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Takano: Asian Development Bank LGBTQ, intersex safeguards are an ‘opportunity’

‘It’s not a radical thing’

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U.S. Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.) (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

California Congressman Mark Takano on Dec. 2 told the Washington Blade he is hopeful the Asian Development Bank will add sexual orientation and gender identity to the institution’s safeguards.

“I am optimistic that something like this can be done,” said Takano during a Zoom interview. “It’s not a radical thing. It’s very modest.”

The ADB, which is based in the Philippines, seeks to promote economic and social development through the Asia-Pacific Region.

Ambassador Chantale Wong, who is the ADB’s U.S. director, is the first openly lesbian American ambassador. Takano, a Democrat who will represent California’s 39th Congressional District in the next Congress, is openly gay.

The Treasury Department has endorsed the safeguard that Takano said he expects “to come to a head” in the spring of 2023. Takano and other members of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus and the Congressional LGBT+ Equality Caucus — U.S. Reps. Judy Chu (D-Calif.), Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), Grace Meng (D-N.Y.), Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), Andy Kim (D-N.J.) and Ted Liu (D-Calif.) — in an Oct. 14 letter to ADB President Masatsugu Asakawa expressed their “strong support for the creation of a standalone gender and sexual orientation, gender identity and expression and sex characteristics (SOGIESC) safeguard in the Asian Development Bank (ADB)’s updated Safeguard Policy Statement.”

“The inclusion of such a safeguard presents an opportunity for the ADB to lead by example among multilateral development banks (MDBs) in a region of the world where civil society has been at the fore of pushing positive change for sexual minorities,” reads the letter.

“The explicit inclusion and protections for sexual and gender minorities in this proposed safeguard are not only beneficial for the economic and social development of the region, but would also open further opportunities for investment,” it adds.  

Takano noted the ADB would be the first multilateral development bank to add sexual orientation and gender identity to its safeguards.

“This is an opportunity for the ADB to be a leader among MDBs globally,” reads the letter. “As Asian Americans and advocates for the LGBTQI+ population here in the United States, we are eager to see the ADB spearhead the establishment of necessary protections for the international LGBTQI+ community that will allow them to participate in civic life more fully.”

President Joe Biden in 2021 issued a memo that committed the U.S. to promoting LGBTQ and intersex rights abroad as part of his administration’s overall foreign policy.

Wong and Takano were both at the American Chamber of Commerce in Singapore on Aug. 1 when U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) spoke in support of LGBTQ and intersex rights.

The speech coincided with a Congressional delegation to Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan that Pelosi led. Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Aug. 21 announced his country will decriminalize consensual same-sex sexual relations. Lawmakers in the Southeast Asian city-state late last month repealed the colonial-era sodomy law, and approved a constitutional amendment that defines marriage as between a man and a woman. 

Same-sex couples have been able to legally marry in Taiwan since 2019. Lawmakers in Indonesia on Tuesday approved a new Criminal Code that would, among other things, criminalize sex outside of marriage.

Qatar, which is hosting the 2022 World Cup, is among the countries in which consensual same-sex sexual relations remain punishable by death. 

Takano over the Thanksgiving holiday led a Congressional delegation to Jordan, Kuwait, Iraq and Lebanon. The Council for Global Equality notes homosexuality is still criminalized in Kuwait and Lebanon. Discrimination and persecution based on sexual orientation and gender identity remains commonplace in all four of the Middle Eastern countries that Takano visited.    

“Different parts of Asia are showing signs of huge progress in terms of governance and recognizing LGBTQIA+ minorities and recognizing their humanity,” Takano told the Blade, while noting 60 percent of the world’s population lives in Asia. “Being able to embed safeguards into Asian Development Bank standards and how they approve projects and implement projects could be a huge leap forward in terms of achieving new standards in all these countries with regards to LGBTQ people in Asian nations.”

“This is very exciting,” he added.

Takano also specifically praised the Biden administration, American diplomats and Wong herself for their efforts to advance LGBTQ and intersex rights

“(U.S. foreign missions) find ways to create safe spaces for LGBTQ people in those countries to be able to come together, to talk,” said Takano. “To have someone like Ambassador Wong lead that is very important and that the administration supports the efforts of Ambassador Wong is not surprising.”

“What a difference it makes to have President Biden and Vice President Harris, but not only have they with their words said they support our community, they’ve also appointed people like Amb. Wong, who is actually taking actions,” he added. “She’s using the levers and dials of her office to take a step forward.”

