mental health outcomes and violence, as a step to-
ward mitigating those costs. 
(5) Violence and discrimination based on sexual 
orientation and gender identity are documented in 
the Department of State’s annual Country Human 
Rights Reports to Congress. These reports continue 
to show a clear pattern of human rights violations, 
including murder, rape, torture, death threats, extor-
tion, and imprisonment, in every region of the world 
based on sexual orientation and gender identity. In 
many instances police, prison, military, and civilian 
government authorities have been directly complicit 
in abuses aimed at LGBTQI citizens. 
(6) As documented by the State Department, 
LGBTQI individuals are subjected in many coun-
tries to capricious imprisonment, loss of employ-
ment, housing, access to health care, societal stigma, 
and discrimination. LGBTQI-specific restrictions on 
basic freedoms of assembly, press, and speech exist 
in every region of the world. 
(7) Targeted sanctions are an important tool to 
push for accountability for violations of the human 
rights of LGBTQI people. 
(8) Anti-LGBTQI laws and discrimination pose 
significant risks for LGBTQI youth who come out to 
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their family or community and often face rejection, 
homelessness, and limited educational and economic 
opportunities. These factors contribute to increased 
risks of substance abuse, suicide, and HIV infection 
among LGBTQI youth. 
(9) Anti-LGBTQI laws also increase global 
health risks. Studies have shown that when 
LGBTQI people, especially LGBTQI youth, face dis-
crimination, they are less likely to seek HIV testing, 
prevention, and treatment services. 
(10) LGBTQI populations are disproportion-
ately impacted by the Mexico City Policy, also widely 
referred to as the ‘‘global gag rule’’. LGBTQI people 
often receive much of their health care through re-
productive health clinics, and organizations that can-
not comply with the policy are forced to discontinue 
work on United States-supported global health 
projects that are frequently used by LGBTQI popu-
lations, including HIV prevention and treatment, 
stigma reduction, and research. 
(11) At the beginning of his second term, Presi-
dent Donald Trump reinstated the global gag rule 
before abruptly terminating nearly all foreign aid 
contracts. 
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(12) Because they face tremendous discrimina-
tion in the formal labor sector, many sex workers 
are also LGBTQI individuals, and many sex-worker- 
led programs and clinics serve the LGBTQI commu-
nity with safe, non-stigmatizing, medical and social 
care. USAID has also referred to sex workers as a 
‘‘most-at-risk population’’. The anti-prostitution loy-
alty oath that health care providers receiving United 
States assistance must take isolates sex-worker-led 
and serving groups from programs and reinforces 
stigma, undermining both the global AIDS response 
and human rights. The Supreme Court found this 
requirement unconstitutional as it applies to United 
States nongovernmental organizations and their for-
eign affiliates in 2013. 
(13) According to the Trans Murder Monitoring 
Project, which monitors homicides of transgender in-
dividuals, there were at least 350 cases of reported 
killings of trans and gender-diverse people between 
October 1, 2023, and September 30, 2024. 
(14) In many countries, intersex individuals ex-
perience prejudice and discrimination because their 
bodies do not conform to general expectations about 
sex and gender. Because of these expectations, medi-
cally unnecessary interventions are often performed 
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in infancy without the consent or approval of 
intersex individuals, in violation of international 
human rights standards, and are then often denied 
official identification papers, blocking them from ac-
cessing basic services and legal protections. 
(15) Asylum and refugee protection are critical 
last-resort protections for LGBTQI individuals, but 
those who seek such protections face ostracization 
and abuse in refugee camps and detention facilities. 
They are frequently targeted for violence, including 
sexual assault, in refugee camps and in immigration 
detention. LGBTQI individuals may be segregated 
against their will for long periods in solitary confine-
ment, in an effort to protect them from such vio-
lence, but prolonged solitary confinement itself rep-
resents an additional form of abuse that is pro-
foundly damaging to the social and psychological 
well-being of any individual. 
(16) The global COVID–19 pandemic exacer-
bated inequalities that LGBTQI individuals face, in-
cluding access to health care, stigma, and discrimi-
nation, undermining LGBTQI rights around the 
world. 
(17) In December 2011, President Barack 
Obama directed all Federal foreign affairs agencies 
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to ensure that their diplomatic, humanitarian, health 
and foreign assistance programs take into account 
the needs of marginalized LGBTQI communities 
and persons. 
(18) In 2015, the Department of State estab-
lished the position of Special Envoy for the Human 
Rights of LGBTQI Persons. 
(19) In 2021, President Joseph Biden issued 
the Memorandum on Advancing the Human Rights 
of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and 
Intersex Persons Around the World, which stated 
that it is the policy of the United States to pursue 
an end to violence and discrimination on the basis 
of sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, 
or sex characteristics and called for United States 
global leadership on LGBTQI rights. 
(20) In Bostock v. Clayton County, the Su-
preme Court held that title VII of the Civil Rights 
Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination on the basis of 
gender identity and sexual orientation. On January 
20, 2021, President Biden issued Executive Order 
13988 to enforce Bostock, which orders all agency 
heads to determine the additional steps they should 
take to ensure that administration policies are fully 
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implemented consistent with Bostock, including the 
Secretary of State and the Administrator of USAID. 
