News
Biden administration announces global LGBTQ rights priorities
Homosexuality remains criminalized in upwards of 70 countries
State Department spokesperson Ned Price on May 14 said the decriminalization of consensual same-sex sexual relations is one of the five priorities for the Biden administration in its efforts to promote LGBTQ rights abroad.
“The United States over the course of years has made some progress, but neither I, nor I think any objective observer should be satisfied with where we are,” Price told the Washington Blade during a telephone interview. “There’s a lot more work to do.”
President Biden in February signed a memorandum that committed the U.S. to promoting LGBTQ rights abroad. Price told the Blade the decriminalization of homosexuality is “one of the many reasons why” the White House issued it.
“It is one of the many reasons why Secretary Blinken is so focused on this issue as well,” said Price.
Homosexuality remains criminalized in nearly 70 countries around the world.
Saudi Arabia and Iran are among the handful of countries that impose the death penalty upon anyone found guilty of engaging in consensual same-sex sexual relations. Bhutan and Gabon are among the nations that have decriminalized homosexuality in recent years.
The Trump administration in 2019 tapped then-U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell to lead a decriminalization initiative. Price declined to tell the Blade whether he feels the campaign was effective.
“Across the board I generally have a posture of not characterizing the last administration,” said Price. “I’ll leave them to speak to their record.”
Migration mitigation efforts must be ‘holistic’
Price told the Blade the Biden administration will also work to protect LGBTQ migrants and asylum seekers.
“When it comes to the (issue of) irregular migration, this is not just a challenge at our border,” he said. “This is fundamentally a challenge that starts in the region and if we are to address the migrant flows that reach our borders, we’re going to have to start in the region and that’s precisely what we’re doing.”
Activists in Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and other countries with whom the Blade has spoken say violence and discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation are among the factors that prompt LGBTQ people to flee their homes and travel to the U.S.
Price did not say whether any of the $4 billion in aid the Biden administration has pledged to spend in order to help mitigate the causes of migration from Central America’s Northern Triangle will specifically go to LGBTQ rights groups or HIV/AIDS service organizations. Vice President Kamala Harris late last month announced an additional $310 million in aid to “address” what Price described as “the root causes of irregular migration and to provide people with the confidence that they need not undertake the very dangerous journey north to the United States and that they can be confident in their lives in their home countries.”
“Oftentimes that is about economic opportunity, but there are cases in which it has more to do with discrimination and persecution,” Price told the Blade. “And so, we recognize that our approach to addressing those underlying drivers has to be holistic, given there are a range of factors and that’s why we’re working with a variety of groups on the ground and also understanding that marginalized communities, including the LGBTQI community, in the region, that there needs to be meaningful partnership there as well.”
“USAID (U.S. Agency for International Development) is deeply engaged in this work, the State Department is engaged in this work as well and will continue to be, knowing that if we’re going to make progress, if we’re going to address the underlying root causes of irregular migration, we need to attempt to address all of them,” he added.
Price told the Blade the administration’s three other global LGBTQ rights priorities are funding efforts “to protect human rights and to advance nondiscrimination around the world,” respond to anti-LGBTQ human rights abuses and “building coalitions and engaging international organizations in the fight against this discrimination.”
“We have said across the board that one of the pillars of our foreign policy is the recognition that, yes, the United States is the most powerful country on the face of the Earth,” said Price. “We have tremendous sway and influence the world over, but we also recognize that in every challenge in virtually every arena, we will be able to do more, we will be able to be more effective, we’ll be able to be more persuasive and act more decisively when we bring our allies and partners along with us and this administration has put a great deal of emphasis on our alliances, our partnerships, but also those like-minded, as we call them, partners.”
Price added the U.S. recognizes “the values we share with our closest partners in the world are incredibly important.”
“They provide us with a similar framework and a set of priorities on which to act and of course working together to protect, but also to promote the rights of LGBTQ populations around the world,” he told the Blade. “It is a core tenet of what we share with our like-minded allies and partners. You will see us doing this on a bilateral basis. You will see us doing this on a multilateral basis, within blocks and groupings, and also at the U.N. as well. We will seek to press this case in all of those contexts.”
Blinken issues IDAHOBiT statement
Price spoke with the Blade three days before the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia, which commemorates the World Health Organization’s 1990 decision to declassify homosexuality as a mental disorder. Blinken on Sunday in a statement acknowledged IDAHOBiT.
