First lady Jill Biden speaks at a U.N. LGBTI Core Group event at the U.N. on Sept. 23, 2024. (Screenshot via UN Web TV)
First lady Jill Biden headlined an LGBTQ+ and intersex rights event Sept. 23 that took place on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.
“Our humanity — that simple fact — guarantees us certain rights,” said Biden in her speech at the U.N. LGBTI Core Group event. “It doesn’t matter who you are, where you were born, or who your parents are: Being human is enough.”
The European Union and more than three dozen countries are members of the Core Group, a group of U.N. member states that have pledged to support LGBTQ+ and intersex rights.
The Netherlands and Argentina, which currently co-chair the Core Group, and Outright International, a global LGBTQ+ and intersex rights group, organized the event. Jessica Stern, the special U.S. envoy for the promotion of LGBTQ+ and intersex rights, introduced the first lady.
Biden in her remarks referenced O’Shae Sibley, a gay man who was stabbed to death in July 2023 while vogueing at a Brooklyn, New York, gas station.
She noted the Human Rights Campaign last year “declared a ‘state of emergency’ for LGBTQI people in America, because states across our country passed an unprecedented number of discriminatory laws.” Biden also said consensual same-sex sexual relations remain criminalized in more than 60 countries around the world.
“We’re not going to stand for hate, discrimination, and violence in our own country,” she said. “We won’t stand for it anywhere in the world.”
Biden noted “more countries” in recent years — Singapore, Barbados, the Cook Islands, Antigua and Barbuda, among others — have decriminalized consensual same-sex sexual relations. Biden also highlighted other countries — Greece, Liechtenstein, Estonia, Cuba and Chile, among others — in recent years have extended marriage rights to same-sex couples.
“These are big victories — ones that bloom across history,” she said.
“But our triumphs live in the small moments too — moments that would have been unimaginable just a few decades ago: Walking down the street without fear. Co-workers who use your chosen name and pronouns. Kids with two moms or two dads at the playground. Coming together for LGBTQI rights during the United Nations General Assembly,” added Biden.
The promotion of LGBTQ+ and intersex rights abroad has been a cornerstone of the Biden-Harris administration’s overall foreign policy.
Then-Vice President Joe Biden in 2016 spoke at a Core Group event that took place on the sidelines of that year’s U.N. General Assembly. He described the LGBTQ+ and intersex rights movement as the “civil rights issue of our time.”
“Discrimination against anyone for their sexual orientation and gender is anathema to most basic values,” said Joe Biden.
Other participants in the event include:
- Dutch Foreign Affairs Minister Caspar Veldkamp
- Ricardo Lagorio, Argentina’s permanent representative to the U.N.
- Graeme Reid, the independent U.N. expert on LGBTQ and intersex issues
- U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk
- Former Finnish President Tarja Halonen
- Deputy Luxembourgish Prime Minister Xavier Bettel
- Chilean Social Development and Family Minister Javiera Toro Cáceres
- European Union External Action Service Secretary General Stefano Sannino
- Colombian Multilateral Affairs Vice Minister Kandya Obezo
- French LGBT+ Rights Ambassador-at-Large Jean-Marc Berthon
- Vanessa Dolce de Faria, the high representative for gender issues in the Brazilian Foreign Affairs Ministry
- Philippe Kridelka, Belgium’s permanent representative to the U.N.
- Vanessa Frazier, Malta’s permanent representative to the U.N.
- David Sigurdsson, director of U.N. Affairs in the Icelandic Foreign Affairs Ministry
- Outright International Executive Director Maria Sjödin
- Ugandan activist Gloriah Dhel
- Filipina activist Venus Aves
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