Global Equality Today: March 2024

As we write here in Washington, D.C., spring has arrived. Clocks have sprung forward, cherry blossoms have just peaked, and pollen allergies are back with a vengeance.

Temperatures aren’t the only thing heating up, though. While it’s only March, we’re effectively moving onto the general election season months before the summer conventions following barely contested primary races in both major parties.

Any election year offers distinct advocacy challenges, but never have we seen one so fraught as this year, where Congress is paralyzed by the extraordinary dysfunction within the House Republican majority. One example of the extremist-driven paralysis comes in the continuing failure to pass a five-year “clean” reauthorization of PEPFAR, despite the program’s extraordinary success and its twenty-year record of bipartisan support. Fortunately, Congress did just approve a clean, one-year extension of the program in its late-night budget deal. That’s not ideal for program management, but we did manage to keep some dangerous riders out of PEPFAR that would have undermined its effectiveness — and its ability to serve LGBTQI+ communities abroad. 

But we continue to work with our allies in the executive branch and on the Hill to promote LGBTQI+ human rights wherever possible. Just this month, CGE members successfully lobbied Congressional allies to strip more than 50 anti-LGBTQI+ riders from the Appropriations bill. The anti-LGBTQI+ forces in Congress did manage to attach one unfortunate provision that is intended to prevent embassies from flying Pride flags during Pride celebrations overseas. But CGE member Human Rights Campaign summed up the situation well, noting in a press release that it was one of the least-harmful of all of the anti-LGBTQI+ provisions and that it does not in any way prevent embassies from actually celebrating Pride.

Indeed, with this new limitation, we challenge the majority of U.S. embassies that do celebrate Pride around the world to rethink their celebrations to move beyond flag-waving events to gatherings designed to honor and support the community in creative new ways. For its part, a White House statement promised to work with Congress to repeal the policy. CGE and our members will remain vigilant, as no doubt, hard-right members of Congress will continue to try inserting anti-LGBTQI+ poison pills into other bills as this increasingly dysfunctional Congress wraps up its pre-election agenda.

PROJECT 2025, LGBTQI+ HUMAN RIGHTS, AND THE AUTHORITARIAN THREAT

It is no exaggeration to say that democracy is on the ballot in 2024, in the United States and around the world. Two billion people — about half of the world’s adult population — will go to the polls this year. Maria Ressa, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning journalist from the Philippines and author of How To Stand Up to a Dictator, has warned that in all likelihood, “2024 will be the year that democracy falls off the cliff.”

Very dramatic words to be sure, but in Indonesia, a former general once banned from the United States for alleged human rights abuses has already won the February presidential election. In Russia, Vladimir Putin used sham polls to further tighten his grasp on power. In India, Narendra Modi, the Hindu nationalist prime minister, is widely expected to win a third term in this spring’s elections. Other key elections coming this year include those taking place in Mexico, South Africa, South Korea, Belgium, Ghana, the European Union, and, potentially, the United Kingdom.

In an op-ed last month, Maria Sjödin, Executive Director of Outright, one of CGE’s member organizations, outlined the implications of these elections for LGBTQI+ people, noting the weaponization of homophobia and transphobia in the campaigns in Russia, Ghana, and South Africa, among other countries.

This weaponization is, of course, front and center in this year’s U.S. presidential, Congressional, and local elections. At CGE, we are working hard to draw attention to Project 2025.

If you haven’t yet heard, Project 2025 is what the Heritage Foundation and its partners are innocuously pitching as “the plan for the next conservative President” of the United States. But as our colleagues at the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism explain far more accurately, “Project 2025 is an authoritarian roadmap to dismantling a thriving, inclusive democracy for all.”

We strongly encourage you to read our blog on Project 2025, and to share it, along with our fact sheet on the particular anti-LGBTQI+ planks of the plan. Additionally, check out Beirne Roose-Snyder, CGE’s Senior Policy Fellow, talking about Project 2025 on the rePROs Fight Back podcast.

Beyond demonizing LGBTQI+ people and looking to eliminate the fundamental human rights of the community, Project 2025 takes aim at numerous rights, populations, programs, and principles: sexual and reproductive health and rights, racial equity, climate justice and environmental policy, public education, so-called “wokeness” in the military, separation of church and state, and much more.

Let’s not mince words: Project 2025’s targeting of LGBTQI+ people and of sexual and reproductive health and rights is inseparable from its overarching goal of dismantling democracy and capturing the U.S. federal government. It is no exaggeration to describe Project 2025’s mandate as eliminationist, as it seeks to erase LGBTQI+ people from public life, from social protections, and from democratic citizenship altogether.

