 Good afternoon and welcome. My name is Elise Grande and I am the President of the United States Institute of Peace, which was established by Congress in 1984 as a nonpartisan public institution dedicated to preventing and mitigating and helping to resolve violent conflict abroad. As part of the Institute's celebration of Pride Month, we're delighted to be hosting today's conversation on protecting gender and sexual minorities in peace building. This is a critical discussion that goes right to the heart of how to build durable lasting peace around the world. As all of us know, peace building only really works if it is inclusive and grounded in commitments to protect people, center gender and uphold the rights of everyone. Some important progress is being made in this direction. Last year, the Biden Administration issued a presidential memorandum on advancing the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, gender, queer and intersex persons around the world. One year on, executive departments and agencies across the government are reporting on the steps being taken to promote and protect the human rights of LGBTQI plus persons and reduce discrimination and violence in our diplomacy and foreign assistance. To help frame today's discussion, we are honored to share a message from the State Department's Special Envoy to advance the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, gender, queer, and intersex persons, Jessica Stern. Special Envoy Stern has a distinguished background before her current role, the Special Envoy-led Outright Action International. She has worked for Human Rights Watch. She was a Ralph Bunch Fellow at Amnesty International and an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs. Special Envoy Stern's work has been recognized and honored by numerous organizations. Before hearing our Special Envoy's message, we encourage all of you to join our conversation by using the hashtag InclusivePeaceUSIP. Hello everyone, my name is Jessica Stern and I'm the U.S. Special Envoy to advance the human rights of LGBTQI plus persons. Thank you for inviting me to speak today. It is an honor to be a part of USIP's Pride Month celebration and to open this discussion about the importance of including LGBTQI plus persons in peace-building initiatives and efforts around the world. I'm sorry I can't be with you in person, but I applaud my colleagues who are joining you today to discuss the U.S. government's efforts on advancing the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex persons around the world. The U.S. State Department and USAID have made great strides over the past years to integrate the protection of LGBTQI plus persons and issues into our broader initiatives on civilian security, violence mitigation, and violence prevention. Pride events like this are important because they give us a moment to celebrate and to reflect. We celebrate the progress that we've made to date and we reflect on the barriers that still remain. LGBTQI plus persons around the world continue to face human rights abuses, discrimination, violence, and other forms of persecution which threaten their safety, security, and dignity. They face these challenges because of who they are and who they love. LGBTQI plus persons which include women and girls, members of racial, ethnic, and religious minority groups, migrants, refugees, older persons, and persons with disabilities all face multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination such as structural barriers, discriminatory laws and policies which limit their access to justice, safety, health, education, and employment opportunities. The impact of such discrimination is compounded and make more acute in conflict settings in which LGBTQI plus persons face outsized barriers to achieving essential safety and security. The data shows that inclusive peace processes are key to creating sustainable peace and ending the cycle of conflict. Inclusion in peace building processes is critical to laying the foundation for political systems in which governments uphold their obligations to protect human rights and fundamental freedoms. Governments that do so are more likely to reflect the interests of all citizens contributing to the greater well-being of all members of society and in building a lasting peace. In addition to what the data shows us, our experience living in today's world demonstrates how we are facing challenges never before imagined. New challenges and new problems require a different kind of thinking and unique perspectives that can bring forth solutions we have not considered before. Bringing in voices of those with experiences that are different than ours, especially the most vulnerable among us, will allow us to achieve progress faster. To move beyond elite bargains and decisions made only by the powerful, we must dedicate ourselves to the protection of those who have been left out of these conversations and ensure their safety, security, and access to participation. We must do better at listening to the voices in the communities impacted by conflict to better understand what they want, what they need, and begin a process of reconciliation. We know this can be done and done well, as evidenced by the processes surrounding the comprehensive peace agreement in Colombia. In the Colombian case, the women's movement expanded its definition of gender and intentionally brought in and protected the LGBTQI plus community and other vulnerable groups. Social movements representing women displaced by violence, women farmers, representatives of Afro-Colombian and indigenous women, and LGBTQI plus activists were part of ongoing dialogues that led to the inclusion of gender sensitive language and measures throughout the peace agreement. I'm going to end with a call to action. Peacebuilding efforts and those who run them must work hand in hand with LGBTQI plus persons to more effectively include LGBTQI plus voices in the political processes from which they have been historically excluded. I'm proud that the Department of State is mainstreaming LGBTQI plus human rights issues into our broader bilateral and multilateral diplomatic engagement and ensuring that U.S. strategies, policies, and programs