On Pride Day, during the last weekend of June, foreign ministries including those representing Australia, Canada, Brazil, and a number of European Union countries came together to issue a joint statement celebrating LGBTQ+ rights.
The statement, which also included other South American countries like Colombia, along with Ireland, expressed that the group of figureheads spoke as one body “to champion the rights of LGBTQI people.”
“At a time when hate speech and hate crimes are on the rise, and in view of efforts to strip LGBTQI people of their rights, we reject all forms of violence, criminalization, stigmatization or discrimination, which constitute human rights violations,” the statement read. “We call on all States to join us on this path, repealing discriminatory laws and refusing to adopt new laws that criminalize relations between persons of the same sex or punish people for their sexual orientation or gender identity.”
Noticeably absent from the group, and one of the largest centers of recently social decaying acceptance of queer-identifying people, is the United States.
During the Biden presidency and the days prior January 20, the USA could be seen as a champion of gay rights, given many of the opportunities extended to the community before Donald Trump’s second inauguration.
Within the first six months of Trump’s return to office, a slew of executive orders froze out multiple minority groups, including that declaring that only two sexes exist and pushing other governmental bodies to embrace that notion. As well as, the Trump admin has taken away protective rights from LGBTQ youth. Transgender people have been one of the biggest targets – with rights to serve in the military stripped away, along with participating in school sports in most states.
The United States is not alone in having its mark missing from the collective statement. Hungary is facing its own crisis with gay rights. Prime Minister Viktor Orban has attempted to ban LGBTQ-centric displays banned from the country, including Pride events (that was met with country-wide protests).
When asked for comments by the news platform Reuters about the statement, as of this writing, United States officials had not responded.