The Republican House majority has certainly demonstrated its willingness to pursue such an eliminationist agenda, as have anti-LGBTQI+ state legislators around the country. The one partial victory they achieved in the appropriations battle was enacting a ban on flying the rainbow flag on the exterior of U.S. embassies — though, as already noted, that measure does not limit embassies organizing Pride events or otherwise supporting in-country LGBTQI+ communities. But this provision also speaks to how authoritarians, at home and around the globe, have weaponized the rainbow flag in their war on democracy and the rule of law.

Over the months to come, we’ll have much, much more to say about Project 2025 and about the highly coordinated, very well-funded anti-rights movement that is targeting LGBTQI+ rights as a wedge for its broader assault on democracy, civil society, and human rights.

LGBTQI+ REFUGEES & ASYLUM SEEKERS

In February, House Republicans defeated the border security deal negotiated between the White House and a bipartisan group of Senators. While there were certainly some positive measures in the deal, from increased staffing to process asylum claims to urgently needed assistance for Ukraine, and while House Republicans rejected the deal for not being sufficiently anti-immigrant, we expressed our fundamental opposition to any changes to immigration policy that would undermine the basic human right to seek asylum and that certainly would be disastrous for LGBTQI+ refugees and asylum seekers.

We want to flag two related pieces from CGE members. First, in an op-ed in The Advocate, Immigration Equality issued its own powerful rebuke to the deal, explaining why it would be lethal for LGBTQI+ asylum seekers. Second, Human Rights First reported on a trip to the U.S.-Mexico border, sharing the stories of refugees directly harmed by U.S. policies, including that of an LGBTQ+ refugee from Ghana terrified of being forced to return — and this was even before the passage of the horrific anti-LGBTQI+ law by the Ghanaian Parliament in late February.

LGBTQI+ HUMAN RIGHTS UNDER THREAT AROUND THE WORLD

Ghana is one of all too many countries where homophobic and transphobic politicians, backed by anti-rights actors from the United States, are pushing discriminatory, hate-fueled legislation to deny even the most basic rights of citizenship to LGBTQI+ people. These laws, whether proposed or actually passed and enacted, all increase anti-LGBTQI+ stigma and violence.

CGE is coordinating closely with activists in Ghana urging President Akufo-Addo to veto the draconian bill passed by Parliament in February; with movement leaders in Uganda petitioning for the Supreme Court there to overturn last year’s Anti-Homosexuality Act; and with advocates in Kenya and elsewhere in Africa working hard to prevent passage of similar bills in their own country.

We also continue to lobby our partners in the U.S. government, at the World Bank, and in like-minded countries to keep up the pressure and not let homophobic and transphobic politicians think they can get away with restricting the fundamental human rights of a vulnerable community. CGE especially appreciates the termination of Uganda’s AGOA status and calls for Ghana’s status to be revoked as well should the new law go into effect. We were also very pleased to see the Treasury Department levy sanctions against the director of Uganda’s prison system:

“Members of vulnerable groups, including government critics and members of Uganda’s LGBTQI+ community, have been beaten and held without access to legal counsel; for example, in a 2020 case, the UPS [Uganda Prisons Systems] denied a group of LGBTQI+ persons access to their lawyers and members of the group reportedly endured physical abuse, including a forced anal examination and scalding.”

This is only the second-known use of Global Magnitsky Act sanctions against a perpetrator for committing human rights violations against LGBTQI+ people, a strategy CGE has long urged Treasury to deploy. We likewise applaud the denial of a visa to Ugandan MP Sarah Opendi (and apparently to many other Ugandan MPs), who called for the castration of gay men and who has been one of the leading supporters of the Anti-Homosexuality Act.

For a deeper dive into the homophobic and transphobic campaigns across the Continent, we encourage you to read our think piece, “Ubuntu for LGBTQI+ Africans,” which argues:

The proliferation of anti-LGBTQI+ laws in Africa constitutes a perilous trend that imperils the lives and freedoms of countless individuals, placing the continent at a disadvantage. These laws contravene fundamental human rights principles, while also undermining democracy and the rule of law. It is imperative that African governments take decisive action to repeal these harmful and discriminatory laws while actively promoting equality and human rights for all.

