policy’s Scientific Advisory Committee, praised the study for including concrete data to illustrate what must be done to achieve an “AIDS-free generation.”
“We are especially encouraged that the blueprint provides concrete numbers in affected countries to illustrate the work that must be done to reach a tipping point, when the numbers of people becoming infected with HIV are surpassed by the numbers receiving life-saving medicine,” Mayer said.
But Michael Weinstein, president of AIDS Healthcare Foundation, called the blueprint “mostly more talk and spin by the Obama administration” in the way it handles the epidemic.
“There are some generic pledges in the plan to scale-up testing and treatment, but the blueprint does not offer concrete plans of how we will actually get there,” Weinstein said.
Among the issues cited by Weinstein is a pledge to “work toward the elimination of new HIV infections among children by 2015 and keeping their mothers alive” without providing details on how to get there and having no plan for drug pricing.
Nonetheless, Clinton said during her address that she expects the blueprint to serve as a starting point for future U.S. leaders in their efforts against the epidemic.
“So with this blueprint, I firmly believe we have laid out a plan that every American president and secretary and Congress will want to build on,” Clinton said. “And I urge other countries to develop their own blueprints, because to reach an AIDS-free generation, we have to keep moving forward.”
National
213 House members ask Speaker Johnson to condemn anti-trans rhetoric
Letter cites ‘demonizing and dehumanizing’ language
The Congressional Equality Caucus has sent a letter urging Speaker of the House Mike Johnson to condemn the surge in anti-trans rhetoric coming from members of Congress.
The letter, signed by 213 members, criticizes Johnson for permitting some lawmakers to use “demonizing and dehumanizing” language directed at the transgender community.
The first signature on the letter is Rep. Sarah McBride of Delaware, the only transgender member of Congress.
It also includes signatures from Leader Hakeem Jeffries (NY-08), Democratic Whip Katherine Clark (MA-05), House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (CA-33), every member of the Congressional Equality Caucus, and members of every major House Democratic ideological caucus.
Some House Republicans have used slurs to address members of the transgender community during official business, including in committee hearings and on the House floor.
The House has strict rules governing proper language—rules the letter directly cites—while noting that no corrective action was taken by the Chair or Speaker Pro Tempore when these violations occurred.
The letter also calls out members of Congress—though none by name—for inappropriate comments, including calls to institutionalize all transgender people, references to transgender people as mentally ill, and false claims portraying them as inherently violent or as a national security threat.
Citing FBI data, the letter notes that 463 hate crime incidents were reported due to gender identity bias. It also references a 2023 Williams Institute report showing that transgender people are more than four times more likely than cisgender people to experience violent victimization, despite making up less than 2% of the U.S. population.
The letter ends with a renewed plea for Speaker Johnson to take appropriate measures to protect not only the trans member of Congress from harassment, but also transgender people across the country.
“We urge you to condemn the rise in dehumanizing rhetoric targeting the transgender community and to ensure members of your conference are abiding by rules of decorum and not using their platforms to demonize and scapegoat the transgender community, including by ensuring members are not using slurs to refer to the transgender community.”
The full letter, including the complete list of signatories, can be found at equality.house.gov. (https://equality.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/equality.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/letter-to-speaker-johnson-on-anti-transgender-rhetoric-enforcing-rules-of-decorum.pdf)
The White House
EXCLUSIVE: Garcia, Markey reintroduce bill to require US promotes LGBTQ rights abroad
International Human Rights Defense Act also calls for permanent special envoy
Two lawmakers on Monday have reintroduced a bill that would require the State Department to promote LGBTQ rights abroad.
A press release notes the International Human Rights Defense Act that U.S. Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) introduced would “direct” the State Department “to monitor and respond to violence against LGBTQ+ people worldwide, while creating a comprehensive plan to combat discrimination, criminalization, and hate-motivated attacks against LGBTQ+ communities” and “formally establish a special envoy to coordinate LGBTQ+ policies across the State Department.”
“LGBTQ+ people here at home and around the world continue to face escalating violence, discrimination, and rollbacks of their rights, and we must act now,” said Garcia in the press release. “This bill will stand up for LGBTQ+ communities at home and abroad, and show the world that our nation can be a leader when it comes to protecting dignity and human rights once again.”