including those related to conflict and peacebuilding are informed by an analysis of gender, power, and conflict dynamics. For our work to be successful, we need groups like those in attendance today to help identify and document promising practices and successes, elevate the importance of human dignity, and innovate new solutions to the ever more complex world before us. Thank you again for inviting me to join you, and I wish you a very happy pride. Thank you, Special Envoy Stern. Thank you, President Lise Grande, for your analyses of the progress of and continuing challenges to the LGBTQI plus communities in conflict zones. And thank you for your eloquent calls to action on both protection and participation of these communities. Both Lise and Jessica have clearly framed our topic of today. Now I have the privilege of moderating an expert panel to explore these issues further. I'm David Young. I'm USIP's Vice President in charge of our thematic practices. These practices include those that support the inclusion of historically marginalized communities in peacebuilding. USIP has proudly supported the women, peace, and security movement as well as the youth, peace, and security movement. Now with equal pride, we look to strengthening our support to the LGBTQI plus communities. As with the so-called WPS and YPS agendas, we aim to support the protection of gender and sexual minorities in conflict countries as well as to support their participation in peace processes. I'd like to welcome warmly our three panelists, all very expert and very experienced. First, Nila Ghoshal is Senior Director of Law, Policy, and Research at Outright Action International. Before assuming this position last fall, Nila worked at Human Rights Watch as the Associate Director of LGBT Rights. Jay Gilliam is Senior LGBTQI Plus Coordinator at US Agency for International Development. Previously, he served as the Director of Global Programs at the Human Rights Campaign. And my colleague Kathleen Cougan from the State Department, she is a Senior Advisor for Criminal Justice Integration and Gender at the State Department's Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs. Previously, she's done a number of things, including working as a Legislative Counsel in the US Senate, as a Litigator in a Private Law Firm, and as a Program Manager at a Shelter for Victims of Domestic Violence. Thanks to all three of you for your leadership and for being here today. I'd like to start off the questioning in the context of special envoy, Stearns and Lisa Grande's call to action, which themselves, as they mentioned, fit into the implementation of President Biden's historic February 2021 memorandum to the heads of US departments and agencies on the advancement of LGBTQI Plus human rights around the world. So I'd like to explore the views of the panelists on these matters. Please remember, as Lee said, tweet at hashtag inclusive peace, USIP, all one word, and please, during the course of this conversation, post any questions you have or comments in the chat box on the webcast page. So let me turn to the first question, which I'm going to ask all three panelists. It's a set of questions about the protection of gender and sexual minorities in conflict countries. In what ways does your agency, or in the case of NILA, your NGO, support the protection of LGBTQI Plus communities in conflict areas? How do you prevent and mitigate violence towards these communities? Is this work part of your broader work on civilian security? And if so, what's different? What's particularly challenging about supporting gender and sexual minorities in conflicts? And if you could give us an example or two of your protection efforts. So let me first start with Kathleen, then I'll go to Jay and then NILA. Kathleen, welcome. Thanks so much, David. And good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for this very broad question. I'll do my best to try to hit on the different components. But I guess I'll just start by saying that because they target individuals or groups on the basis of identity, bias motivated crimes are particularly insidious. These are crimes that target people on the basis of identity characteristics such as gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, ethnicity, and religion. And they pose a challenge to individuals as well as to the communities and ultimately to the society as a whole. I&L promotes an approach to countering bias motivated crimes that involve reporting of data, reporting and data collection, tailoring training for criminal justice practitioners, and promoting outreach. So first, with respect to accurate reporting and collection of relevant data, this helps us, helps authorities to take steps to counter hate crimes. Accordingly, we support within I&L the voluntary implementation of the International Classification of Crime for Statistical Purposes or ICCS, which the UN Crime Commission approved in 2015. The ICCS recognizes the need to track crimes motivated by bias. Second, laws that address bias motivated violence should be accompanied by tailored training to help police, prosecutors, judges, and other criminal justice authorities identify, report, investigate, prosecute, and adjudicate hate crimes to ensure that all services and care are trauma-informed so that survivors are not re-traumatized in the process of engaging with the justice system. And moreover, it is important that criminal justice actors are cognizant of their own biases and how these impact their work. It's critically important that members of marginalized communities and other members of civil society have confidence in law enforcement and cooperate in their investigations. Building trust is a long-term process, and so we support the use of proactive outreach measures such as establishing specially-trained liaison offices with police departments, and these can promote greater information sharing to help solve crimes and even to prevent future ones. Ensuring that members of LGBTQI-plus communities, including civil society groups, are at the center of any response to an LGBTQI-plus, to anti-LGBTQI-plus violence is essential. In order for the inclusion of LGBTQI-plus persons to be better situated within our