Meanwhile, Russia continues to push the template for authoritarian regimes using eliminationist tactics as a tool promote the broader suppression of dissent and independent civil society. Building upon the 2013 and 2022 so-called “propaganda” laws, the Russian Supreme Court declared “the international LGBT movement” to be “an extremist organization,” thus conflating any pro-LGBTQI+ statements with terrorism. Already, one woman has been jailed for wearing rainbow earrings under the new court ruling, and earlier in March, two employees of a gay bar were charged with “extremism” for organizing and hosting drag shows. CGE is continuing to partner with Russian LGBTQI+ activists to draw attention to the crisis facing the country’s queer community, and we are urging U.S. government partners to use all tools possible to prevent copycat legislation in other countries as was the case for the “propaganda” laws.

In Central Asia, the Biden Administration is seeking to develop closer security partnerships and economic relationships with the five former Soviet republics strategically located between Russia, China, and Afghanistan. As it does so, we continue to press our Administration partners to insist that improving the abysmal situation for LGBTQI+ people and for human rights and civil society more broadly in Central Asia must go hand-in-hand with closer trade ties.

THE WAR IN GAZA AND ISRAEL

More than five months since the catastrophic attacks of October 7^th, CGE continues to mourn the pain and suffering from those brutally victimized by Hamas, as well as the Palestinian civilians who have been harmed and killed in the Israeli response. We call out all attacks on civilian populations as grave violations of human rights and humanitarian law.  

We further call on the U.S. government to support an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and Israel, and to support sufficient and unhindered humanitarian corridors to Gaza to prevent greater harm to civilians. We urge the United States to ensure that U.S. military and financial support are not used for the collective, retaliatory punishment of Palestinians, including journalists, children, and other vulnerable groups. We also call on the U.S. government to work for a negotiated release of all the hostages currently in Gaza as an immediate priority. 

CGE Co-Chair Julie Dorf published her own personal reflections on the war, having grown up in a “staunchly Zionist environment,” visiting Israel and Palestine numerous times, and wrestling over the years with anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, pinkwashing, war and oppression, and what justice can look like. We likewise encourage you to share her essay and offer your own observations.

EMBASSY GUIDE

In our fall 2023 newsletter, we spotlighted the updated and expanded edition of CGE’s Accessing U.S. Embassies: A Guide for LGBTQI+ Human Rights Defenders, our resource for helping international partners understand and access U.S. embassies and missions and build and maintain productive working relationships with U.S. diplomatic and development staff around the world. This guide, originally released in English in June, is now also available in Spanish, French, and Arabic as well.

CELEBRATING OUR PARTNERS

To wind down on a happy note: we’ve just celebrated some amazing LBTQ+ activists for International Women’s Day, and we’re preparing to recognize equally remarkable trans and nonbinary advocates for Transgender Day of Visibility later this week.

While the forces pitted against equality and human rights for LGBTQI+ communities are growing stronger and more connected in many regions of the world, we also saw two heartwarming victories for marriage equality in Japan earlier this month. And as CGE member organization Amnesty International noted, “[b]y recognizing that the government’s ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional, these rulings make clear that such discrimination has no place in Japanese society.” Equality, too, is on the march and discrimination has no place in any society, we just have to remember to look for it and celebrate it, even as we fight back against the forces of hate and extremism.

Global Equality Today (September 2023)

Happy Autumn! (Almost)

True, neither the calendar nor the temperatures in D.C. quite reflect that fall is upon us. But we’re already diving into what will certainly be a very busy season here in Washington. CGE and its 35 member organizations are hard at work engaging our partners in the Administration and on Capitol Hill to ensure that U.S. foreign policy consistently and comprehensively promotes LGBTQI+ human rights around the world.

There are plenty of challenges in front of us, from the possibility of a government shutdown, the PEPFAR reauthorization stalemate, and the distractions of the 2024 election cycle to a flood of viciously anti-LGBTQI+ legislative efforts, not only here in the United States but in dozens of other countries as well.

But we are not approaching our mission from a defensive posture, no matter how well-organized the movement to roll back the human rights of LGBTQI+ people — and democracy and civil society at large — might be. Instead, with sixteen months to go in this first Biden Administration, we are focused on institutionalizing our victories and expanding our pro-human rights agenda:

• Alongside HRC, we are working with our Hill allies calling for the President’s Budget request to include $40 million for the State Department’s Global Equality Fund (GEF) and $30 million for USAID’s Inclusive Development Hub’s Protection of LGBTQI+ Persons in the FY2025 State and Foreign Operations appropriations bills. We are also partnering with numerous allies in the HIV and SRHR (sexual and reproductive health and rights) movements to pass a clean PEPFAR reauthorization, even in the face of unprecedented attacks from the anti-abortion movement.

