On February 4, US president Joe Biden issued a presidential memorandum, pledging to fight for LGBTQ+ rights across the globe.
In a speech to the state department, reported by the Washington Blade, Biden vowed to “reinvigorate our leadership on LGBTQ+ issues and to do it internationally,” adding: “We will ensure diplomacy and foreign assistance are working to promote the rights of those individuals included by combatting criminalization and promoting LGBTQ+ refugees and asylum seekers”.
He said the US “cannot afford to be absent any longer on the world stage”, and that his administration will encourage national and global equality: “When we defend equal rights of the people the world over, of women and girls, of LGBTQ+ individuals,.