Statement by HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra on the White House LGBTQI+ Report

Today, the U.S. Government released a first of its kind progress report on implementation of President Biden’s Memorandum on Advancing the Human Rights of LGBTQI+ Persons Around the World.  The progress demonstrates the U.S. commitment to promoting and protecting the human rights of LGBTQI+ people around the world through our diplomacy and foreign assistance.

Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra released the following statement:

“Promoting health equity is at the core of our work at HHS, both in the United States and around the world. That vision requires ensuring that all people – regardless of race, gender, age, disability, gender identity or sexual orientation – have access to quality healthcare services. Today I reaffirm the importance of our work to advance the human rights of LGBTQI+ persons around the world, and I call on the Department to continue building on existing efforts to demonstrate global leadership on these issues, as well as to support the identification and implementation of best practices in programming around the world.”

HHS Actions to Promote and Protect LGBTQI+ Rights Around the World

The report highlights some of the ways that HHS has taken action to promote and protect the rights of LGBTQI+ persons around the world since the beginning of the Biden-Harris Administration, including:

• HHS has also taken proactive measures to support nondiscrimination in foreign assistance funding through the development of an equity appendix for the annual update to the Notice of Funding Award guidance.
• The Administration for Children and Families, through the Office of Refugee Resettlement, provides specific services and tools to better support LGBTQI+ refugees and asylees through the Preferred Communities program, as well as the Refugee Technical Assistance Program.
• The National Institutes of Health competitively funds research grants to organizations in the U.S. and around the world to address key issues affecting LGBTQI+ populations, including testing interventions to address violence against transgender women in Brazil, and testing interventions to improve health outcomes for youth, including LGBTQI+ youth around the world.
• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is expanding training for HIV service providers to ensure client-centered services for key populations, including the LGBTQI+ community, through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.
• The Health Resources and Services Administration is working with healthcare providers around the world to address stigma to improve continuity of care for LGBTQI+ populations.
• The HHS Office of Global Affairs is working with multilateral, bilateral, and civil society partners to promote and protect the human rights of LGBTQI+ persons, including advancing language to that effect through multilateral negotiations.

The full report is available to the public at https://www.state.gov/lgbtqi-human-rights/. A White House fact sheet on the report is available at https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/04/28/fact-sheet-u-s-agencies-are-advancing-the-human-rights-of-lgbtqi-persons-around-the-world/.