• CGE — in collaboration with Rainbow Railroad, ORAM, Immigration Equality, and IRAP, all CGE members — is working with the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration to ensure that the Biden Administration’s direct referral and private sponsorship mechanisms for refugees are both fully LGBTQI+-inclusive and fully operational. This includes promoting Rainbow Railroad’s referrals to  the new Welcome Corps program that will allow local groups to sponsor LGBTQI+ refugees to bring them to safety in the United States. (You can read more in our World Refugee Day blog.)

• We are excited by USAID’s release of its revised and expanded LGBTQI+ Inclusive Development Policy, and we are looking forward to collaborating with USAID’s Senior LGBTQI+ Coordinator, Jay Gilliam, and his team to make sure that LGBTQI+ concerns are truly incorporated throughout the Agency’s work. To that end, we’ve added meetings with USAID’s regional and thematic bureaus to our annual meetings with State’s regional bureaus. And we are supporting the development of a new accountability mechanism at USAID to ensure that any violations of this groundbreaking new policy — or any other USAID policies ­— are reported and addressed at the local level.  

• We are working hard with Ugandan activists on the ground and with a global solidarity coalition organizing to overturn the horrific Anti-Homosexuality Act (AHA) assented to by President Museveni in May. The law has a genocidal intent and is already being implemented to disastrous effect. We are simultaneously working with regional colleagues to prevent the passage of similar anti-LGBTQI+ bills in other African countries, including Ghana and Kenya. Likewise, we are monitoring the deteriorating situation in the Middle East, where anti-LGBTQI+ legislation is pending and attacks on the LGBTQI+ communities are escalating, notably in Lebanon and Iraq.

• As part of our work fighting the AHA in Uganda, CGE met with U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai to call for the suspension of Uganda from AGOA, the African Growth and Opportunity Act, which provides preferential trade benefits for qualifying countries. The AHA — the most draconian anti-LGBTQI+ law in the world — clearly contravenes the human rights requirements of the program, as well as the goals and ideals that animate the AGOA trade framework. CGE also has submitted public comments on Uganda, Kenya, and Ghana — in the latter two cases, with the goal of building pressure to scrap proposed anti-LGBTQI+ laws there — and will continue to work with our partners in the Administration and on the Hill to use U.S. trade policy as a tool to promote human rights.

CGE Co-Chairs Julie Dorf and Mark Bromley with U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai, center.

• We will continue to work with U.S., European, and Central Asian partners to push Uzbekistan for full decriminalization of homosexuality and the immediate end to the pervasive human rights violations committed against Uzbekistan’s LGBTQI+ community by state and non-state actors. This spring and summer, CGE and its partners have been meeting regularly with Congressional partners to promote this priority and to oppose rewarding Tashkent with normal trade relations without improving its human rights record. As Senators Murphy and Young introduce legislation to repeal Jackson-Vanik trade restrictions on Uzbekistan and its neighbors, we call on Congress and the Administration to ensure that human rights standards — including the decriminalization of homosexuality — are part of the trade normalization process.

Looking over the last few months, our work has included…

• CGE released an updated and expanded edition of Accessing U.S. Embassies: A Guide for LGBTQI+ Human Rights Defenders, our resource for helping international partners understand and access U.S. embassies and missions and build and maintain productive working relationships with U.S. diplomatic and development staff in around the world. This guide, released in English in June, will soon be available in Spanish, French, and Arabic as well.

• In May, CGE Co-Chair Mark Bromley attended the inaugural meeting of the P7 (for “Pride7”) that brought together LGBTQI+ advocates from the world’s leading industrial democracies to lobby the G7 alliance to promote LGBTQI+ human rights. The P7 meeting, ahead of the full G7 summit in Hiroshima, helped win support for passage of Japan’s first-ever LGBTQI+ rights legislation (as incomplete as the law may be) as well as lay the groundwork for the P7 becoming an officially recognized civil society engagement group attached to the G7.

CGE Co-Chair Mark Bromley joins other advocates at the inaugural meeting of the P7 in Tokyo

• At a June reception, CGE honored former Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI) with our Global Equality Award shortly after he left Congress to lead the Rhode Island Foundation. We had the opportunity to talk with Rep. Cicilline about his leadership with the Congressional Equality Caucus and the Foreign Affairs Committee, the progress we’ve made during his dozen years in Congress, and the opportunities we see and the challenges we’re facing. Additionally, Ambassador Ursu Viorel of Moldova spoke powerfully about being the first openly LGBTQI+ Ambassador from a former Soviet republic and his country’s fundamental commitment to democracy and human rights — even as Russia wages war next door in Ukraine.