GOP support for Respect for Marriage Act ‘an unexpected turn’

Takano spoke with the Blade two days after the Respect for Marriage Act passed in the U.S. Senate by a 61-36 vote margin, with 12 Republicans supporting it.

More than 40 Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives voted for the Respect for Marriage Act in July. A final vote could take place in the chamber as early as Thursday.

“We were reeling from that Supreme Court decision on Roe and the comments in Justice Thomas’ concurring opinion,” said Takano. “Boy oh boy did we in Congress say that we need to protect what we can. The Respect for Marriage Act is making sure we protect same-sex marriages, but also protect interracial marriages.”

Takano conceded Republican support for the bill “is kind of an unexpected turn in this Congress,” even though a majority of GOP lawmakers opposed it. Takano also acknowledged public opinion has shifted significantly in support of marriage equality over the last decade.

“This court has shown it’s pretty radical,” he said. “I’m happy that we have a way to make sure that existing marriages are protected.”

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Marjorie Taylor Greene’s bill to criminalize gender affirming care advances

Judiciary Committee markup slated for Wednesday morning

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U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.)’s “Protect Children’s Innocence Act,” which would criminalize guideline-directed gender affirming health care for minors, will advance to markup in the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday morning.

Doctors and providers who administer medical treatments for gender dysphoria to patients younger than 18, including hormones and puberty blockers, would be subject to Class 3 felony charges punishable by up to 10 years in prison if the legislation is enacted.

LGBTQ advocates warn conservative lawmakers want to go after families who travel out of state to obtain medical care for their transgender kids that is banned or restricted in the places where they reside, using legislation like Greene’s to expand federal jurisdiction over these decisions. They also point to the medically inaccurate way in which the bill characterizes evidence-based interventions delineated in standards of care for trans and gender diverse youth as “mutilation” or “chemical castration.”

Days into his second term, President Donald Trump signed “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation,” an executive order declaring that the U.S. would not “fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called ‘transition’ of a child from one sex to another, and it will rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit” medical treatments and interventions intended for this purpose.

Greene, who has introduced the bill in years past, noted the president’s endorsement of her bill during his address to the joint session of Congress in March when he said “I want Congress to pass a bill permanently banning and criminalizing sex changes on children and forever ending the lie that any child is trapped in the wrong body.”

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Pappas in Senate race focuses on costs, health care, and personal freedoms

Gay NH congressman hopes to succeed retiring US Sen. Jeanne Shaheen

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U.S. Rep. Chris Pappas (D-N.H.) launches his U.S. Senate campaign with a kick-off event at his family's restaurant in Manchester, N.H., on April 3, 2025 (Photo courtesy of Chris Pappas for Senate)

U.S. Rep. Chris Pappas (D-N.H.) recently sat down with the Washington Blade for an exclusive interview following the official launch of his bid for New Hampshire’s open U.S. Senate seat, which is expected to be among the most closely watched contests of the 2026 midterm election cycle. 

The congressman, who is serving his fourth term as the representative for New Hampshire’s 1st Congressional District, expects next year’s race will be “very high profile” and “challenging.” The New York Times, meanwhile, anticipates “an expensive and dogged affair.” 

Senate elections tend to attract a disproportionate share of attention and resources especially in recent years as control over the chamber has tended to change hands more often and with smaller margins, but Pappas’s race is expected to be a bellwether for Democrats as they work to mount a comeback after last year’s electoral defeat. 

At the same time, Pappas is gearing up for the battle over the Republican led reconciliation spending bill, with Democratic lawmakers exercising what little leverage they may have in the minority to fight against “disastrous cuts to Medicaid” while “finding other ways to protect what’s important to the people that we represent.” 

Lawmakers on Sunday night gave the go-ahead for the GOP’s tax and spending package, but negotiations continue into this week as Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) works to appease conservative hardliners and swing district Republicans. 

Granite Staters are “really concerned” about negotiations in Washington over spending, but also with the exigencies created by President Donald Trump over the past 100+ days of his second term, which have cropped up repeatedly during the town hall-style events in New Hampshire that Pappas has headlined over the spring. 

“That’s part of the reason why things are so challenging here in Washington,” the congressman said. “Oftentimes you’re pulled in 10 different directions on any given day based on what this administration is trying to do, based on what Republicans in Congress are trying to do.” 

“We’ve got to figure out how we can shed light on what’s happening, try to confront the damage, and use whatever tools we have to fight back,” he said, while remaining “focused on those things that matter most, whether that’s people losing their health insurance, cuts to programs like Social Security, and people’s access to their benefits.” 

