HIV and LGBTQ rights activists reeling from Trump’s barrage of executive orders

Colin Stewart is a 45-year journalism veteran living in Southern…

Rejection of trans people, refugees, foreign aid and the World Health Organization.

U.S. President Donald Trump (Photo courtesy of Getty Images)

Reeling, LGBTQ rights and HIV activists have begun sorting through the avalanche of regressive executive orders signed yesterday by newly installed U.S. President Donald Trump, seeking to understand which ones are merely right-wing showmanship and which will harm LGBTQ and HIV-positive communities worldwide.

Trump’s decrees — obviously written by some of his extreme right-wing supporters — denied the existence of trans and intersex people, cut off U.S. foreign aid at least temporarily, withdrew the U.S. from the World Health Organization and declared that refugees would not be allowed to enter the U.S.

These are early responses to Trump’s declarations.

Denial of transgender and intersex people

Trump’s executive order denies the existence of any genders other than male and female and demands that only those terms be used in government-issued identification documents, including passports, visas, and Global Entry cards.

Trump said, “Today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female.”

Sunil Babu Pant was the first openly gay member of Parliament in Nepal, cultural emissary for inclusive (Pink/Rainbow/LGBT+) tourism in Nepal; and founder of the Blue Diamond society, the first LGBTIQ rights organization in Nepal. (Photo courtesy of the Los Angeles Blade)

From the other side of the world, a quick rejection of Trump’s position came from Sunil Babu Pant of Nepal, who was the first openly gay member of Parliament in Asia and founder of Nepal’s first LGBTIQ rights organization, the Blue Diamond Society.

“We, the Nepali gender and sexual minority (GSM/LGBTI) communities, denounce the statements made by the US President Trump regarding gender identity, ” he said. “We strongly oppose any attempts to erase or deny the existence of third genders, transgender, non-binary, two-spirited, hijras, and other gender-diverse individuals.

“We urge all US diplomatic missions under the Trump administration worldwide to refrain from promoting policies that discriminate against or undermine the rights of gender and sexual minorities globally.”

At present, the Kingdom of Nepal legally recognizes three genders and, in the past, may have recognized a total of six, Pant said.

Seventeen nations legally recognize non-binary or third gender identities, according to Equaldex. a crowd-sourced online international database of LGBT rights, country by country.

Trump’s executive order is packaged as a decree “Defending women from gender ideology extremism and restoring biological truth in the federal government”. The full text is HERE.

Withdrawal from the World Health Organization (WHO)

During his first term as president, Trump became upset with WHO during the pandemic, when he accused it of moving too slowly and being “nothing more than a corrupt globalist scam paid for by the United States but owned and controlled by China”.

Supported by billions of dollars from the U.S., its biggest donor, WHO oversees international HIV treatment efforts, monitors health trends and directs international health research.

“This is the most cataclysmic decision,” says Lawrence Gostin, professor of global health law at Georgetown University and director of WHO’s Center on Global Health Law, according to NPR . “[This is] a grave wound to American national interests and our national security. This will really leave our agencies — like the CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] and NIH [National Institutes of Health] — flying blind.”

The text of the executive order is HERE.

These LGBTQ refugees were bused back to the dangers of Kakuma Camp after being arrested during a Kenyan police roundup of refugees in Nairobi. (Photo courtesy of the O-blog-dee blog)

Suspension of the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program

Trump ordered an immediate suspension of the nation’s Refugee Admissions Program, saying that refugees are too costly to the country. He will not revive the program, he said, until it is determined that resuming refugee admissions “aligns with the interests of the United States” — something Trump has never suggested would ever be possible.

The decree dashes the hopes of hundreds of African LGBT refugees awaiting approval to travel to the United States. The same locked door now confronts former employees of the U.S. military in Afghanistan who have been seeking entry to the United States.

Trump also directed the Secretary of Homeland Security and the Secretary of State to submit a report within 90 days on whether resumption of the refugee program would be in the interest of the United States.

Melanie Nathan, executive director of the African Human Rights Coalition, which helps many LGBTQ refugees in Africa, said Trump’s “unconscionably cruel …xenophobic, anti-refugee, anti-LGBT executive order … defies common sense, and does nothing to protect America”.

“Our hearts are with all refugees and especially the most vulnerable and marginalized among refugees to include women, children and LGBTQI+ people who have spent so many years suffering in camps and dangerous protection environments, following the rules, while their quests for safety and resettlement were pending or passed extreme vetting, some poised for life-saving travel, now only to find out that they are suspended indefinitely.”

Trump’s decree stated that individuals might be admitted on an exceptional case-by-case basis. Nathan argued that “the most vulnerable among us, LGBTQI+ refugees, who are threatened with death, even within protection environments must be seen as such exceptions. We must fight for this status, while still condemning the Executive Order, in its entirety, for all.”

U.S. expands crackdown on Ugandan homophobes seeking visas

The text of the executive order is HERE.

HIV testing in Nigeria, supported by PEPFAR — HIV testing in Nigeria, supported by Pepfar

Suspension of foreign aid

Trump ordered a 90-day suspension of all U.S. foreign aid programs pending reviews to determine whether they are aligned with Trump’s policy goals.

The order claimed that “The United States foreign aid industry and bureaucracy are not aligned with American interests and in many cases [are] antithetical to American values. They serve to destabilize world peace. …”

A crucial component of U.S. foreign aid is support for the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (Pepfar), which since 2004 has saved an estimated 20 million lives through its work combatting HIV / AIDS around the world. Since 2004, Pepfar has been repeatedly authorized for a five-year term, but in 2024 Congress only approved a one-year extension. A total of $6.5 billion was allocated for Pepfar in the last fiscal year.

AP reported: It was not immediately clear how much assistance would initially be affected by the Monday order as funding for many programs has already been appropriated by Congress and is obligated to be spent, if not already spent.

The text of the executive order is HERE.