Gay pride flags at embassies
He added, “Trump and Pence have made it clear they are not allies to the L.G.B.T.Q. “We sincerely doubt that this commission is being organized to ensure that the human rights of LGBTQ people and others who experience extreme violence and discrimination are being protected to the fullest extent,” said Ty Cobb, global director of the Human Rights Campaign, an advocacy group. Gay advocacy groups said they expected the commission to be a setback.
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“How do we make sure that we have a solid definition of human rights upon which to tell all our diplomats around the world how to engage on those important issues?” he asked. And while they declined to shed light on the intent of the new commission, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently told reporters it would help him decide how to think about human rights in diplomacy.
Officials at the State Department did not respond to questions about the flag policy or say whether the advancement of gay and transgender rights continues to be a foreign policy priority. “Day by day, a death by a thousand cuts, our rights as lgbt+ Americans are being eroded with the removal of a guidance here, the rewriting of a policy there, or just the quiet disappearance of a website,” she wrote. Robyn McCutcheon, a foreign service officer who in 2011 became the first transgender American diplomat to transition on the job, expressed disappointment in a recent blog post about the department’s decision not to issue the standard yearly cable encouraging embassies to mark gay pride or a day against homophobia that is observed every May 17. None would speak on the record for fear of retaliation.
In conversations this past week, American diplomats who are gay described a prevailing mood of fear and angst. The State Department’s curt rejection left gay personnel and their backers reeling. community but minority rights as well,” while showcasing “pride and confidence in our own diversity and strength as a society.” Bolsonaro, their actions would “be an opportunity to show support for not only the L.G.B.T. In a memo, teams at the consulate in Rio de Janeiro and the embassy in Brasília suggested that in light of Brazil’s increasing political polarization under Mr. Still, American diplomats in Brazil had no reason to expect official resistance to their proposals to commemorate Pride Month as in years past. The panel aims to “provide fresh thinking about human rights discourse where such discourse has departed from our nation’s founding principles of natural law and natural rights,” according to a notice posted on the Federal Register, a government journal, on May 30. The department has quietly eliminated the position of special envoy for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights as a high-profile, stand-alone job.Īnd it is creating a Commission on Unalienable Rights, which gay-rights groups fear is intended to narrow the scope of American advocacy. There was no public statement this year marking June as Pride Month, and no cable to all its missions like one last year that gave detailed suggestions on celebrating gay pride and “strongly encouraged” them to “advance LGBTI human rights policy objectives” all year. The Biden White House also reversed an order issued by Trump’s then-secretary of state Mike Pompeo on flying the pride flag at some US embassies, including in India and Australia, highlighting their support for LGBTQ people.The State Department has taken other steps that reflect its shift since the Obama administration days. Biden also reversed a ban on transgender people openly enlisting and serving in the military. On his first day in office, Biden signed an executive order directing federal agencies to protect LGBTQ people under all federal laws that prohibit discrimination based on sex. “We are proud of them.”Ī 2015 RAND study found that 5.8 % of service members identified as either lesbian, gay or bisexual. “This in no way reflects any lack of respect or admiration for people that (are from) the LGBTQ+ community, the personnel in and out of uniform who serve in this department,” Kirby added. He said that the decision was made because it could open the door for other challenges to the rule set in place in July. “There won’t be an exception made this month for the pride flag,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said.