Top: former Rep. David Cicilline accepts the Global Equality Award

Bottom: Amb. Ursu Viorel of Moldova speaks to the reception

• In May, we spoke with Alexander Voronov, Executive Director of Coming Out, an NGO that provides legal, psychological, and other direct services to Russia’s LGBTQI+ community. Alex spoke about Coming Out’s continuing work, even in the face of the worsening crackdown on dissent in Putin’s Russia following the invasion of Ukraine — a crackdown that forced him to leave the country and function from exile.

• For IDAHOBIT, the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, Interphobia, and Transphobia, we welcomed the U.S. government’s rollout of its Interagency Action Plan dedicated to ending so-called “conversion therapy” (CTP) practices around the world. With this plan, the U.S. government has committed itself to the numerous partnerships necessary to stop these abusive practices. This includes working with LGBTQI+ community groups around the world; with like-minded allies and other partner governments; and with faith leaders, educators, professional associations, and other civil society networks. The U.S. government also plans to work to end CTPs at various multilateral fora, including the development banks and international institutions to which the United States is a party, to ensure that no financial or programmatic support, direct or otherwise, goes towards CTPs.

• For Pride in June — knowing how easy it is to focus on the backlash and the battles we’re fighting — we published a list of 23 recent victories in the movement for LGBTQI+ justice and human rights. We also reiterated how Pride marches are both expressions of fundamental rights to democratic participation and tools for promoting inclusivity, visibility, and acceptance. CGE staff also attended the annual State Department and USAID Pride receptions, meeting with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Administrator Samantha Power, respectively.

Co-Chair Julie Dorf and CGE member leaders meet with Secretary of State Blinken, left

• Additionally, at the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, CGE promotes accountability and investments that support LGBTQI+-inclusive development. CGE staff helped organize several World Bank meetings over the summer that ultimately led to the freezing of new investments in Uganda following the adoption of the AHA.

Priorities for the 118th Congress

The 118^th Congress is off and … well, “running” is not quite the right verb.

The Council for Global Equality understands — as do our member organizations, our partners on the Hill and in the Administration, and in the movement for LGBTQI+ human rights — that the 118^th Congress is going to be a challenging one, especially given the deals that Speaker McCarthy had to cut within his own party in order to win the gavel and move forward. The far-right renegades in the Republican Party are clearly no friends of the LGBTQI+ community, nor of promoting human rights, civil society, and democracy writ large.

We’re going to hear more from the homophobic, transphobic, and anti-gender voices in the House of Representatives in the 118th. Champions need to be ready for malicious amendments, investigations, and other purported oversight. In the last Congress, two bills were introduced to prohibit federal funding of drag shows, and we should anticipate more such attacks against drag shows; programs that include the most marginalized members of the LGBTQI+ community, including sex workers; and transgender persons more generally.

All that said, we are most definitely neither going to sit on the sidelines nor operate solely from a defensive posture for the next two years. So, what can we accomplish and what do we have our eyes on, for better and for worse?

Appropriations

Money, money, money. Notwithstanding the debt-ceiling issue, the government will need to be funded. We’ll continue to request a minimum of $40 million for the Global Equality Fund at the State Department and $30 million for the Protection of LGBTQI+ Persons at USAID. LGBTQI+ civil society organizations face significant gaps in resourcing and investments, and this funding would provide additional support to the State Department and USAID to achieve the goals set out in President Biden’s Memorandum on Advancing the Human Rights of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Intersex Persons Around the World. 

In reality, however, given the polarized House and the split with the Democratically controlled Senate and White House, we’re likely to see continuing resolutions that maintain our December 2022 Omnibus funding of $25 million for the Global Equality Fund at the State Department and $25 million for the Protection of LGBTQI+ funding at USAID. But champions will have to stay vigilant to stave off targeted attacks on these funds, which themselves remain insufficient. We especially need to be prepared for attacks that seek to zero-out these funding lines altogether.

Other Congressional Actions

Members of Congress can use their Committee roles to utilize committee hearings, including annual budget hearings, confirmation hearings, and private meetings with government and non-government officials to raise global LGBTQI+ issues, especially in problem countries. Anytime our Congressional champions of LGBTQI+ human rights travel internationally, they should meet with government officials and civil society representatives to promote a fully SOGIESC-inclusive human rights and development agenda. 

