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EXCLUSIVE: 64 members of Congress urge US to evacuate LGBTQ Afghans

Chris Pappas spearheaded letter to Antony Blinken

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(Bigstock photo)

More than 60 members of Congress on Tuesday urged the U.S. to evacuate LGBTQ Afghans from their country after the Taliban regained control of it.

The letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken that U.S. Rep. Chris Pappas (D-N.H.) spearheaded notes LGBTQ+ Afghans face an “existential threat” under Taliban rule. Pappas and the 63 other members of Congress who signed the letter asked the State Department to allow LGBTQ+ Afghans to access the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program.  

The letter notes the State Department on Aug. 2 announced a “Priority 2 (P-2 designation” that grants “eligible Afghan nationals and their family members access to the USRAP for Afghans looking to flee Taliban rule but who arenā€™t eligible for a Special Immigrant Visa (SIV).”

“The P-2 designation is made at the discretion of the Department of State and is typically used for ‘groups of special concern’ the department determines ‘as having access to the program by virtue of their circumstances’,” it reads.

“We have a moral obligation to uphold our values and utilize every tool at our disposal to protect the LGBTQ+ Afghan community,” adds the letter. “In the spirit of upholding our values and leading by example, we urge you to expand the Department of Stateā€™s P-2 designation granting USRAP access for Afghan nationals to explicitly include LGBTQ+ Afghans.”

“We further implore you to work with the Department of Defense to ensure that charter flights receive uninterrupted access to the (Kabul) airport, as charter flights will likely provide the best opportunity for priority refugees to escape,” stressed the members of Congress.

The Taliban on Aug. 15 entered Kabul, the Afghan capital, and toppled the country’s government. The U.S. has subsequently evacuated more than 80,000 people from Kabul’s airport.

President Biden on Tuesday reiterated the Aug. 31 deadline for U.S. military operations in Afghanistan to end. The previous White House in 2020 brokered a peace deal with the Taliban that set the stage for the withdrawal.

A Taliban judge last month said the group would execute gay people if it were to once again return to power in Afghanistan. Canada thus far is the only country that has specifically said it would offer refuge to LGBTQ Afghans.

“With the Talibanā€™s takeover of the country, LGBTQ+ Afghans face the prospect of violent death. Sharia law, cemented in Afghanistanā€™s constitution, prohibits all forms of same-sex activity, and makes same-sex activity punishable by death,” reads the letter to Blinken. “Just as it was for ISIS in Iraq, Sharia law is the Talibanā€™s guiding compass as it establishes its rule over Afghanistanā€™s government and society. During its campaign in Iraq and Syria, ISIS frequently executed LGBTQ+ individuals by stoning them to death, castrating and hanging them in public squares, and throwing them off buildings.”

“Under Taliban rule, LGBTQ+ Afghans will suffer a similar fate,” it adds.

The letter notes President Biden in February signed a memorandum that committed the U.S. to promote LGBTQ rights abroad.

The lawmakers acknowledge “the situation in Afghanistan is fluid,” but stress Blinken has “the power to protect the lives of countless LGBTQ+ Afghans from the horrors they face living under a regime that threatens their very existence.”

The Human Rights Campaign, the Council for Global Equality, the National Center for Transgender Equality, the Trevor Project, Lambda Legal, PFLAG, Athlete Ally and the National Equality Action Team support the lawmakers’ call for the U.S. to offer refuge to LGBTQ Afghans.

ā€œThe Human Rights Campaign recognizes that those LGBTQ+ individuals fleeing Taliban rule deserve unique attention as they are particularly vulnerable and fear imminent violence and death following the rapid takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban, and this particular vulnerability requires expedited redress by the Department of State,” said HRC Senior Vice President for Policy and Political Affairs JoDee Winterhof in a press release that Pappas’ office sent exclusively to the Washington Blade.

Council for Global Equality Chair Mark Bromley stressed “time is running out and the lives of LGBTQI Afghans are at extreme risk.”

ā€œAs a country, we can do more to evacuate the LGBTQI community and to provide LGBTQI-affirming support for their successful resettlement here in the United States,” he said in the press release.

