The U.S. Is Abandoning the Global Fight for LGBTQ Equality

On July 11, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio implemented the Foreign Ministry reform plan by laying off more than 1,300 professional government employees. Although the details are still unclear, the discounts seem to have almost targeted every human rights, democratic or global justice employee – including all the few people in management who have experience to respond to threats against LGBTQ members all over the world.

Then, last week, the administration of US President Donald Trump has officially ended the 988 hotline to prevent the needs of LGBTQ youth, and the American conference to reduce $ 9 billion in foreign aid (and public broadcast) voted. These modern moves reflect a realistic fact: the United States no longer plays a leading role in struggle for equality in LGBTQ, globally or locally. Instead, Washington is declining and increasingly playing a major role in the reverse reaction against gay people.

On July 11, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio implemented the Foreign Ministry reform plan by laying off more than 1,300 professional government employees. Although the details are still unclear, the discounts seem to have almost targeted every human rights, democratic or global justice employee – including all the few people in management who have experience to respond to threats against LGBTQ members all over the world.

Then, last week, the administration of US President Donald Trump has officially ended the 988 hotline to prevent the needs of LGBTQ youth, and the American conference to reduce $ 9 billion in foreign aid (and public broadcast) voted. These modern moves reflect a realistic fact: the United States no longer plays a leading role in struggle for equality in LGBTQ, globally or locally. Instead, Washington is declining and increasingly playing a major role in the reverse reaction against gay people.

As politicians during the era of former US President Joe Biden, the foreign policy led us in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Since then, our previous office has been dismantled during the second Trump state. While in our government roles, we have seen directly how the US leadership in these issues could improve the safety of gay people all over the world – thus protecting American interests by protecting human rights and reducing the risk of economic and political instability.

We have worked closely with the American embassies to counter anti -gay and gay gay people, which pose a threat to American and American national security. We have documented governmental and non -governmental violations against gay people. We worked with American officials throughout the agencies to support allies around the world working to reduce HIV transmission, prevent discrimination in the workplace, and reduce violence against minorities, including gay people.

This leadership has made meaningful. When American officials expressed their deep concern about the law of sodomy in a series of meetings with the leaders of the Central Asian State, the country’s government has pledged not to impose it. When a transient woman was found under suspicious conditions in the Pacific region, the local LGBTQ community feared that it was a hate crime; We raised society’s concerns by meeting local officials who then committed to investigating her death as part of a broader effort to confront gender -based violence against marginalized groups.

Diplomacy has also created opportunities to work directly with law enforcement leaders, including in the Dominican Republic, and to generate support to address the abusive treatment of LGBTQ individuals.

This cooperative approach has made it clear that the support of LGBTQ rights is not an independent issue. Societies that respect the rights and dignity of all people are more stable, more prosperous, and safer. On the other hand, countries that marginalize gay people or any minority tend to deal with social unrest, weakest institutions, and the slower development.

However, all over the world, the approach that connects global safety and prosperity to protect the rights and dignity of all people are threatened now. In recent years, a global network movement has gained gay rights – as well as women’s rights, sexual education and protection against all forms of discrimination and violence – momentum.

From the organization in the United Nations and other multilateral places to opposing the legal protection of LGBTQ members to international conferences that provide training to attack gay rights, this growing movement corresponds to the high authoritarian leaders who outperform gay people in order to pay attention from economic challenges and other challenges in their countries.

With the support of this movement, the two countries have criminalized ties between gay or prolonged prison sentences due to relations of the same sex by mutual consent. Others banned LGBTQ organizations, banned the events of pride, and asked the allies to report gay people in certain circumstances. This reverse, ideological, and good reaction is coordinated, including US -based organizations and Russian actors. Instead of resisting it, Washington is now helping to lead it.

