State Department Removes Anti-LGBTQ+ Violence From Human Rights Report Draft

[Jessica_Rose]

State Department Removes Anti-LGBTQ+ Violence From Human Rights Report Draft

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/state-department-removes-anti-lgbtq-violence-from-human-rights-report-draft/ar-AA1K7D68?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=26dad23130b14945f58feccb4ce93147&ei=100

Story by Lil Kalish (7 Aug 2025)

The Trump administration has removed all references to violence against LGBTQ+ people and gender-based violence in drafts of the State Department's much anticipated annual report on international human rights.

The draft of the report, which was leaked to and first reported by The Washington Post on Wednesday, scales back its critiques of abuses in countries with a record of human rights abuses. In particular, the Post learned of drafts of  human rights reports for El Salvador, Israel and Russia that completely excise references of LGBTQ+ people and violence toward those communities.

The erasure of LGBTQ+ people and the abuses they face in the draft report underscores the Trump administration's intention to scale back references to human rights broadly and take its anti-LGBTQ+ agenda worldwide.

A former State Department employee, Keifer Buckingham, said the removal of references to violence against LGBTQ+ people was a "glaring omission," especially when it comes to Russia. In 2023, Russia's supreme court deemed what it called an "international LGBT public movement" as extremist, and the courts began their first convictions of people last year under the order.

Uzra Zeya, the CEO of Human Rights First, an international human rights nonprofit, said in a statement that the changes were "a radical break" from the original goal to "objectively and even-handedly describe the human rights situation in every country and territory in the world."

[Jen T.]

Remember during the pandemic when Emperor Don suggested that we just stop testing for Covid so the numbers would look better? Same thing here. If we refuse to acknowledge the issue then it doesn't exist and *poof* it goes away, just like that.