State Department
Report: State Department to remove LGBTQ references from human rights reports
Advocacy groups condemn ‘far-reaching cuts and politically driven revisions’
Advocacy groups have sharply criticized the State Department over its reported plans to remove references to anti-LGBTQ discrimination from its annual human rights reports.
The Washington Post on Wednesday reported it obtained drafts of human rights reports for El Salvador, Russia, and Israel.
“They strike all references to LGBTQ+ individuals or crimes against them, and the descriptions of government abuses that do remain have been softened,” reported the Post.
Andry Hernández Romero, a gay Venezuelan asylum seeker, said guards at El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center, a maximum-security prison known by the Spanish acronym CECOT, sexually assaulted him after the U.S. “forcibly disappeared” him and hundreds of other Venezuelans to the Central American country in March. The Post published its article less than a month after Hernández returned to Venezuela.
The State Department’s 2023 human rights report notes a Russian law “prohibited gender transition procedures and gender-affirming care … and authorities used laws prohibiting the promotion of ‘nontraditional sexual relations’ to justify the arbitrary arrest of LGBTQI+ persons.”
“There were reports state actors committed violence against LGBTQI+ individuals based on their sexual orientation or gender identity, particularly in Chechnya,” reads the report. “There were reports government agents attacked, harassed, and threatened LGBTQI+ activists. There were instances of nonstate actor violence targeting LGBTQI+ persons and of police often failing to respond adequately to such incidents.”
The 2023 report notes Israeli law “prohibited discrimination by state and nonstate actors based on sexual orientation in providing goods and services and prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in employment.”
“The government generally enforced the law, although some discrimination against LGBTQI+ persons persisted,” it reads. “The law did not allow for same-sex marriage, and LGBTQI+ couples experienced discrimination in matters related to parenthood, including adoption, parental registration, and birth certificates.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has faced widespread criticism over its war in the Gaza Strip in response to Oct. 7. Two Israeli human rights groups — B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights Israel — late last month said their country is committing genocide against Palestinians in the Hamas-controlled enclave.
“Secretary Rubio has repeatedly asserted that his State Department has not abandoned human rights, but it is clear by this and other actions that this administration only cares about the human rights of some people … in some countries, when its convenient to them,” Council for Global Equality Managing Director Keifer Buckingham told the Post.
Human Rights First in a statement said it “condemns the far-reaching cuts and politically driven revisions the Trump administration has reportedly made to the State Department’s soon-to-be-released annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices.”
Congress requires the State Department to release a human rights report each year. Foggy Bottom has yet to release the 2024 report.
Politico in March reported the Trump-Vance administration “is slashing the State Department’s annual human rights report — cutting sections about the rights of women, the disabled, the LGBTQ+ community, and more.”
The State Department on Thursday did not respond to the Washington Blade’s request for comment about the Post article. The State Department also did not say when it will release the 2024 report.
State Department
Democracy Forward files FOIA request for State Department bathroom policy records
April 20 memo outlined anti-transgender rule
Democracy Forward on Tuesday filed a Freedom of Information Act request for records on the State Department’s new bathroom policy.
A memo titled “Updates Regarding Biological Sex and Intimate Spaces, Including Restrooms” that the State Department issued on April 20 notes employees can no longer use bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity.
“The administration affirms that there are two sexes — male and female — and that federal facilities should operate on this objective and longstanding basis to ensure consistency, privacy, and safety in shared spaces,” State Department spokesperson Tommy Piggot told the Daily Signal, a conservative news website that first reported on the memo. “In line with President Trump’s executive order this provides clear, uniform guidance to the department by grounding policy in biological sex as determined at birth.”
President Donald Trump shortly after he took office in January 2025 issued an executive order that directed the federal government to only recognize two genders: male and female. The sweeping directive also ordered federal government agencies to “effectuate this policy by taking appropriate action to ensure that intimate spaces designated for women, girls, or females (or for men, boys, or males) are designated by sex and not identity.”
Democracy Forward’s FOIA request that the Washington Blade exclusively obtained on Tuesday is specifically seeking a copy of the memo that details the State Department’s new bathroom policy. Democracy Forward has also requested “all” memo-specific communications between the State Department’s Bureau of Global Public Affairs and the Daily Signal from April 1-21.
State Department
State Department implements anti-trans bathroom policy
Memo notes directive corresponds with White House executive order
The State Department on April 20 announced employees cannot use bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity.
The Daily Signal, a conservative news website, reported the State Department announced the new policy in a memo titled “Updates Regarding Biological Sex and Intimate Spaces, Including Restrooms.”
The State Department has not responded to the Washington Blade’s request for comment on the directive.
“The administration affirms that there are two sexes — male and female — and that federal facilities should operate on this objective and longstanding basis to ensure consistency, privacy, and safety in shared spaces,” State Department spokesperson Tommy Piggot told the Daily Signal. “In line with President Trump’s executive order this provides clear, uniform guidance to the department by grounding policy in biological sex as determined at birth.”
President Donald Trump shortly after he took office in January 2025 issued an executive order that directed the federal government to only recognize two genders: male and female. The sweeping directive also ordered federal government agencies to “effectuate this policy by taking appropriate action to ensure that intimate spaces designated for women, girls, or females (or for men, boys, or males) are designated by sex and not identity.”
The Daily Signal notes the new State Department policy “does not prohibit single-occupancy restrooms.”
State Department
Report: US to withhold HIV aid to Zambia unless mineral access expanded
New York Times obtained Secretary of State Marco Rubio memo
The State Department is reportedly considering withholding assistance for Zambians with HIV unless the country’s government allows the U.S. to access more of its minerals.
The New York Times on Monday reported Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a memo to State Department’s Bureau of African Affairs staffers wrote the U.S. “will only secure our priorities by demonstrating willingness to publicly take support away from Zambia on a massive scale.” The newspaper said it obtained a copy of the letter.
Zambia is a country in southern Africa that borders Tanzania, Malawi, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia, Angola, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The Times notes upwards of 1.3 million Zambians receive daily HIV medications through PEPFAR. The newspaper reported Rubio in his memo said the Trump-Vance administration could “significantly cut assistance” as soon as May.
“Reports of (the) State Department withholding lifesaving HIV treatment in return for mining concessions in Zambia does not make us safer, stronger, or more prosperous,” said U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on Tuesday. “Monetizing innocent people’s lives further undermines U.S. global leadership and is just plain wrong.”
The Washington Blade has reached out to the State Department for comment.
Zambia received breakthrough HIV prevention drug through PEPFAR
Rubio on Jan. 28, 2025, issued a waiver that allowed PEPFAR and other “life-saving humanitarian assistance” programs to continue to operate during a freeze on nearly all U.S. foreign aid spending. HIV/AIDS service providers around the world with whom the Blade has spoken say PEPFAR cuts and the loss of funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development, which officially closed on July 1, 2025, has severely impacted their work.
The State Department last September announced PEPFAR will distribute lenacapavir in countries with high prevalence rates. Zambia two months later received the first doses of the breakthrough HIV prevention drug.
Kenya and Uganda are among the African countries have signed health agreements with the U.S. since the Trump-Vance administration took office.
The Times notes the countries that signed these agreements pledged to increase health spending. The Blade last month reported LGBTQ rights groups have questioned whether these agreements will lead to further exclusion and government-sanctioned discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
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