broader efforts to increase civilian security, we need to integrate inclusivity across our work. And just in short, we can do this by integrating a new module. For example, in the case of INL, we're creating a new module in collaboration with the National Center for State Courts that will address bias and discrimination. And we will roll this out at our International Law Enforcement Academies and hopefully pilot that later this year. And in addition, we are trying to integrate and think about inclusivity throughout the life cycle of any initiative starting with assessments. And so in this case, we are thinking about which identity groups, including LGBTQI-plus persons, are being left out of the criminal justice system, or in the case of corrections, which ones are overrepresented. And so in order to help us with this, we are developing some new tools to help with this analysis and hopefully improve the way that we do business. Thank you. Thanks so much, Kathleen. Thanks for sharing that very impressive work that your Bureau is doing. Let me turn next to Jay. So, Jay, please share your thoughts on protection. Sure, great. Thank you, David. And just to start off with a happy Pride Month to everyone. And thank you to the USIP for the invitation to be on this great panel to discuss these really critical issues today. I'm really looking forward to engaging with all of you on the work that you're doing for the LGBTQI-plus community. So, again, my name is Jay Galeam. I use pronouns he and his, and I am the senior LGBTQI-plus coordinator at USAID. And to start with your question, David, I actually wanted to take a little bit of a step back and talk about the broader ways that at USAID, we are approaching how to properly include and integrate LGBTQI-plus persons into all of our work. At our agency, we use the approach to protection and inclusion of LGBTQI-plus persons through an inclusive development lens. Inclusive development is an equitable development approach built on the understanding that every individual and community of all diverse identities and experiences is really instrumental in the transformation of their own societies. Their engagement through the development process leads to better outcomes. So this means advancing the human rights of LGBTQI-plus people around the world with meaningful inclusion in USAID's development, peace building, and humanitarian assistance work. You know, as senior LGBTQI-plus coordinator, I'm working with my team, with colleagues across USAID, and our partners to accomplish this really ambitious vision in a variety of ways. This includes providing technical assistance to our colleagues on how to connect, engage, and work with local LGBTQI-plus civil society groups. This means designing standalone programs that directly address the needs of LGBTQI-plus people, often in partnership with LGBTQI-plus led organizations. This means pursuing integration of LGBTQI-plus equities across all sectors of our work, making USAID more accessible and welcoming to in-country and local LGBTQI-plus partners, supporting research to better understand the needs and challenges facing LGBTQI-plus people and accessing our assistance and finding actionable outcomes to do that. And it also means ensuring that we are a leader and model in this space. And I know that our conversation today is going to show that while there's a lot being done, there's still a lot of work to do. I also want to, you know, just note that we've been working across our agency, including with USAID's Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance, as well as with our Bureau for Conflict Prevention and Stabilization and all of our colleagues there. And as part of these efforts, we've really sought to provide guidance on specific challenges that LGBTQI-plus persons face in conflict, connect them with LGBTQI-plus stakeholders to decision makers and partners, and really work across the interagency to ensure responses are integrated and LGBTQI-plus inclusive. And I just want to highlight one example of what this work looks like in terms of LGBTQI-plus inclusive development. We have what we call our multi-donor LGBTI Global Human Rights Initiative. And this really supports local efforts to protect LGBTQI-plus persons from violence, discrimination, stigma, and criminalization. And this five-year public-private partnership leverages financial and technical resources and contributions from the Swedish International Development Cooperation from Global Affairs Canada, the Australia Lesbian Foundation for Justice, the Williams Institute, Franklin and Marshall College, and Equality Without Borders. And since 2019, this partnership has provided over 130 grants totaling nearly $2.5 million to LGBTQI-plus-led organizations in nine countries. It's resourced eight regional emergency response mechanisms to address the urgent and acute needs of LGBTQI-plus people. And it's supported global, regional, and country-level research. And I'm happy to share more about some of our work as we continue our conversation today, but I just wanted to set that framing in terms of how our approach at USA really works to include LGBTQI-plus persons across our agency's efforts. Thanks. Thanks so much, Jay. And thanks for that panoramic view of your work as senior coordinator across all sectors. And again, thanks for your leadership on integrating across all sectors. So let me turn to our NGO colleague, Nila, for how things look from the perspective of outright international. Welcome, Nila. Thank you so much, David. And I want to start by just grounding this conversation a little bit in the types of violence that LGBTIQ people are experiencing in armed conflict and where, why, and how this is happening. I know we'll have time to get into that a little bit in depth later. And I'll also speak about what outright is doing in this regard. But I want to just acknowledge that we're talking about really horrific forms of violence that impact our communities in armed conflict. We're talking about things like rape and other forms of sexual violence, sexual slavery, torture, enforced disappearance. We're talking in some cases about wholesale massacres of people because they are queer or trans. And this is a reality