Vice President JD Vance on Oct. 17 swore in Under Secretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment Jacob Helberg.

Helberg stood alongside his husband, Keith Rabois, during the ceremony.

“An unforgettable moment being sworn in by Vice President Vance alongside my husband, Keith Rabois,” wrote Helberg in a LinkedIn post that included two photos of the swearing in ceremony. “VP Vance is a friend and a role model for a generation of patriots who look to the future with excitement and optimism while always putting America First.”

“Grateful to serve under President Trump and Secretary Rubio’s historic leadership, as we unleash America’s economic power — fueling growth, energy abundance, and technological leadership for a new American century,” added Helberg.

President Donald Trump before his inauguration announced he would nominate Helberg.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and former U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell, who Trump named as interim executive director of the Kennedy Center in D.C., are among the Trump-Vance administration’s openly gay members. Former State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce, who Trump has nominated to become deputy representative at the U.N., describes herself as a “gay woman.”

The Congressional Equality Caucus has called upon the State Department to once again include LGBTQ and intersex people in their annual human rights report.

U.S. Reps. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), Julie Johnson (D-Texas), and Sarah McBride (D-Del.), who co-chair the caucus’s International LGBTQI+ Rights Task Force, spearheaded a letter sent to Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sept. 9.

The 2024 human rights report the State Department released last month did not include LGBTQ-specific references. Jessica Stern, the former special U.S. envoy for the promotion of LGBTQ and intersex rights under the Biden-Harris administration who co-founded the Alliance for Diplomacy and Justice, described the removal of LGBTQ and intersex people and other groups from the report as “deliberate erasure.”

“We strongly oppose your decision to remove the subsection on Acts of Violence Criminalization, and Other Abuses Based on Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity or Expression, or Sex Characteristics (SOGIESC Subsection) from the State Department’s Annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices (Human Rights Reports),” reads the letter. “We urge you to restore this information, or else ensure it is integrated throughout each human rights report.”

Congress requires the State Department to release a human rights report each year.

The Congressional Equality Caucus’s letter points out the human rights reports “have been a critical source of information on human rights violations and abuses against LGBTQI+ persons around the world.” It specifically notes consensual same-sex sexual relations remain criminalized in more than 60 countries, and the 2017 human rights report included “details on the state-sponsored and societal violence against LGBTQI+ persons in Chechnya, including extrajudicial killings.”

Immigration Equality in response to the 2024 human rights report said the reports “serve as key evidence for asylum seekers, attorneys, judges, and advocates who rely on them to assess human rights conditions and protection claims worldwide.”

“The information in these reports is critical — not just for human rights advocates — but also for Americans traveling abroad,” reads the Congressional Equality Caucus’s letter. “LGBTQI+ Americans and their families must continue to have access to comprehensive, reliable information about a country’s human rights record so they can plan travel and take appropriate precautions.”

The caucus’s full letter can be read here.

Advocacy groups say the State Department’s 2024 human rights report that “erased” LGBTQ people will jeopardize the cases of those who are seeking asylum in the U.S.

Immigration Equality notes the report “serve as key evidence for asylum seekers, attorneys, judges, and advocates who rely on them to assess human rights conditions and protection claims worldwide.”

The 2024 report the State Department released on Aug. 12 did not include LGBTQ-specific references. Immigration Equality Director of Law and Policy Bridget Crawford in a statement said country-specific reports within the larger report “should be accurate, fact-based, and reflect the lived reality of LGBTQ people — not ignore and actively hide it.”

“When adjudicators see less information in these reports than in prior years, they may wrongly assume conditions have improved,” said Crawford. “In truth, the absence of reporting is a purely political move, not based in fact or reality.”

Organization for Refuge, Asylum and Migration Executive Director Steve Roth in a statement condemned the Trump-Vance administration’s “deliberate erasure of LGBTIQ communities from the 2024 human rights report — an unprecedented move that violates international standards.”

“This is a targeted and malicious act that will directly endanger lives,” he said.

Roth, like Immigration Equality, noted courts “around the world rely on these reports to evaluate asylum claims.”

“Stripping out documentation of LGBTIQ persecution removes a vital tool in assessing claims for protection, jeopardizing the ability of LGBTIQ asylum seekers to access safety,” said Roth.

Congress requires the State Department to release a human rights report each year.

The State Department usually releases them in the spring, as opposed to August. Then-State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce, who president Donald Trump has nominated to become deputy representative at the U.N., during her last press briefing on Aug. 12 defended the delay and the report itself.

“We weren’t going to release something compiled and written by the previous administration,” said Bruce. “It needed to change based on the point of view and the vision of the Trump administration, and so those changes were made.”

Asylum courts ‘will have less credible data to rely on’

Jessica Stern, the former special U.S. envoy for the promotion of LGBTQ and intersex rights under the Biden-Harris administration, co-founded the Alliance for Diplomacy and Justice with several other former State Department officials. 

The Alliance for Diplomacy and Justice in response to the report said the U.S. has “betrayed the trust of human rights defenders who risked their safety to share the truth” and added “some (of them) are now less safe.”

“Asylum courts in the U.S. and globally will have less credible data to rely on,” said the group.

Human Rights Watch echoed the Alliance for Diplomacy and Justice.

“The human rights report has been used in U.S. asylum court cases to show that an asylum seeker could not be returned to a country where similarly situated people were being persecuted,” said Human Rights Watch in response to the 2024 report. “That essential resource for keeping people safe is not only no longer reliable or helpful, but in some cases could put people at risk by denying abuses in places where the United States or other countries intend to deport asylum seekers and immigrants.”