Uzbekistan is one such problem country, and we call on our allies in Congress to: 

• Include LGBTQI+ human rights protections in all reintroduced legislation and resolutions relating to Uzbekistan, including Reaffirming United States-Uzbekistan Relations and the Uzbekistan Normalized Trade Act.

There will be many other such problem countries — especially ones where security relations are critical to U.S. foreign policy objectives more broadly, including Egypt, Turkey, Indonesia, and Uganda — that are seeking large financial and military assistance in this Congress. They, too, should receive heightened scrutiny regarding their human rights records from lawmakers.

In addition, we urge the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to hold a hearing on LGBTQI+ human rights challenges before the full Committee, as well as within appropriate subcommittees, to explore the deteriorating human rights landscape impacting LGBTQI+ persons globally. The House Foreign Affairs Committee held the first such hearing in June 2021 with a dynamic combination of government and civil society witnesses. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has yet to follow suit — and the time is right for such a long-overdue similar hearing in the Senate.

Legislation

PEPFAR turns 20 this year and needs to be reauthorized. This program holds sweeping implications for global LGBTQI+ human rights. No U.S. program provides more health services to LGBTQI+ people worldwide, and we remain committed to the program’s goals, even as we strive to decriminalize sexual orientation and gender identity and to end other criminalizations that drive the epidemic. We urge the clean reauthorization of PEPFAR as an urgent priority.

Co-sponsor and promote these forthcoming global human rights bills. We realize that they are unlikely to pass the House in this current political context, but we hope that one or more of these bills will receive a markup in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and that key sections of these bills will make their way into other must-pass legislation in this Congress.  

• Greater Leadership Overseas for the Benefit of Equality (GLOBE) Act: Led by Senators Markey, Shaheen, and Merkley in the Senate and by Representative Titus in the House of Representatives, this comprehensive bill provides a roadmap and the necessary tools for U.S. leadership to advance the human rights of LGBTQI+ communities around the world, including combating criminalization of LGBTQI+ status, expression, or conduct. 
• Global Respect Act: Led by Senator Shaheen and Representative Cicilline, this bipartisan bill imposes visa-blocking sanctions on foreign individuals responsible for, or complicit in, violating the human rights of individuals due to actual or perceived sexual orientation, gender identity, or sex characteristics.
• International Human Rights Defense Act: Led by Senator Markey and Representatives Garcia and Jacobs, this bill protects the human rights of LGBTQI+ individuals by codifying the position of Special Envoy for the Human Rights of LGBTQI+ Persons at the State Department; requires the Department to develop a global strategy to respond to criminalization, discrimination, and violence against LGBTQI+ persons internationally; and codifies reporting on the human rights of LGBTQI+ persons in the State Department Country reports.
• Global Health, Empowerment and Rights (HER) Act: Led by Senator Shaheen and Representative Lee, this bipartisan bill would permanently end the Global Gag Rule, an intermittent presidential policy that had a disproportionate negative impact on the health and rights of already marginalized LGBTQI+ communities. 

As we embark on the 118th Congress, we see a rise in extremist policies that seek to deny the fundamental human rights of LGBTQI+ persons in all corners of the globe, including many states here in our own country. As the landscape deteriorates, it is imperative that Congress continues to lead on the world stage by funding effective coalitions to align our human rights diplomacy and challenge homophobic and transphobic human rights abusers. Now more than ever, we look to champions in Congress to amplify efforts by the Biden-Harris Administration to reclaim our global stature in support of human rights for all marginalized communities. 

Obama’s Evangelical Gravy Train

Photo: Andy Kopsa

Repost from The Nation by Andy Kopsa

Despite the president’s promise to cut funding to discredited HIV and pregnancy prevention programs, taxpayer dollars are still bankrolling anti-gay, anti-choice conservative religious groups.

On March 24, just a month after Ugandan President Museveni signed a bill making homosexuality a crime punishable by life in prison, Obama administration officials announced that they were increasing military aid to Uganda in its effort to quell rebel forces. Human rights groups criticized the move, arguing that the aid offered Museveni “legitimacy” after he supported a law that has been widely condemned for violating human rights. The same day, a State Department spokesperson quietly announced that the administration would also “demonstrate our support for the LGBT community in Uganda” by shifting $6.4 million in funding away from the Inter-Religious Council of Uganda, whose actions, State Department spokesperson Marie Harf said, “don’t reflect our values.” That may be the understatement of the year.

