From the first day of his presidency, Joe Biden showed how his administration would differ from his predecessor with a suite of executive orders and through his decision to rejoin the Paris climate agreement .
And it didn’t take much longer for Biden to show a particularly clear difference from Trump in his policies regarding LGBTQ+ rights, as he reversed the former president’s transgender military ban as well as the previous administration’s rollback on Title IX protections for transgender students.
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But while these decisions obviously have a direct impact on the lives of transgender Americans, it seems that the Biden administration is also pushing back against the more symbolic moves that the Trump administration made on this topic internationally.
On April 23, Secretary of State Antony Blinken sent an internal State Department memo outlining a change in policy for all U.S. embassies.
As ABC News reported , this message granted “blanket written authorization” for all American embassies and consulates to fly a Pride flag alongside the American flag on external flagpoles.
Blinken had also previously pledged to name a “special envoy for the human rights of LGBTI persons.” However, this person has not been selected at the time of this writing.
This announcement comes as a reversal of a previous Pride flag policy set by Blinken’s predecessor, Mike Pompeo.
According to ABC News , his policy required embassies to fly only the American flag on official flagpoles.
Although this policy supposedly provided an avenue for embassies to request special permission to fly the Pride flag, that permission was consistently denied.
This restriction was most notably resisted by the U.S. embassy in South Korea, which displayed the Pride flag on the building’s façade.
According to The New York Times , this was once accompanied by a Black Lives Matter banner that the Trump administration ordered to be removed.
When that banner came down, the Pride flag went with it.
But while Blinken’s message heralds the end of such measures, the State Department stressed, “This is an authorization, not a requirement.”
As The New York Times reported , this was in anticipation of potential security issues arising from flying the flag in nations where same-sex relationships are illegal.
When it comes to regions such as the Middle East and North Africa where this is commonly the case, the State Department recommended a “do no harm” policy to prevent violent backlash against local LGBTQ+ populations.
But the initiatives the State Depertment is now pursuing concern more than just what kinds of flags embassies can display.
According to ABC News, the department is in the process of providing asylum categories for LGBTQ+ people fleeing persecution in their home countries, as well as lobbying for the repeal of laws criminalizing “LGBTQI+ status or conduct” and developing a coalition of nations and international organizations to support LGBTQ+ rights.
h/t: ABC News , The New York Times