The US Senate election

“I’ve got a strong foundation of support” for the Senate race, Pappas told the Blade, noting “I’ve run four campaigns for the House in half the state of New Hampshire” whose congressional map is cleaved into halves with the congressman’s constituents in the eastern portion of the state while freshman Democratic Congresswoman Maggie Goodlander represents the 2nd District. 

Following the announcement in March that New Hampshire’s senior U.S. senator, Jeanne Shaheen (D), would not be seeking reelection next year, “I spent the first couple weeks,” Pappas said, “talking directly with folks all across New Hampshire to see what was on their minds, and increasingly, I was hearing from people that they wanted me to jump into the race.” 

The sentiment was shared by Shaheen and the rest of the state’s congressional delegation — Goodlander and U.S. Sen. Maggie Hassan (D) — who quickly endorsed Pappas’s bid. Speculation that the state’s popular former governor Chris Sununu, a Republican, might mount a formidable challenge for the seat ended with his announcement last month that he would not enter the race. 

Even if Pappas is on the glidepath for the Senate, which is difficult to handicap so far in advance of November 2026, the election is expected to draw substantial attention and resources. 

According to the Cook Political Report, of the Senate seats that will be up for grabs in the midterms, nine are held by incumbent Democrats and 19 by incumbent Republicans who are expected to easily win reelection, which leaves just five races whose outcomes are less certain and which therefore are likely to earn most of the attention and resources next year: The blue-leaning open seat in New Hampshire, an open seat in Michigan that is currently deemed a toss-up, the seat in Georgia held by incumbent Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff, which is also considered a toss-up, and the red-leaning seats held by incumbent GOP U.S. Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Thom Tillis of North Carolina.

While the maps present long-shot odds of Democrats regaining control of the upper chamber even though Republicans had reclaimed the Senate majority last year by flipping just four seats for a modest margin of 53-47, races like Pappas’s are expected to be testing grounds for the minority party’s major campaigns midway through Trump’s second term. 

New Hampshire has long been a political battleground where elections tend to be close and voters tend to split the ticket. According to the Cook Partisan Voting Index, only three U.S. states are less politically partisan: Michigan, Wisconsin, and Georgia. The determination is based on data collated from the 2020 and 2024 presidential elections, where voters in both of the Granite State’s two congressional districts favored Joe Biden and Kamala Harris over Donald Trump while supporting the Republican gubernatorial nominees, Chris Sununu and Kelly Ayotte. 

Shaheen has “really built a brand that’s based on serving people and delivering for the constituents of New Hampshire,” Pappas said. “So that’s the kind of work that I want to carry on — but recognizing, in this time, that we really have to stand up and fight and be a part of our response to what this administration is doing.”

“We do need to re-establish some basic checks and balances here in Washington, so that there is oversight and accountability of an administration that’s blowing through all the guardrails and is really estranged from public opinion and from the Constitution,” he said, while continuing “to find ways to meet people where they are, to hear their stories, and to connect the fight here in Washington to people’s lives back home.” 

Responding to the needs of Granite Staters

Specifically, while “people are responding to a lot of different stories,” Pappas highlighted concerns about “cuts to specific programs, the fact that we’ve got 80,000 VA employees that are going to be fired,” and over the direction in which care for veterans is headed under the new administration. 

“The big fight right now is around health care,” he said. “It’s around defending Medicaid coverage, ensuring we’re going to continue to have a Medicaid expansion program in New Hampshire, which is something that I’ve worked with then-Gov. Maggie Hassan to implement, and whether we’re going to have tax fairness and prevent huge tax breaks from going to the wealthiest Americans and the biggest corporations.”

Asked about cuts to medical research that are impacting research universities across the country, Pappas said the issue has been raised often in discussions with people in his home state.

“The University of New Hampshire does a tremendous amount of research with federal funds,” he noted, “and that’s something that we’ve worked hard through the years to advocate for, and it’s really important for the university to continue to be able to do that work and help us understand the world around us, how it’s changing, and how we can respond to protect public health, for instance, to protect our communities against sea level rise — those are just important priorities.” 

Unlocking “breakthroughs in science and medicine” is important for America’s global competitiveness, the congressman added, whether by “homegrown talent here in the United States or research scientists from around the world that want to come to our country and share their expertise and help the United States move forward.”

“Donald Trump has decided that universities and colleges are a political enemy of his, and he’s trying to punish them, but in doing that, he’s really short changing our economy and the future of the United States,” Pappas said, adding, “most people recognize that, especially people in New Hampshire.” 