“The message of ‘Together: Resisting, Supporting, Healing!’ is especially poignant as this year’s IDAHOTB theme,” said Blinken. “Ending hatred and violence against LGBTQI+ persons requires collaborative action from us all.”
“The United States is doing its part,” he added. “Within the first weeks of his administration, President Biden issued a memorandum instructing all U.S. federal agencies working abroad to ‘ensure that U.S. diplomatic efforts and foreign assistance promote and protect the human rights of LGBTQI+ persons.’ And that important work is well underway.”
Blinken in his IDAHOBiT statement also referenced the same five priorities that Price discussed with the Blade.
“Working together, we can create a world that respects and celebrates the dignity of all individuals,” said Blinken. “It is in partnership that we will achieve our goal of a rights-respecting, inclusive society where no one lives in fear because of who they are or whom they love.”
(Photo courtesy of the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia committee)
Blinken in March announced the State Department has disbanded the Commission on Unalienable Rights, a human rights advisory committee his predecessor created that LGBTQ activists sharply criticized.
He announced last month the State Department will once again allow U.S. diplomatic installations to fly the Pride flag. The position of special U.S. envoy for the promotion of LGBTQ rights abroad within the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor has remained vacant since 2017, but Blinken has pledged to make it an ambassador level post.
The Trump administration in 2018 withdrew from the U.N. Human Rights Council, which in recent years has emerged as a vocal champion of LGBTQ rights around the world. Blinken in February announced the U.S. will “reengage” with it.
Price is the first openly gay State Department spokesperson.
“I know that every time I say something I am speaking on behalf of the Department of State, on behalf of Secretary Blinken, on behalf of the U.S. government, sometimes on behalf of President Biden,” he told the Blade. “I’m not sure what I fully appreciated before actually coming into this job is that I’m actually speaking to the LGBTQ community around the world.”
Price said he received emails and tweets from around the world after the Biden transition team announced his appointment. Price told the Blade that some people were “seemingly in shock,” while others had “some degree of delight that a member of the LGBTQ community would be put in such a public facing role in an American administration.”
“I understand this work is not about me,” Price told the Blade. “I’m never offering my personal opinion, but I think that I’ve come to understand that there is meaning in having an openly gay man in a role like this. There is meaning for the LGBTQ community at home, but especially in this role there is meaning and value attached to having that be the case around the world, and especially around the world where members of the community are routinely and often times systematically persecuted.”
State Department spokesperson Ned Price
District of Columbia
Senate passes separate bill to avert $1.1 billion cut to D.C. budget
Bipartisan measure prompts Democrats to back GOP funding measure
In a dramatic turn of events, the U.S. Senate at 6:30 p.m. on Friday passed a free-standing bill proposed by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) that calls for amending the Republican-backed budget reconciliation measure to add language eliminating the measure’s call for a $1.1 billion cut in the D.C. budget.
Schumer’s announcement on the Senate floor that the bill, which was introduced by U.S. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), had bipartisan support prompted eight other Democratic senators and one independent to join Schumer in voting for a motion enabling the GOP-backed budget measure to clear a Democratic filibuster requiring 60 votes to overcome.
The cloture motion to end the filibuster passed by a close margin of 62 to 38, with 37 Democrats who strongly opposed the GOP budget measure voting against cloture. Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) was the only GOP senator to vote against cloture.
The Senate then voted along partisan lines to approve the budget reconciliation measure that still includes the $1.1 billion D.C. budget cut provision in an action that averted a federal government shutdown that would have begun at 12:01 a.m. on Saturday, March 15.
Schumer pointed out in the Senate debate over the budget measure that the U.S. House of Representatives, which approved the budget measure containing the $1.1 billion D.C. budget cut four days earlier, will now also have to vote on the freestanding bill exempting D.C. from the House-initiated budget cut when it returns from its recess on March 24.
According to Schumer and others supporting the Collins bill, the bill enjoys bipartisan support in the House, which some political observers say is expected to pass the bill.
The Senate passed the Collins bill by voice vote without a roll call vote being taken after the Senate approved the budget reconciliation measure.
The House budget reconciliation bill passed March 11 broke from longtime past practices for budget bills by declaring D.C. a federal agency and subjecting it to what D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowler and city officials called an unjustified city budget cut that would have a “devastating” impact on D.C. residents.
The unexpected budget cut, if not reversed now by the House, would require the city to make large scale cuts in its current fiscal year 2025 budget that would impact a wide range of city programs, including programs impacting the LGBTQ community, according to observers.