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Congress

House passes spending bill as Greene threatens to oust Johnson

51 of 52 anti-LGBTQ riders were defeated

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Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) speaks at a press conference on Sept. 20. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

The U.S. House of Representatives averted a government shutdown on Friday with a vote of 286-134 to pass the $1.2 trillion spending bill, over the objections of hard-right members like U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.).

The congresswoman subsequently filed a motion to remove House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), who is himself an ultraconservative legislator. The move marked the second time in six months that the party has called for a vote to oust their own leader.

ā€œToday I filed a motion to vacate after Speaker Johnson has betrayed our conference and broken our rules,ā€ said Greene, who refused to say whether she would call up the resolution to call for a snap vote, which likely means the matter will be delayed until after the two-week recess.

Greene and Johnson are at odds over the content of the minibus appropriations package, with the congresswoman calling it a “Chuck Schumer, Democrat-controlled bill” that does not contain conservative policy demands on matters like immigration and LGBTQ issues.

The speaker, meanwhile, proclaimed, ā€œHouse Republicans achieved conservative policy wins, rejected extreme Democrat proposals, and imposed substantial cuts while significantly strengthening national defense.ā€

With respect to anti-LGBTQ riders submitted by Republican members, more than 50 were ultimately stripped from the bill, which the Human Rights Campaign celebrated as “a victory,” crediting lawmakers for their “bipartisan, bicameral negotiations.”

Of the 52 anti-LGBTQ riders, only one survived in the $1.2 trillion package passed on Friday: A ban on flying Pride flags at U.S. embassies.

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Congress

Massive defeat for anti-trans, anti-LGBTQ riders in spending bill

Proposal has only one rider that would target community

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U.S. Capitol
U.S. Capitol (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

On Thursday, Congress unveiled the much-anticipated spending bill to avert a government shutdown. The bill, which includes funding for major government departments such as Health and Human Services and Education, featured fierce negotiations over conservative ā€œpolicy riders.ā€ 

These policy riders included bans on coverage for gender-affirming care, DEI bans, sports bans and more. Despite some indications that Democrats might compromise due to the sheer number of conservative policy riders, it appears those fears did not come to fruition. Democrats held firm in negotiations, and the most impactful anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ riders were nowhere to be found.

One policy rider proposed for the Food and Drug Administration would have defunded any hospital that ā€œdistributes, sells or otherwise uses drugs that disrupt the onset of puberty or sexual development for those under 18,ā€ a measure targeting not only transgender youth but also those experiencing precocious puberty. 

Another rider sought to bar any government funding toward ā€œsurgical procedures or hormone therapy for the purposes of gender-affirming careā€ in the Department of Health and Human Services. This move would have significantly impacted private and subsidized insurance in the Healthcare Marketplace. It also aimed to bar the enforcement of President Joe Bidenā€™s executive order titled ā€œPreventing and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity,ā€ which broadened anti-discrimination protections for trans individuals.

Additional riders included bans on funding for any organization thatĀ ā€œpromotes transgenderism,ā€Ā Title IX protections for trans youth, bans on legal challenges against states over anti-LGBTQ+ laws, book bans, DEI bans and more.

In total, over 40 riders were proposed and negotiated in the spending bills. None of these were found in the final bill.

Ultimately, the final spending bill released contained only a single anti-LGBTQ rider: A ban on Pride flags being raised or displayed above foreign embassies. The policy, while certainly qualifying as anti-LGBTQ and a regression to Trump-era policies, notably does not bar personal displays of Pride flags by embassy workers.

In the past, some embassies have gotten around such bans by not ā€œflying a flag over the embassyā€ but rather, painting portions of the embassy in rainbow colors or draping flags on the side of buildings.

News of the defeat of the most impactful anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ riders comes after a significant push from Equality Caucus Democrats and the Biden administration against the riders. ā€œAs you negotiate government funding for Fiscal Year 2024 (FY24), we write to strongly urge you to reject any attempts to include anti-LGBTQ+ provisions in any final FY24 funding agreement,ā€ said a letter signed by 163 representatives on behalf of the Congressional Equality Caucus to the Biden administration.

However, Republicans also pushed hard for their inclusion. In a shutdown threat issued Feb. 21 from the House Freedom Caucus, Republicans indicated that bans on gender affirming care and trans participation in sports were necessary to prevent a potential shutdown.