The congressman recounted how he was able to work closely with his colleagues in the state’s congressional delegation to leverage public pressure and influence by labor unions to reinstate probationary employees at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard who were let go following drastic cuts to the federal workforce under the Trump-Vance administration. 

“It’s really critical to the future of that facility, which rehabilitates our nuclear submarine fleet and has nearly 7,000 civilian employees,” Pappas said. “So that was one case where we found that we were able to get a lot of local attention and support around an issue, and perhaps that news made it all the way back here to the Defense Department who were concerned about public pressure.”

“We’ve got a lot of long-time employees at that shipyard,” along with “a lot of new people that have been brought on board as a result of an expansion over the last several years,” the congressman noted. “Across the board, people want to know that we’re focused, especially on our families’ bottom line right now,” which is why it was important for him and his colleagues to “go to bat for a facility that’s really important to people’s livelihoods, but also to our overall economy” and for national security. 

Moving forward, Pappas said, they will continue pushing back against “efforts to attack the right to organize and collective bargaining,” because “unions at the shipyard have a great relationship with management, but that could be disrupted by political efforts from this administration to attack labor unions.” 

The economy and protecting personal freedoms

The congressman said that while “we need to try a little bit of everything to try to identify what is going to break through,” at the same time, “I do have the sense that the last election hinged on the economy, that every election really hinges on the economy, and those are the issues that are going to be, I think, most salient to folks next year.” 

“We’ve got to make sure that we’re making progress at addressing inequities in the economy and are lowering costs,” he said. “Right now, the top issues that I hear about in New Hampshire include the high cost of housing, the lack of affordability of child care, the fact that our health care system is still inaccessible, and far too expensive for most people to be able to get the care that they need.” 

“We’re not getting any of that from Republicans right now,” Pappas said, when it comes to the “work we have to do to level the playing field in our economy,” adding, “they talked a big game in the last campaign about lowering costs, but they’re taking no meaningful action to do it, and so we need to be thoughtful about a really forward-thinking agenda that can focus on how we allow people to get ahead and stand in this economy.” 

Asked about whether and to what extent Pappas will focus his messaging on the president’s tariffs, he noted “people are already responding,” especially in “a state like New Hampshire that has a longstanding close relationship with Canada.”

He continued, “88 percent of our small businesses import something. We have a lot of exporting businesses that rely on their markets overseas, including in places like Canada and China, and some of those markets are going away because of the tariffs that have been slapped on U.S. goods that we export.” 

Trump’s trade war “has generated so much instability in our economy, it’s really hard for our small businesses to navigate,” Pappas said, with these new “disruptions to supply chains and the threat of increased costs” following a “really tough 5-year period from inflation and workforce shortages to the pandemic that predated that.” 

“This is an issue that I think brings people together across party lines,” Pappas said. “Folks understand that we have trade agreements in place that have been negotiated [and] supported on a bipartisan basis, including” the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, “which was renegotiated during the first Trump administration.” 

The congressman continued, “it only makes sense to move forward in a way where we are focused on how we can make more things in the United States, but also recognize that we can’t make everything and we can’t go it alone, so we need to be working with close partners like Canada, and there’s no there’s no reason for this sort of trade war that only hurts our businesses and our ability to create jobs and have a thriving economy.”

“I also think, with respect to personal freedoms, in the wake of the Dobbs decision, we have to continue to take steps to re-establish Roe v. Wade as the law of the land and defend reproductive freedom,” Pappas said. 

“I’m the only candidate in this race right now, and I think regardless of who the Republican is, we’re going to be fighting for the Women’s Health Protection Act and to make sure that we’re re-establishing the precedent that Roe set for more than half a century, which is broadly supported in New Hampshire,” he said. 

LGBTQ issues

A co-chair of the Congressional Equality Caucus, Pappas is the first openly gay member of Congress to represent New Hampshire. If elected, he would be the third out LGBTQ U.S. senator behind U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) and Laphonza Butler, who served from 2023 to 2024.  

Trump, along with his Republican allies in Congress and appointees serving in his second administration, has undermined rights and protections for LGBTQ people on a variety of fronts, including by dismantling and defunding efforts to fight against HIV. Cuts to basic and clinical science research along with public health programs have been advanced by the president’s budget and the GOP lawmakers’ reconciliation package, as well as through the reorganization of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 

Now in the minority, House Democrats “will not be in the room negotiating, as much as we would love to tell the majority exactly how we feel about all these items,” Pappas conceded. At the same time, “to get a budget put in place and appropriations bills passed, you’ll need 60 votes in the Senate, which means you need some sort of bipartisan consensus, at least in that body,” which “could potentially be a difference maker in defending some of these programs that folks care about, that the president has sought to eliminate.”