that our communities are living with. This is a reality that our communities are living with in some of the most difficult and intractable conflicts around the world and that often has been invisible. I want to say a little bit about why and how targeting of LGBTIQ people takes place in armed conflict. I think, David, you mentioned the Women, Peace, and Security agenda. And there's been a great deal of attention, although still not enough, I would say, in kind of conflict prevention and conflict response about why and how women are targeted in armed conflict and how to include women. And I think conversations around targeting of and inclusion and protection of LGBTIQ people in armed conflict need to go hand in hand with conversations about targeting of women because gender-based violence, particularly in armed conflict, has shared roots. And this is about the violent enforcement of patriarchy, the violent enforcement of patriarchy as a form of social control. And this impacts women and queer people often in almost identical ways, although there are some differences. A lot of the conflict-related targeting of LGBTIQ people has to do with so-called social cleansing. It has to do with the enforcement of a particular narrow vision of morality in which queer people are almost inevitably excluded from what is considered acceptable. And in armed conflict, perpetrators often find that even the general civilian population who might be reacting against atrocities from the same perpetrators in other contexts might be supportive of atrocities targeting queer and trans people. And this is something that has been the case, for instance, in civil wars in Peru and Colombia in the past, where attacks on queer and trans people were used in part as a way to get buy-in from the general civilian population that a particular armed group, whether it was a government-associated paramilitary force or a rebel group, was, in theory, acting on behalf of the civilian population. And, of course, violence against queer people in armed conflict takes place in a very opportunistic way, as well. Whenever there is militarization, that means that we have things like checkpoints, which offer opportunities for the interrogation of people's gender, people's sexuality, and in countries ranging from Afghanistan to Yemen to Palestine to Honduras. We have seen ways in which militarization and checkpoints, whether in the context of armed conflict or more general kind of crisis and insecurity, has led to the targeting of queer people arrests, arbitrary arrests, detention, sexual violence at checkpoints. So these are, I just wanted to frame this with a few of the things that we're actually talking about here when we talk about peacebuilding and LGBTIQ people. And then I will just briefly mention a couple of the things that outright action international is doing to respond to these forms of violence. One thing that we're doing as a human rights organization is documenting human rights violations against LGBTIQ people in conflict settings. Recently, we've done documentation in countries like Afghanistan and Ukraine. And we're bringing our documentation to international stakeholders to try to get those violations addressed while they're occurring and before they become even more severe. We're also working actively to queer the Women, Peace and Security Agenda at the UN Security Council. The WPS agenda is rooted in Resolution 1325, which was passed by the Security Council in 2000. And this resolution has incredible historical importance in recognizing how women and girls are disproportionately impacted by violent armed conflict. And it has led to nine further resolutions at the UN on Women, Peace and Security and the creation of a sort of toolbox for addressing the gender dimensions of peace and conflict. But the original WPS resolution and the subsequent nine resolutions don't say anything about LGBTIQ people. And states have developed national action plans as part of this Women, Peace and Security Agenda, very few of those national action plans refer to LGBTIQ people. And so we're trying to work within the context of the Security Council to put LGBTIQ people on the agenda as part of the WPS agenda, not as a separate agenda, but as part and parcel of recognizing that gender-based violence affects women and affects queer people in related and in some ways different ways. We're also seeking to connect LGBTIQ people who are at risk in settings of armed conflict or in fragile states to humanitarian actors that can support them. This is something that we're working on in Afghanistan right now. Many LGBTIQ people have fled Afghanistan. The majority are still there and are stuck in situations in which they can't get out, they have very limited mobility. And it's very unclear to them which humanitarian actors might be a little bit LGBTIQ inclusive and friendly. And so part of our work involves trying to build those connections and make sure that there are humanitarian agencies on the ground that are taking into account the needs of queer people, even in very hostile circumstances. And finally, we're advocating for an inclusive understanding of gender in international and regional transitional justice mechanisms, such as the International Criminal Court. Earlier this year, we submitted a letter to the ICC on behalf of nearly 300 civil society organizations and individual activists that urged the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to understand gender in the Rome Statute in a comprehensive and holistic way. So far, nobody has ever been prosecuted for gender-based violence related to sexual orientation and gender identity at the International Criminal Court. And even in regional and national courts, there have been very few such prosecutions. Colombia broke ground last year by recognizing five LGBTIQ people as potential victims of crimes against humanity in the context of Colombia's armed conflict. But that case has not yet moved forward. And so we're supporting civil societies' efforts to seek justice that is LGBTIQ inclusive. Nila, thanks so much for sharing your work. Thank you in particular for your very powerful rendering of the anatomy of violence against gender and sexual minorities in