Previously, U.S. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) stated that such bans are the “hill we will die on.” In a report published by Axios, one Republican lawmaker stated, ā€œPeople are predicting a shutdown even if it’s just for a few days.ā€ Others concurred, citing gender affirming care riders as one of the potential reasons for such a shutdown.

Many anti-LGBTQ leaders in the Republican Party reacted negatively to the bill. U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.)Ā expressed angerĀ at funding for the New Jersey Garden State Equality in Education Fund, calling it ā€œforce feeding the LGBT agenda in schoolsā€ and stating that it enables ā€œgender mutilation surgeries in minors,ā€ ā€œbiological menā€ in womenā€™s bathrooms and trans participation in sports.

U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) decried the lack of a DEI ban. U.S. Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) stated that Republicans ā€œsurrenderedā€ to Democrats on hormone therapy. The House Freedom Caucus published a lengthy list of healthcare and equality centers that the budget would fund, urging the GOP to vote ā€œnoā€ and to shut down the government.

In a press release published by House Appropriations Democrats, they stated that the bill rejected over a hundred poison-pill riders, many of which targeted LGBTQ people. For example, the Labor-HHS-Education portion of the bill blocked provisions around gender affirming care, sports bans and nondiscrimination.

See the House Appropriations Democrats statement:

Press release, House Appropriations Democrats on Labor-HHS-Education

The bill must pass by Friday evening to avert a government shutdown, though the impacts of such a shutdown would likely not be felt until Monday. If passed, the bill would keep the government funded through September, at which point all of the riders could resurface during the peak of the 2024 presidential election.

However, for the next several months, LGBTQ riders will not pose a significant threat in a year where trans and queer individuals have faced attacks at historic levels.

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Erin Reed is a transgender woman (she/her pronouns) and researcher who tracks anti-LGBTQ+ legislation around the world and helps people become better advocates for their queer family, friends, colleagues, and community. Reed also is a social media consultant and public speaker.

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The preceding article was first published at Erin In The Morning and is republished with permission.

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Congress

Padilla, FCC introduce measure to improve 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline

HHS launched effort in 2022

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U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) (Screen capture: YouTube)

U.S. Sens. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), joined by U.S. Rep. Tony CƔrdenas (D-Calif.), Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel and U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra, introduced a measure on Thursday to improve the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.

Calls are currently routed to mental health professionals and local public safety officials based on the caller’s area code ā€” even though, as the lawmakers and officials noted during their announcement ā€” in many cases, the area code, especially for cell phone numbers, does not match the location from which they are calling.

Under the new proposal, Padilla said, “We’re going to be in a position to be able to provide care as quickly and as safely as possible.”

“In the same way that 911 calls in the case of an emergency are routed to local providers, local first responders, so ambulances can come out and help quickly when you call 911, 988 should be tied to a caller’s location, not their area code,” he said.

Calling Padilla, Tillis, and CĆ”rdenas “great champions of mental health,” Rosenworcel noted, “that’s not our stock and trade” at the FCC.

“We are people who deal with technology and communications,” she said, “but we came to realize that we could work with Congress to make sure that everyone in this country who’s going through a crisis has someone to call and someone who can listen ā€” and that’s why in 2022, we set up 988, the easy-to-remember three digit number for anyone who is in crisis.”

A press release from Padilla’s office explains the details for how the update to the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline will work:

“The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) announced today seeks to address the discrepancies and inefficiencies of the current system by proposing the adoption of a rule that would require a georouting solution to be implemented for all wireless calls to the 9-8-8 Lifeline while balancing the privacy needs of individuals in crisis. 

Georouting refers to technical solutions that enable calls to be directed based on the location of the caller without transmitting the callerā€™s precise location information.Ā These solutions would permit wireless calls to the 9-8-8 Lifeline to be directed to nearby crisis centers based on factors such as the cell tower that originated the call rather than the area code of the wireless device used to place the call.”

The 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline offers LGBTQ-affirming counseling, which is accessible by pressing three.

A 2023 survey by the Trevor Project, which included more than 28,000 LGBTQ participants aged 13-24, found that 41 percent had seriously considered suicide within the past year and 56 percent wanted ā€” but were unable to get ā€” mental health care within the last year.

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