(21) The use of United States diplomatic tools, 
including the Department of State’s exchange and 
speaker programs, to address the human rights 
needs of marginalized communities has helped in-
form public debates in many countries regarding the 
protective responsibilities of any democratic govern-
ment. 
(22) Inclusion of human rights protections for 
LGBTQI individuals in United States trade agree-
ments, as in the United States-Mexico-Canada 
Agreement, and trade preference programs is in-
tended both to ensure a level playing field for United 
States business and to provide greater workplace 
protections overseas, compatible with those of the 
United States. 
(23) Engaging multilateral fora and inter-
national institutions is critical to impacting global 
norms and to broadening global commitments to 
fairer standards for the treatment of all people, in-
cluding LGBTQI people. The United States must 
remain a leader in the United Nations system and 
has a vested interest in the success of that multilat-
eral engagement. 
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(24) United States participation in the Equal 
Rights Coalition, which is a new intergovernmental 
coalition of more than 40 governments and leading 
civil society organizations that work together to pro-
tect the human rights of LGBTQI people around the 
world, is vital to international efforts to respond to 
violence and impunity. 
(25) Those who represent the United States 
abroad, including our diplomats, development spe-
cialists and military, should reflect the diversity of 
our country and honor the United States call to 
equality, including through proud and open service 
abroad by LGBTQI United States citizens and those 
living with HIV. 
SEC. 3. DOCUMENTING AND RESPONDING TO BIAS-MOTI-
VATED VIOLENCE AGAINST LGBTQI PEOPLE 
ABROAD. 
(a) INFORMATION REQUIRED TO BE INCLUDED IN 
ANNUAL COUNTRY REPORTS ON HUMAN RIGHTS PRAC-
TICES.— 
(1) SECTION 116.—Section 116(d) of the For-
eign Assistance Act of 1961 (22 U.S.C. 2151n(d)) 
is amended— 
(A) in paragraph (11)(C), by striking ‘‘; 
and’’ and inserting a semicolon; 
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(B) in paragraph (12)(C)(ii), by striking 
the period at the end and inserting ‘‘; and’’; 
and 
(C) by adding at the end the following new 
paragraph: 
‘‘(13) wherever applicable, the nature and ex-
tent of criminalization, discrimination, and violence 
by state and non-state actors based on sexual ori-
entation or gender identity, as those terms are de-
fined in section 12 of GLOBE Act of 2025, or sex 
characteristics, including an identification of those 
countries that have adopted laws or constitutional 
provisions that criminalize or discriminate based on 
sexual orientation, gender identity, or sex character-
istics, including descriptions of such laws and provi-
sions.’’. 
(2) SECTION 502B.—Section 502B of the For-
eign Assistance Act of 1961 (22 U.S.C. 2304) is 
amended— 
(A) by redesignating the second subsection 
(i) (relating to child marriage status) as sub-
section (j); and 
(B) by adding at the end the following new 
subsection: 
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‘‘(k) SEXUAL ORIENTATION, GENDER IDENTITY, 
AND SEX CHARACTERISTICS.—The report required under 
subsection (b) shall include, wherever applicable, the na-
ture and extent of criminalization, discrimination, and vio-
lence by state and non-state actors based on sexual ori-
entation or gender identity, as those terms are defined in 
section 12 of the GLOBE Act of 2025, or sex characteris-
tics, including an identification of those countries that 
have adopted laws or constitutional provisions that crim-
inalize or discriminate based on sexual orientation, gender 
identity, or sex characteristics, including descriptions of 
such laws and provisions.’’. 
(b) REVIEW
AT
DIPLOMATIC
AND
CONSULAR 
POSTS.— 
(1) IN
GENERAL.—In preparing the annual 
country reports on human rights practices required 
by section 116 or 502B of the Foreign Assistance 
Act of 1961, as amended by subsection (a), the Sec-
retary of State shall obtain information from each 
diplomatic and consular post with respect to the fol-
lowing: 
(A) Incidents of violence against LGBTQI 
people in the country in which such post is lo-
cated. 
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(B) An analysis of the factors enabling or 
aggravating such incidents, such as government 
policy, societal pressure, or external actors. 
(C) The response, whether public or pri-
vate, of the personnel of such post with respect 
to such incidents. 
(2) ADDRESSING BIAS-MOTIVATED VIOLENCE.— 
The Secretary shall include in the annual strategic 
plans of the regional bureaus concrete diplomatic 
strategies, programs, and policies to address bias- 
motivated violence using information obtained pursu-
ant to paragraph (1), such as programs to build ca-
pacity among civil society or governmental entities to 
document, investigate, and prosecute instances of 
such violence and provide support to victims of such 
violence. 
(c) INTERAGENCY GROUP.— 
(1) ESTABLISHMENT.—There is established an 
interagency group on responses to urgent threats to 
LGBTQI people in foreign countries (in this sub-
section referred to as the ‘‘interagency group’’), that 
shall be chaired by the Secretary of State and in-
clude the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of the 
Treasury, the Administrator of the United States 
Agency for International Development, the Attorney 
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