At the departure of his first term, when Trump pledged to stand in solidarity with gay people, since he took office in January, the president has been increasingly dealt with LGBTQ issues – especially issues – as a successful strategy to stimulate his base. In addition to eliminating external assistance programs specifically designed to protect and support weak groups, including gay people, the Trump administration has moved quickly to end the US support for LGBTQ rights to the United Nations and the regulation of the American states.

With the support of some Republican leaders in congress, the Trump administration adopted this destabilizing trend as a basic goal of foreign policy. Trump opened his presidency with executive order attacking people who are transgender, including their right to fully participate in American society, and direct federal agencies to deny their existence. As a result, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is now requesting passports to identify sexually transformed men as female women and sexual soldiers as males, which is inaccurate inaccurate. (A federal boycott court put this change on a temporary suspension while a lawsuit against it.)

US officials targeted small funding allocations politically. A grant to support the Ugandan LGBTQ, who face terrible threats from their government, for example, has been subjected to bad suffering by Representative Brian Mast, who heads the Affairs Committee abroad [the U.S. Agency for International Development] America literally betrayed. “

Indeed, even at its peak, it supports only 0.1 percent of global funding for a $ 21.7 billion global budget for LGBTQ societies in 2024. But suggested effects still follow: cutting money to support gay people in South Africa, for example, reduces access to health care that lacks border disease spread on borders such as HIV/EDIDS.

One of the organizations, orders to “stop the work”, was directed from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the United States Agency for the United States for International Development to Reduce grants into 120 organizations in 42 countries that have been translated into finishing financing to support the LGBTQ old warriors in Ukraine, and shelter for LGBTQ in Malawi, and legal services for victims of torture in Myanmar.

The withdrawal of financing from weak groups creates more geopolitical and national security risks to the United States. When the government targets gay people or other minorities due to harm, as in Ghana, Hungary, Peru, Russia and other places, the risk of instability. If officials know that they can get rid of minorities without fear of punishment, then corruption is spreading, which may provide space for organized crime, violent extremism and terrorism.

We have already seen the cost of this decline. The leader of LGBTQ rights in East Africa, who wanted to not be identified for fear of revenge last month, told us, “When the United States stands with us, our governments are thinking twice. When it remains silent, they take this as permission from all minorities.”

The modern hate campaign on the Internet targeted the Kenyan LGBTQ organizations and its allies. Since the campaign published the headlines of the organizations, they were afraid that its employees would be violently attacked. The United States should help lead in the response of the diplomatic society crisis – providing money, political support and recognition to help prevent violence against gay people and human rights defender. Instead, our government was missing at work.

Likewise, in March, when Hungary banned all the events of pride, unusual restrictions on basic rights such as freedoms of expression and assembly were the only general response from the United States was a travel consultation from the American embassy in Budapest.

Political makers across the corridor need to realize the importance of supporting LGBTQ rights abroad for at least three reasons. First, this honors the basic American values: the pursuit of freedom, equality of opportunities, and dignity for all. The United States does not respect perfect, but to progress. When we acknowledge, as a government and a nation, with our challenges and our Saudis to include, we become a beacon for others who dream of change in their countries.

Second, LGBTQ rights are exploited by those who seek to dismantle the broader democratic institutions, as when opponents use small grants of LGBTQ groups to justify the dismantling of the United States Agency for International Development. When these rights become a political carditnet, the entire associations can be destroyed – it does not matter how popular or effective – by the association.

Third, equality is the cornerstone of global stability. The rule of law cannot work selectively. When governments treat people uneven in an unequal, they undermine safety, economic growth and peace. When rights are protected, all the benefits of society. For those who see LGBTQ issues as peripheral, the evidence says otherwise. Human rights are not distraction from American interests; They are necessary for them.

As former government employees, we urge today’s leaders to stop the decline. Do not let LGBTQ rights become a redemption ram for dismantling human rights and foreign assistance to US foreign policy infrastructure. Research in programs that have worked for decades. Restore the offices that have been eliminated. Increased political and financial contributions to global justice. Speak clearly and consistently against hatred.

The world has shown that the United States still believes in dignity, respect and equality for all.