In his remarks on the Senate floor, Schumer said he agreed with his Democratic colleagues who voted against the cloture motion that the GOP backed budget conciliation bill, which is backed by President Donald Trump, is a bad bill that will be harmful to the country.
“For sure the Republican bill is a terrible option,” Shumer said on the Senate Floor on Thursday. “But I believe allowing Donald Trump to take … much more power via a government shutdown is a far worse option,” the Washington Post quoted him as saying.
Among those who chose not to join Schumer in voting for cloture to end the filibuster and allow the GOP budget measure to be approved were U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), the Senate’s only openly lesbian member, and the two Democratic senators from Maryland and Virginia.
But each of them spoke out strongly in favor of the Collins bill to exempt D.C. from the $1.1 billion budget cut.
D.C. officials had initially asked senators to amend the budget reconciliation measure itself to take out the provision calling for the D.C. budget cut. But such an amendment would have been far less likely to pass, and it would have required the House to approve it. With a House vote on that not likely to happen until March 24, the deadline would have been missed to avoid a government shutdown.
Although Collins introduced the freestanding bill in cooperation with Schumer and with strong support from U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Senate observers believe the Collins bill would not have received as much support from Senate Republicans if Schumer had not worked out a deal with Senate GOP leaders to garner enough Democratic votes to end the filibuster and secure passage of the GOP budget reconciliation measure.
Kenya
Queer Kenyans with HIV/AIDS face double burden of stigma, discrimination
Advocacy group released findings of 2024 report on March 3
Queer Kenyans living with HIV/AIDS face the double burden of stigma and discrimination due to their LGBTQ identities and HIV status.
The National Empowerment Network of People Living with HIV and AIDS in Kenya (NEPHAK)’s latest report notes this reality, while also revealing queer people stigmatize and discriminate against each other because of their HIV status.
The 2024 report titled “People Living with HIV Stigma Index Assessment,” which NEPHAK released on March 3, notes that although stigma and discrimination vary across different populations in Kenya, queer people are more affected because of the double burdens of LGBTQ identities and HIV-positive status.
“For instance, gays or men who have sex with men (MSM) reported feeling marginalized and devalued, often being labelled as immoral and worthless individuals with a bleak future,” states the 78-page report. “They frequently bore the blame for their HIV-positive status and shunned by family, friends, and neighbors who caution their children against associating with them.”
The NEPHAK survey sampled a total of 1,305 people living with HIV/AIDS across the country, of which 322 or 24.6 percent were key populations that include gay men, transgender people, sex workers, and people who inject drugs. Eighty-five of the 322 people from key populations surveyed were gay men, while 60 were trans.
The survey’s 21-member National Steering Committee of which Women Fighting AIDS in Kenya CEO Dorothy Onyango is chair, includes Solomon Wambua of the Key Populations Consortium, Ludfine Bunde from UNAIDS, and Allan Maleche from KELIN Kenya, a group that champions equal access to healthcare for LGBTQ people and others.
The report’s general findings note that HIV-related stigma and discrimination remain a concern in Kenya, with low HIV disclosure levels within the family. For instance, it reveals 56 percent of respondents confirmed their spouses knew their HIV status, while only 28.7 said their children knew. The survey also notes roughly half of respondents said their partners were HIV positive, whereas 36.5 percent said their partners are negative.
With regards to HIV testing, 62.5 percent of respondents voluntarily chose to get tested while 97.2 percent of respondents said they were on HIV treatment.
The report also states 15.3 percent of respondents had their HIV status revealed to others by healthcare workers without their consent at healthcare facilities. Twenty-nine percent said they were unsure if their medical records are kept confidential.
The survey lists discriminatory remarks from other people at 27.8 percent, discriminatory comments from family members and friends at 24 percent, and verbal harassment at 22 percent as the top three HIV-related stigma and discrimination that people living with the virus face.
“As recounted by people living with HIV who participated in the 2024 Stigma Index study, there is no way the country will deliver on the 95.95.95 HIV Treatment targets and join the world in the path to end AIDS as a public health threat by 2030 if HIV-related stigma and discrimination is not tackled,” Onyango.
She reiterated HIV-related stigma and discrimination continue to hamper HIV prevention efforts, treatment, and care interventions in all of Kenya’s 47 counties and among all populations.
“Stigma experienced by adolescent girls and young women and key populations, whether sex workers, men who have sex with men, transgender persons and people who inject drugs/ people who use drugs, remain high,” Onyango stated.