According to Ugandan AIDS activists, administration officials had been told a year and a half earlier that the Inter-Religious Council and other State Department grantees were actively promoting the antigay bill. In September 2012, several LGBT and AIDS advocates in Uganda were invited to a call with representatives from USAID, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Office of the US Global AIDS Coordinator and other US officials to discuss HIV service delivery to vulnerable communities. According to minutes taken by one of the participants and conversations with others on the call, the US officials were warned that several grantees and subcontractors through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, commonly referred to as PEPFAR, were visibly supporting the bill, undermining service delivery to men who have sex with men, or otherwise fomenting anti-gay activities. US officials asked the Ugandan activists to provide information on these actions by the US government’s so-called “implementing partners,” and told them that such evidence might lead to an investigation by US officials. Continue Reading

 

The Council for Global Equality Welcomes the White House Efforts to Protect Human Rights in Uganda

The Council for Global Equality welcomes today’s White House announcement of new, concrete steps in our country’s bilateral relationship with Uganda in response to President Museveni’s decision to sign into law the Anti-Homosexuality Act earlier this year.  These steps reaffirm the importance the U.S. attaches to a foreign policy that prioritizes respect for the human rights of all people, including those who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender – an important legacy of this Administration.

We take note in particular the announcement of new visa restrictions aimed at restricting entry to those deemed responsible for human rights abuses, including those enabled by this heinous law, and other corrupt practices.  In taking this action, the Administration has placed responsibility where it should lie – with those individuals who have enacted the new law, not the broader Ugandan people.  We urge that a speedy review of visa eligibility be the template for prospective U.S. responses whenever human rights are abridged, or corrupt practices undertaken, in any country.

The Administration’s new steps place appropriate emphasis on anti-LGBT police actions, our bilateral security relationship, and the broad areas in which the U.S. engages with Uganda on sound health policy.  We urge a continued dialogue in each of these areas aimed at ensuring the effective use of U.S. taxpayer funding in each of these areas, and particularly to ensuring that the health needs of men who have sex with men continue to be met.  We further urge that the Administration ensure that no organization charged with providing PEPFAR-funded services is allowed to take steps that deliberately undercut the effectiveness of those services, as was the case with actions taken by the Inter-Religious Council of Uganda in supporting enactment of the Anti-Homosexuality Act.

Finally, we note that Uganda is not the only government that has taken, in recent months, steps to further criminalize homosexual relations and relationships.  We have been proud to applaud the Administration’s policy of standing for LGBT human and civil rights abroad.  However, a global policy requires a globally consistent response, which to date has not been the case.  We ask that the Administration review, in equal measure, how to respond to similar anti-democratic actions in Nigeria, Russia, and other countries where government officials have put LGBT people at increased risk of abuse.

For more information on the steps the White House is taking click here.

Statement by NSC Spokesperson Caitlin Hayden on the Response to Uganda’s Enactment of the Anti-Homosexuality Act

What We Need From the Next Head of PEPFAR

Dr. Eric Goosby stepped down from his role as U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator this month. As the White House and the State Department consider Dr. Goosby’s replacement, the Council believes there are some qualities that are essential in his successor.

The Council and its member organizations strongly support the President’s Emergency Plan on AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) – not only for health policy reasons, but for the broader reflection of fundamental U.S. values that PEPFAR offers. In that respect, we believe it crucial that PEPFAR programs be fully inclusive of most-at-risk populations, including men who have sex with men (MSM). We are grateful that  the Obama Administration has embraced that principle by expanding PEPFAR programming to include MSM – a legacy that, in turn, is elevating the importance of enabling legal environments for MSM prevention and treatment programs.

The nominee for Dr. Goosby’s replacement obviously must reflect experience in, and knowledge of, HIV/AIDS policy. Given the cross-agency nature of our tools to fight HIV/AIDS, however, we believe it critically important that he or she also demonstrate proven abilities to lead a complex and multi-tiered interagency health policy team.

Moreover, the new Coordinator will carry important leadership responsibilities in ensuring the consistency and integrity of PEPFAR programs. This must include clear commitment to meeting the needs of most-at-risk populations, including LGBT individuals, in each country served by PEPFAR. It equally must include persistence in seeking host country understanding of, and shared commitment to, this goal.