Markey, Garcia, and U.S. Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) in 2023 introduced the International Human Rights Defense Act. Markey and former California Congressman Alan Lowenthal in 2019 sponsored the same bill.
The promotion of LGBTQ and intersex rights was a cornerstone of the Biden-Harris administration’s overall foreign policy.
The global LGBTQ and intersex rights movement since the Trump-Vance administration froze nearly all U.S. foreign aid has lost more than an estimated $50 million in funding.
The U.S. Agency for International Development, which funded dozens of advocacy groups around the world, officially shut down on July 1. Secretary of State Marco Rubio earlier this year said the State Department would administer the remaining 17 percent of USAID contracts that had not been cancelled.
Then-President Joe Biden in 2021 named Jessica Stern — the former executive director of Outright International — as his administration’s special U.S. envoy for the promotion of LGBTQ and intersex rights.
The Trump-Vance White House has not named anyone to the position.
Stern, who co-founded the Alliance for Diplomacy and Justice after she left the government, is among those who sharply criticized the removal of LGBTQ- and intersex-specific references from the State Department’s 2024 human rights report.
“It is deliberate erasure,” said Stern in August after the State Department released the report.
The Congressional Equality Caucus in a Sept. 9 letter to Rubio urged the State Department to once again include LGBTQ and intersex people in their annual human rights reports. Garcia, U.S. Reps. Julie Johnson (D-Texas), and Sarah McBride (D-Del.), who chair the group’s International LGBTQI+ Rights Task Force, spearheaded the letter.
“We must recommit the United States to the defense of human rights and the promotion of equality and justice around the world,” said Markey in response to the International Human Rights Defense Act that he and Garcia introduced. “It is as important as ever that we stand up and protect LGBTQ+ individuals from the Trump administration’s cruel attempts to further marginalize this community. I will continue to fight alongside LGBTQ+ individuals for a world that recognizes that LGBTQ+ rights are human rights.”
National
US bishops ban gender-affirming care at Catholic hospitals
Directive adopted during meeting in Baltimore.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops this week adopted a directive that bans Catholic hospitals from offering gender-affirming care to their patients.
Since ‘creation is prior to us and must be received as a gift,’ we have a duty ‘to protect our humanity,’ which means first of all, ‘accepting it and respecting it as it was created,’” reads the directive the USCCB adopted during their meeting that is taking place this week in Baltimore.
The Washington Blade obtained a copy of it on Thursday.
“In order to respect the nature of the human person as a unity of body and soul, Catholic health care services must not provide or permit medical interventions, whether surgical, hormonal, or genetic, that aim not to restore but rather to alter the fundamental order of the human body in its form or function,” reads the directive. “This includes, for example, some forms of genetic engineering whose purpose is not medical treatment, as well as interventions that aim to transform sexual characteristics of a human body into those of the opposite sex (or to nullify sexual characteristics of a human body.)”
“In accord with the mission of Catholic health care, which includes serving those who are vulnerable, Catholic health care services and providers ‘must employ all appropriate resources to mitigate the suffering of those who experience gender incongruence or gender dysphoria’ and to provide for the full range of their health care needs, employing only those means that respect the fundamental order of the human body,” it adds.
The Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith in 2024 condemned gender-affirming surgeries and “gender theory.” The USCCB directive comes against the backdrop of the Trump-Vance administration’s continued attacks against the trans community.
The U.S. Supreme Court in June upheld a Tennessee law that bans gender-affirming medical interventions for minors.
Media reports earlier this month indicated the Trump-Vance administration will seek to prohibit Medicaid reimbursement for medical care to trans minors, and ban reimbursement through the Children’s Health Insurance Program for patients under 19. NPR also reported the White House is considering blocking all Medicaid and Medicare funding for hospitals that provide gender-affirming care to minors.
“The directives adopted by the USCCB will harm, not benefit transgender persons,” said Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, a Maryland-based LGBTQ Catholic organization, in a statement. “In a church called to synodal listening and dialogue, it is embarrassing, even shameful, that the bishops failed to consult transgender people, who have found that gender-affirming medical care has enhanced their lives and their relationship with God.”
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