“Services for people with HIV, access to health care, vital research — those are things that Americans broadly support,” the congressman said. “We’re going to stand up against it, and where there’s harm to people and important priorities, I’ll certainly be speaking out, and I know that members of the Equality Caucus will be taking that very seriously.” 

“Many people in this administration,” Pappas said, “are not traditional Republicans and don’t support the same set of policies that we’ve seen even Republican presidents put in place,” like the PEPFAR initiative led by George W. Bush, “which has changed the trajectory of the treatment of HIV and AIDS around the world.” 

“Now, they are attacking that program and its ability to provide care for people in some of the most vulnerable regions of the world, and it’s been reported that individuals in Africa have died as a result of not getting the treatments that they were counting on through that program,” the congressman noted. 

He continued, “We really have a human responsibility to do whatever we can to meet the needs of people who are susceptible to disease or who have been exposed to it, and the fact that this administration is breaking with that long bipartisan tradition of research, of humanitarianism, I think is incredibly cruel, and it’s not what the United States should stand for.” 

What has been especially frustrating, Pappas said, is the silence from Republicans in Congress including those who “have championed these programs for decades.” 

“I don’t know what to say to that,” he said, except that “people need to be paying attention and we need to do everything possible to speak out and fight back against it” because “we can’t see an interruption in terms of the progress that’s been made in fighting disease and developing new therapies.” 

Public health aside, when asked about how the Democratic Party should approach messaging on issues of transgender rights and gender identity, Pappas stressed that “Americans largely embrace equality” and people want others “to have the same rights and responsibilities.” 

The congressman raised the Equality Act as an example — a bill that would protect Americans against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity in areas from housing to employment, which was reintroduced last month with a press conference headlined by Pappas and top Democrats from both chambers of Congress. 

Democrats should not shy away from advancing bills that advance “fairness and equality before the law,” he said, “especially at a time where we know that the LGBTQ community is being targeted by really cynical political attacks.”

“Where I come from, in New Hampshire, we’ve adopted protections for trans individuals in our state’s non discrimination statutes,” Pappas noted, “and so I think when you come from an environment like New Hampshire, you understand that people do respect their neighbors for their differences.” 

He continued, “We’re a live and let live state, and so I think it’s really consistent with who we are to be tolerant and embrace people of different identities and orientations. That’s who we are as Granite Staters. And I think people recognize that in order to have a future where everyone can live a full and productive life, you need to provide people with equality before the law.”

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Garcia confronts Noem over gay asylum seeker ‘forcibly removed’ to El Salvador

Andry Hernández Romero is makeup artist from Venezuela

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Andry Hernández Romero (photo credit: Immigrant Defenders Law Center)

California Congressman Robert Garcia on Wednesday asked Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem about the well-being of a gay asylum seeker from Venezuela who the U.S. “forcibly removed” to El Salvador.

The gay Democrat during a House Homeland Security Committee hearing asked Noem whether Andry Hernández Romero is “alive” and whether “we can check and do a wellness check on him.”

“This individual is in El Salvador, and the appeal would be best made to the president and to the government of El Salvador,” Noem told Garcia.

The Trump-Vance administration in March “forcibly removed” Hernández, who asked for asylum because of persecution he suffered due to his sexual orientation and political beliefs, and other Venezuelans from the U.S. and sent them to El Salvador.

The White House on Feb. 20 designated Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang, as an “international terrorist organization.” President Donald Trump on March 15 invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which the Associated Press notes allows the U.S. to deport “noncitizens without any legal recourse.”

Alvaro M. Huerta, director of litigation and advocacy for the Immigrant Defenders Law Center, a Los Angeles-based organization that represents Hernández, said officials with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection claimed their client is a Tren de Aragua member because of his tattoos.

The Washington Blade on April 17 reported Hernández was sent to El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center, a maximum-security prison known by the Spanish acronym CECOT.

Garcia, along with U.S. Reps. Maxwell Alejandro Frost (D-Fla.), Maxine Dexter (D-Ore.), and Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz.) last month met with U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador William Duncan and embassy staffers in San Salvador, the Salvadoran capital. The lawmakers did not visit CECOT, but Garcia told the Blade that the embassy agreed to ask the Salvadoran government to “see how (Hernández) is doing and to make sure he’s alive.”

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