The Council remains concerned at indications that some PEPFAR implementers may have inappropriately blurred the distinction between their personal views on homosexuality and their responsibility, as an implementing organization of U.S. policy, not to undercut broad U.S. government policy goals that support both sound HIV/AIDS prevention and LGBT rights. We wish to see a Coordinator who will prioritize the integrity and effectiveness of our programs in this respect, even while respecting First Amendment rights. We, in turn, will join in holding the new Coordinator publicly accountable for effective oversight in investigating and responding to any alleged abuse.

Finally, the person selected as Coordinator has an essential role in communicating to foreign leaders, and indeed to American and foreign publics, the critical importance of PEPFAR’s life-saving programs, and the need for those programs to embrace all populations.

The new Global AIDS Coordinator can anchor a strong legacy not only of humanitarian attention to a critical health challenge, but also to insistence that our global health policies be fully inclusive, in reflection of American values. The Council for Global Equality is hopeful that there will be a speedy announcement of Dr. Goosby’s replacement, and that that announcement will reflect these inclusive values that are critical to the direction in which our PEPFAR programs must go.

Scope of Interagency Influence and Authority

Over the past three days, we’ve laid out a number of key issues to be grappled with as the U.S. government meshes its foreign assistance programs with the goals laid out in the President’s December 6 memorandum and in Secretary Clinton’s speech the same day. These issues will require more than energy and thought: they will require clear and determined support from department and agency leaders, which we trust will be given.

As referenced earlier, USAID’s development assistance programs represent, in fact, only part of a larger set of assistance programs scattered across the U.S. government. The President’s memorandum references a baker’s dozen agencies that have such programs. Apart from USAID, two of our largest assistance programs were established under the Bush Administration: the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), which we mentioned in yesterday’s blog, was established as a government corporation under the direction of a public/private board; PEPFAR, which operates under the Secretary of State’s oversight, oversees our international HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment programs. Smaller grass-roots development assistance programs are managed by the Inter-American Foundation and the African Development Foundation. Even the Pentagon carries discretionary funding that can buttress our overseas development assistance efforts.

U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) releases MSM technical guidance

May 19, Washington – Today the office of the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) released a technical guidance note to assist PEPFAR administrators in developing health interventions that respond to the unique needs of men who have sex with men (MSM).  The guide finds that MSM are on average 19 times more likely to have HIV than the general population in low and middle-income countries, and that dedicated MSM programming is essential to reach this severely at-risk population. Download the guidance here.

The Council is pleased that the guidance reviews best practices in identifying and serving MSM communities.  The guidance also calls for PEPFAR support to develop legal environments that allow MSM to access HIV prevention, care and treatment in an affirming and nondiscriminatory manner that respects their human rights.  To accomplish this, the guidance explains that PEPFAR resources may be used “to establish laws, regulations and policies that support HIV prevention efforts for MSM.”  In simple terms, the guidance recognizes that laws criminalizing homosexual relations and relationships undermine our country’s large international investments, and that PEPFAR resources should also be used to support legal reform. It calls on PEPFAR implementers to offer nondiscriminatory programs and for government leaders to make legislative changes, recognizing that “country leadership . . . is needed to develop and implement, at all levels, any necessary supportive legislation, policies, and regulations.”

The Council supports the global community on MSM field guidance

Amb. Eric Goosby

On February 1, 2011, the global community urged the U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator, Ambassador Goosby, to issue a PEPFAR Field Guidance on Men who have Sex with Men (MSM).  The Council for Global Equality is one of the many signatories urging the release, and the broad international response is indicative of the wide support that exists for this effort.

As noted in the letter, by releasing the MSM guidance the United States will demonstrate “that the U.S. government prioritizes an evidence-based response that aligns with the global HIV epidemic, one that seeks to stem the tide of new infections among most-at-risk populations.”

Read the full letter here.

The Council for Global Equality releases a study on the impact of PEPFAR on LGBT communities

The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief has saved many lives and profoundly shaped the global response to HIV. But like the proverbial Trojan Horse, it has been let into the gates with a belly full of hidden contradictions—insufficient attention to marginalized communities, earmarks for unscientific programming, and forced “pledges” that both undermine sound reproductive rights programming and challenge basic rights to freedom of expression.

In this report, Washington insider Scott Evertz takes a serious look at the politics of one of our country’s signature foreign assistance programs. Scott is the former director of President George W. Bush’s Office of National AIDS Policy and an openly gay Republican, and his analysis reflects a degree of experience and honesty that is too often obscured by the rigid ideology and partisan policymaking that have—up until now—been the cornerstones of PEPFAR and the Bush administration’s bilateral funding strategy.

Read the complete report here.