conflict areas. And thank you for sharing the various initiatives that your organization is doing. Why don't we pivot now to the participation part of this agenda? And Nila, let me start with you as we go back down the row. As an ally and participant in the Women, Peace, and Security International movement, you're deeply involved, as you said, in querying that action agenda. And as you know so well, too often the equal halves protection and participation of the Women, Peace, and Security Agenda and the Youth, Peace, and Security Agenda are, in my view, still too much focused on the protection side and the victim side and giving short shrift to the agency side, to the leadership side, to the participation side of women of youth of the LGBTQI plus communities. So as we pivot to this topic, could you start us off on how you view the challenge of participation and what outright international is doing to promote the participation of gender and sexual minorities in peace processes or in peace building generally? Thank you. Yeah, thank you for the question, David. I think we can view participation in a couple of different ways. First of all, everything that outright does is based around the idea that LGBTIQ civil society's voices need to be centered. And so when we work at the UN, for instance, in the Women, Peace, and Security space, often what we're trying to do is bring in speakers to those spaces, to the Security Council, and to other spaces that are discussing peace and security and bring queer voices from the ground to speak from their personal experiences. And so recently we've been supporting groups in Colombia, but also for instance, queer activists from Afghanistan to gain access to some of these spaces and conversations. I think another important point around participation of queer people is that as you mentioned with the Women, Peace, and Security agenda, there's often been an excessive focus on victimhood and not on what women and girls actually bring to the table. And the same is certainly true for queer folks. What we find in some cases of conflict is that queer people have tremendous resilience that comes from having always been marginalized within their context. This is something that we're seeing in Ukraine right now, for instance, where there are severe challenges in humanitarian aid in Ukraine actually reaching people in need. And this is not necessarily due in the case of queer communities to some kind of LGBTIQ phobia in the way in which aid is being distributed. It's just because bureaucracy makes it difficult sometimes for aid to get to where it's needed. And what we've seen in Ukraine is a tremendous surge in queer civil society activism, where organizations that were doing advocacy in the past have essentially pivoted to being full-time service providers. And people have been—lesbian activists have been leading this charge, have been driving around Ukraine, getting aid to places where it's needed. Organizations in Ukraine like Insight, which is a lesbian-led organization, have also been getting aid to people who are not queer. So Insight is doing a tremendous aid distribution to women and children generally across the board. And so we see queer people at the center of these struggles as agents who are not only serving their own communities but are also serving other communities. In countries like Lebanon or Myanmar, where there has been kind of mass mobilization against coups or against corrupt governments, queer people have often been at the center of these movements ready to be out in the streets, protests, and provide support to others. And so I think that when we think about kind of queering the peace and security agenda or queering peace building, we also need to look to these examples in which queer people have been active agents in responding to atrocities on their own terms. And we need to figure out ways to support and bolster that work. Thank you, Mila. And thanks for that great work. Let me turn to Kathleen. Kathleen, I know your bureau focuses on criminal justice practitioners, really training them, as you said, in anti-bias activities, trainings, and maybe you could give us a flavor on the participation side, how you might engage civil society members, NGOs, from these important communities as you do your work on the governmental side. Thank you. Thanks, David. And a great point I neglected to say earlier that the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, for which I work, or INL, is the acronym we use, supports efforts in over 90 partner countries to build strong civil, strong criminal justice institutions that are needed to foster peace and inclusive security for their citizens. So security and justice sector efforts are more effective, of course, when they include and address the unique needs of different segments of society. And if access to justice is seen to be limited to only some groups, it will threaten the legitimacy of the security and justice institutions. Criminal justice systems that are more inclusive are more responsive to the communities that they serve. So as I mentioned earlier, it's essential that security and justice sectors respond, for example, to violence that targets people for characteristics that are fundamental to their identity, such as race and ethnicity, religion, disability, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, or characteristics at the intersection of multiple characteristics. And as I said before, this is often referred to as bias-motivated violence or hate crimes, which is intended to hurt the victims and the other members to intimidate other members of marginalized groups and affect the broader communities. So one of the things that we have seen within INL is that we do quite a bit of training, peer-to-peer training through our international law enforcement academies. And one approach that we've used to, in the courses, for example, our countering bias-motivated violence course is a session that allows criminal justice practitioners to have an exchange with LGBTQI plus advocates in the classroom. And that conversation would be facilitated by the instructors, which in many cases are U.S. law enforcement personnel. So we've received a lot of very positive