Trump administration erases LGBTQ people from foreign aid policy

The Trump administration has once again been caught removing references to LGBTQ people from official government documents.

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) released a draft text for a revised version of their Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment Policy, removing several references to LGBTQ people that were included in the previous version from 2012.

Related: Trump administration sued for possible attempt to write LGBTQ people out of human rights law

USAID is the federal agency that manages over $27 billion in foreign aid and development assistance – more than half of the foreign aid the U.S. gives each year with missions in over 100 countries.

The 2012 version of the policy on gender equality discussed LGBTQ people at several points. For example, it previously defined gender-based violence as “violence directed at an individual based on his or her biological sex, gender identity, or perceived adherence to socially defined norms of masculinity or femininity,” and a footnote expanded on this to specifically name anti-LGBTQ violence as a form of gender-based violence that concerns USAID.

The 2012 document also has a list of types of organizations that USAID should be partnering with in its missions and it includes “lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender advocates.”

Neither of those references appears in the 2020 policy.

The 2012 policy uses the expression…

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