The stigma breakdown for key populations by the report reveals 48.3 percent of trans people reported experiencing verbal harassment, 31.7 percent reported instances of blackmail, and 28.3 percent admitted they do not seek health care. Another 36.7 percent of respondents said their families discriminate against the because of their gender identity. Of the 60 trans people surveyed, 41, or 68.3 percent, said they belong to a network or support group for trans people.
Almost half, or 48.2 percent, of the 85 gay people surveyed said they experience verbal harassment and 50 percent indicated family and friends discriminate against them. Another 39.5 percent said they are afraid to seek health care; 38.8 percent avoided seeking medical treatment due to concerns about their identity being exposed, while 81.2 percent said they belong to an MSM network.
“Many MSM felt compelled to conceal their identity and remained closeted, further isolating themselves from support networks. These discriminatory attitudes also deterred MSM from seeking essential healthcare services, as they feared judgement and condemnation,” reads the report.
It further notes MSM basic rights are frequently disregarded or denied, making them vulnerable to verbal and physical assaults, insecure, and marginalized. Religious communities also promote stigma that further isolates gay people and contributes to their isolation.
“I have experienced discrimination and stigma in church where the MSM have been branded evil and linked to sin. We have been called purveyors of immorality and disease by pastors,” an unnamed MSM from Mombasa told NEPHAK researchers. “Additionally, there have been instances of discrimination among my MSM friends who are HIV negative, for example, when they refuse to share drinks with those of us who are HIV positive.”
Another MSM living with HIV noted disclosing his status is very difficult and their family and community because of stigma, even from a partner.
“It happened that I went to a certain facility and one of the health workers said to me, the activities you engage in (having sex with fellow men) should be prayed for so that you stop as they are putting you at risk,” they told NEPHAK researchers.
Some MSM living with HIV, however, noted joining support groups after they learned their status has had a positive impact.
“Meeting up with people who have the same status has been comforting,” one MSM told NEPHAK researchers. “This is because we get to share our ideas and experiences, as well as give each other advice on how to live positively.
The report urges relevant organizations and the Key Population Consortium to create awareness campaigns to tackle stigma and discrimination against queer people with HIV/AIDS. It also calls for households, communities, and relevant institutions to become more sensitive to the promotion and protection of the rights of people living with HIV/AIDS and working with religious leaders to address HIV-related stigma and discrimination.
The report further urges relevant health institutions and partner organizations to expand knowledge of the law, privacy and confidentiality among officials, administrators, clergy, and the general public.
World
InterPride issues advisory for transgender, nonbinary people traveling to US
WorldPride to take place in D.C. from May 17-June 8
InterPride on Wednesday issued a travel advisories for transgender and nonbinary people who want to travel to the U.S. for this year’s WorldPride.
“Due to an executive order issued by the U.S. president on Jan. 20, all travelers must select either ‘male’ or ‘female’ when applying for entry or visas. The gender listed at birth will be considered valid,” reads the advisory that InterPride posted on its Facebook page. “If your passport has ‘X’ as a gender marker or differs from your birth-assigned gender, we strongly recommend contacting the U.S. diplomatic mission before traveling to confirm entry requirements.”
WorldPride is scheduled to take place in D.C. from May 17-June 8.
InterPride is the organization that coordinates WorldPride events. The Capital Pride Alliance is the local host.
“With WorldPride Washington, DC 2025 coming up, we’re working on a guide and will share updates soon,” reads InterPride’s advisory.
President Donald Trump’s anti-transgender executive orders have sparked growing concern among governments and advocacy groups around the world.
Germany’s Federal Foreign Office last week issued a travel advisory for trans and nonbinary people who are planning to visit the U.S. It specifically notes Trump’s executive order that bans the State Department from issuing passports with “X” gender markers.
“The relevant gender identity of the applicant at the time of birth is the relevant one,” reads the advisory. “Travelers who have the ‘X’ gender marker or whose current gender entry differs from their gender identity at birth should contact the relevant U.S. diplomatic mission in Germany before entering the country and find out the applicable entry requirements.”
Egale Canada, one of Canada’s largest LGBTQ advocacy organizations, on Feb. 6 announced its members will not attend WorldPride and any other event in the U.S. because of the Trump-Vance administration’s policies.
Capital Pride told the Washington Blade it is working with InterPride on the guide it mentioned in its advisory.
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