feedback on this approach from practitioners as well as advocates, and it provides a safe space to engage one another. And I guess it's also, I think, important to mention that as Neela outlined, the discrimination and violence against LGBTQI plus persons is often exacerbated during times of conflict or in conflict-affected environments, many of which are the types of environment in which we work. And this is, of course, for a variety of reasons, including weakened criminal justice institutions. And so if we are thinking about what type of intervention to undertake in such an environment, the best way for us to understand that is through the experiences of LGBTQI plus persons. And so we do this through direct consultations with LGBTQI plus community members and organizations. So for example, in one INL program that was designed to increase accountability for perpetrators of sexual and gender-based violence, including conflict-related sexual violence, we involved an LGBTQI plus organization as a participant in the stakeholder consultations. And that group helped to guide the project. And this approach helped INL to ensure that the unique experiences of LGBTQI plus persons would be addressed within the project's implementation. So in sum, we recognize that it's very important to consult with LGBTQI plus persons in civil society organizations to ensure that the policy and programming interventions that we undertake do no harm and adequately address safety and security, confidentiality, and privacy. Thank you. Thank you, Kathleen. Thank you for your bureau's very inclusive approach to your important training programs across the world. Now let me turn to Jay. Jay, in your opening remarks, underline the importance of participation. And so please share your further thoughts on the topic. Sure, yeah. Thanks for that. And also just wanted to echo what Nila said in terms of our human rights groups that are working on LGBTQI plus issues, often having to transfer overnight the work that they're doing to be able to provide assistance, whether that is in humanitarian space and conflict and peace building, and being able to acknowledge and recognize that work that they're doing, that they are bearing not only the brunt of acute conflicts, but also having to like fundamentally reshape their organizations from the ground up and provide support in new ways that they weren't really prepared for. So just wanted to echo what Nila said. I heard that from groups from Ukraine and from around the world in different really challenging conflicts and situations there. In terms of participation, I'll highlight a couple of programs and projects from USAID in terms of how we try to really get LGBT pride plus inclusion and participation. One is from our Center for Conflict and Violence Prevention. They are actually currently updating their conflict assessment framework, which includes key violence prevention dynamics. And this update is explicitly emphasizing an inclusive approach that really helps to address patterns of vulnerability to violence and protection factors for groups that are facing increased risk of violence, including LGBT pride plus persons. And in a recent pilot of this framework, key issues for LGBT plus persons in the community were incorporated into the broader analysis. And some of these issues were along the lines of protection for trans communities, lack of access to safe houses, legal barriers, issues of sexual violence, all were included in these analysis. And by really ensuring an inclusive approach is mainstreamed into these frameworks, USAID can better ensure that LGBT pride plus issues receive adequate attention, not only attention, but programming and resources and the development and peace billing assistance that we offer. USAID also is in partnership with LGBT pride plus organizations to support a variety of legal assistance and quote, know your rights initiatives. And these really help survivors of violence navigate challenging legal environments for redress. And this work includes sensitizing and linking our gender-based violence programs and implementing partners with knowledge on LGBT pride plus and topics around sexual orientation, gender identity and expression and sex characteristics. And in other contexts, USAID is supporting social and behavior change interventions that really work to address the root causes of anti LGBT pride plus violence, including robust stakeholder engagement and capacity building with LGBT pride plus groups. Thanks so much, Jay. I'm looking at the clock and I'm eager to get to audience member questions. But before we go there, you're not off the hook yet. So we're now entering the USIP Pride event lightning round. And I'm going to put you each on the spot and ask you to give a particular scorecard on President Biden's historic memorandum of February 2021. And you've said a lot of great things about your agency's organization. So my question to you is what's one thing that you can do better on your Biden LGBTQI plus human rights agenda. And so Kathleen, if you were briefing Secretary Blinken or Jay, if you're briefing the Ministry of Power, or I'm going to up the stakes for Neela if you're invited to the UN General Assembly this September and you're advising the heads of state and Secretary General Guterres, one thing they can all do better, bilats and multilats on this important agenda. What should they be doing? So let me start with Jay. I'm Administrator Power for the moment. Great. It's really hard to narrow them down to one. So I'm going to do a couple really quickly. Obviously, the presidential report was really historic and that we got so many agencies across the federal government to really report on and talk about the ways that they're supporting global LGBTQI plus human rights and really advancing those issues. If I had to share with Administrator Power work that still needs to be done and challenges in this space, it's one that we continue to increase resources and budget for global LGBTQI plus issues and inclusive development. Number two, we also really need to just continue to think more strategically and how to swiftly respond to shocks and stressors that are impacting the global LGBTQI plus community. And this goes from the anti-rights and anti-gender restrictive movements, humanitarian crises, obviously peace building and conflict settings, COVID climate change. So it runs the gamut there. And then lastly, I would just say we need to continue to recognize and make visible the LGBTQI plus community and the work that they're doing and be able to really strengthen and build the capacity so that we are building a movement of folks that are able to bring about change from the ground up. Great. Thanks, Jay. So Kathleen, now I'm Secretary Blinken. So tell it like it is, Kathleen. What are we doing not well enough here? Thank you. Well, so as a little bit of background for Inel's role since the release of the presidential memorandum, we have been convening. Actually, one of our deputy assistant secretaries has been convening a new interagency LGBTQI plus violence reduction and civilian security assistance working group on a monthly basis. And the working group also meets quarterly with colleagues from civil society. We were invited by the National Security Council to lead this working group with the participation of the Department of Defense, the Department of Justice, USAID, and other State Department bureaus to identify violence trends targeting LGBTQI plus communities and to identify ways to reduce levels of violence against them. And I guess, you know, in terms of the challenges, I think as I mentioned briefly earlier, it's really important to make changes in the way that we do work to help us integrate the rights of LGBTQI plus persons and members of other marginalized groups throughout project life cycles, including through trainings and assessments and project design, very similar to the type of work that Jay referenced in terms of USAID's inclusive development work. But this will help us to support our host country counterparts in offering inclusive security and justice for all. I also mentioned our capacity building work, but it's also important, of course, to note that capacity building only works if the will exists to use that capacity. So I think we need to think about ways that we can leverage the will that we do find in our host country counterparts. And then just, I think, you know, it's an ongoing struggle for us to find data about the extent to which LGBTQI plus persons have access to security and justice. And so we, I think, are seeking to better understand and move toward implementing best practices in data collection, which of course evolve over time. And hopefully working with our partners to strengthen data collection practices is another concrete way that we can improve the ability of justice systems to understand and respond to bias. Thank you, Kathleen, for that very compelling action list. So, Neela, you're on the rostrum in the General Assembly in September and you're introducing a proposal, civil society proposal for a LGBTQI plus peace and security agenda. What would you brought the delegates about? Yes, I actually would like the delegates to think about specifically what they are doing to prevent atrocities against LGBTIQ people in fragile states and other countries that are in or at risk of armed conflict. I want to challenge states to recognize that no country should be considered too hard to take on in terms of LGBTIQ violence. This, I think, has been a mindset that has prevented us from getting to where we need to be in places like Afghanistan. Under Karzai, there was a government that was receptive to the international community and to donors, and yet almost nobody did anything on LGBTIQ rights because it was considered to be too hard. And we look at the consequences of that now when we see queer people being attacked by the Taliban in Afghanistan and being arbitrarily detained and in some cases potentially executed. And so, I want to challenge governments to look at a specific set of countries where if they're not already talking to LGBTIQ people, and I don't mean just gay men, I also mean lesbian and queer women, intersex people and trans people, they need to be. I recognize these countries are hard. We as a civil society organization don't know LGBTIQ civil society organizations in all of these countries, but we have a staff of 32 people. And so, governments need to go a little bit further. And I'm talking about countries like Yemen, Ethiopia, Sudan, Northern Nigeria, Somalia, Iraq, Syria, Central African Republic, Chad, Mali. These are places where our communities are at risk. We don't want one of these countries to be the next Afghanistan in terms of queer people being so heavily targeted that they define themselves suddenly facing zero rights and the potential of mass violence. So, let's put those countries on the agenda in terms of women, peace and security, and in terms of gender, peace and security more broadly, and look at the needs of LGBTIQ people. Thank you, Neela. Very powerful. Let me start with you with an audience question, and I'll interpret it thusly. Should there be an international resolution UN international convention or UN resolution on the rights of LGBTIQI plus in general and regarding peace building? So, it's a bit of my same question about a new agenda. Would an international convention or UN resolutions help? At the moment, if any country or group tried to propose a UN convention on violence against LGBTIQ people or violence based on sexual orientation or gender identity, it wouldn't pass. And, you know, it wouldn't be a large number of states wouldn't support it. It would have very limited support, and it would likely be something that would expend a lot of political capital without getting very far. And so, we at outright make the argument that while perhaps at some point in the future that might be an important goal in order to further put LGBTIQ people's rights on the international agenda, right now LGBTIQ people's rights are catered for by the existing body of international law. So, if you look at the Convention Against Torture, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, SIDA, Children's Rights, et cetera, all of these conventions apply to LGBTIQ people, and the Yogyakarta principles and the Yogyakarta principles plus 10 are sort of efforts to codify what international law already says about LGBTIQ people. So, I wouldn't say that a new convention is necessarily the answer, but I do think there's plenty of space in UN spaces for things like general comments from treaty bodies for sets of guidelines that further institutionalize the rights of LGBTIQ people, including in armed conflict. Thank you, Nila. I'm going to ask this next question from the audience to all three of you. Jay and Kathleen, before their government service, have spent time in the private sector or the NGO sector. Nila has been around the block in the NGO sector, but knows governments well. So, the question is, I'll paraphrase, for people starting out in this field, but without expertise or experience, where should I start? What steps could I take to get into this important work? Let me start with Jay Kathleen and back to Nila. Sure, yeah. Paul, one, thank you. I'm glad you're interested in this space. I think there is obviously a lot happening as we discussed today. There are lots of groups or organizations to follow, as well as the work that we're doing in the government. And so, I would say, just stay abreast of what we're doing. The Presidential Memorandum Report is obviously a really great place to start, to have a really great understanding of what we're doing in the federal government to promote global human rights for LGBTIQ-plus persons. There are a number of NGOs, including outright where Nila is from, to follow and have issued lots of reports. There is the UN Independent Expert on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity that you could follow, and he has also issued lots of reports, and I believe he has one coming up on peacebuilding and conflict settings and how to meaningfully include LGBTIQ-plus persons in that. And there are a number of other global organizations and membership organizations, like ILGA, which is a global and regional-based organization that works on behalf of LGBTQI-plus led organizations and civil society groups and stuff. So really, just start to get engaged, start to network with those folks that are working in this space, and really start to understand the issues that we are all grappling with, which as you've heard, run the gamut from not only peacebuilding and conflict and addressing the needs and challenges of LGBTIQ-plus persons there, but also and humanitarian assistance and human rights and combating violence and discrimination and stigmatization and criminalization of LGBTIQ-plus persons. So I would tell the person to start there. Thanks, Jay. Kathleen. Thanks, David. This is really a great question. I really appreciated Jay's response. I thought that was very thorough, and so I'm not sure I have too much to add. A few thoughts that came to my mind include the idea that thinking about our own community, that's something that I have done throughout my career, is even if I am working in the international sphere, I try to think about how these types of issues are being addressed in my own community, and so trying to stay involved with local organizations as well as international organizations. I think that, again, just drawing on my own experience, my background has included so many different steps that I think have sort of led me to my current work, including studying discrimination and discrimination laws, laws that protect against discrimination, to working in a shelter for victims of domestic violence, and then also to working at the policy level on the Hill. So I don't think there is any one particular pathway, but I was delighted for the question, and I'm sure that somebody who is mission driven will find their way. Thanks. Thank you, Kathleen. Nila, please. Yeah, thank you. I think I'm not sure whether the person who asked the question is from the U.S. or from somewhere else, given that this is an internationally accessible webinar, but I just want to urge them to do whatever they can to hold their government accountable. I know that in the U.S., for instance, I believe that the Women, Peace and Security Strategy is soon to be updated. I fully trust with this government and these allies that we have right now in government that it will be inclusive of LGBTIQ people, but we need to keep our government on their toes and remind them that there is a significant constituency here that wants to ensure that we have the right protections in place. And governments around the world also have national action plans on Women, Peace and Security. So if you're in another state, please look at what your national action plan looks like and call on your government to ensure that it includes LGBTIQ people. And I also, not knowing much about the person who asked the question, want to suggest that each of us within whatever sectors in which we're active can work to build alliances between groups that critically need to come together for to make progress on these issues. There are a lot of silos between LGBTIQ groups, women's and feminist groups, groups that work on peace building, groups that work on human rights. Throughout most of the world, these groups aren't working in coalition. And so I think from wherever you sit, whichever of these kinds of civil society structures you have connection to, urge them to integrate their work with others so that we can have queer, feminist, human rights oriented peace building and pursuit of justice. Thank you, Neela. You sideswiped my last question, which was going to be for you also, which comes from a participant who really asks about how gender and sexual minority rights can be situated within the broader field activity of democracy building and human rights protection. And I think just everything you've said during the last hour has spoken to that. So given we're now at the top of the new hour, I'm going to bring our exciting discussion to a close. Let me thank all of the audience for joining us today. Let me thank the organizers of this important event. And most of all, let me thank my three panelists for both sharing their thoughts and equally for the leadership they're providing on this very, very important part and frontier of peace building and conflict resolution. So thanks to all of you. Thanks for joining us at USIP and have a good day. Happy Pride Month to everybody. Bye-bye.